UCLA Electrical Engineering Department Launches EEweb

Date: February 9, 2004
Contact: Chris Sutton ( chris@ea.ucla.edu )
Phone: 310-206-0540

UCLA’s Electrical Engineering Department has launched a sophisticated web interface that provides students, instructors and teaching assistants with easy, online access to course material, and a full set of measurement tools to evaluate course performance. The new web interface, called EEweb, creates a more responsive approach to instruction and raises student interaction in their courses to a new level.

“We are using the technology to gain greater insight into what we are achieving as instructors and as a department, and how we can continually improve the education experience of our students,” said Professor Ali H. Sayed, the department’s vice chair of undergraduate programs and the creator of EEweb. “A year or two from now I would like to look back and say, because of EEweb, our course offerings are better than they were a year ago.”

The web interface, which is currently offered only for undergraduate courses, has all the features of a typical course management system – class schedules, course outlines, instructor information – but Sayed has built in several features that significantly expand EEweb’s scope.

“This is not just a web tool for uploading and downloading course material,” said Sayed. “This is much more sophisticated. I say it has a life of its own.”

Unseen by the students and instructors that use it, EEweb employs a variety of statistical measures to monitor learning outcomes for every course, collecting information and providing feedback to instructors and students so that courses improve after each offering. The result is a consistent approach to assessment across the department.

“In order to meet its accreditation requirements, the department needs to have in place both an assessment mechanism and a feedback mechanism in order to assess how well the department is doing towards meeting its educational objectives and in order to take corrective actions whenever necessary,” said Sayed.

The UCLA electrical engineering department has created a single access point for information about every course offering at EEweb. [Click picture to see full size.]

EEweb grew out of Sayed’s realization in early 2003 that the collection and analysis of information for accreditation purposes could be automated, while at the same time providing students and instructors with a useful interface for course management. Sayed obtained funding from the UCLA Office of Instructional Development in support of his project entitled, “Online Interfaces to Enhance Undergraduate Education and Research in Electrical Engineering” and started to pursue his idea more actively.

Since its launch in fall 2003, EEweb has assisted the department in creating a more dynamic learning environment for undergraduate students and a more quantifiable method of assessing the department’s educational performance.

“We typically give a lot of attention to our graduate students,” said electrical engineering department Chair Yahya Rahmat-Samii. “We have always wanted to improve our relationship with the undergraduates, to go to the next level and really engage them in a more dynamic learning environment. EEweb has been an opportunity to do that.”

In early 2003, Sayed recruited four undergraduate students, Derek Prothro, Scott Wright, Thomas Zhu and Alena Kwok, who within a few short months had a system ready to test.
Last fall EEweb was used live for the first time, and since then the group has continually enhanced the system, based on faculty and student feedback and with additional funding support from the Office of Student and Academic Affairs. Seven undergraduate students are now involved in different aspects of EEweb design.

“The system has been received positively so far,” said Rahmat-Samii. “Our dream was to get students more involved in the educational process, and I think we’re accomplishing that.”

Histograms and other graphic displays show student performance and survey results. [Click picture to see full size.]

The system links every class to a list of educational goals called “program outcomes,” which include such things as the ability to conduct experiments, work in teams and use mathematical models in engineering problems. Every course is designed to fulfill a particular mix of outcomes, and EEweb automatically tracks how well these outcomes are incorporated into each class, using student exam results and detailed surveys completed by students and instructors.

The system includes easy-to-read charts and graphs that illustrate which program goals a particular course is designed to fulfill, and allows the instructor and the department to track the evolution of a course’s performance over time.

“The assessment process is meant to demonstrate that the outcomes that are important to the department’s mission are being monitored and measured,” said Sayed. “The results of this assessment process are regularly applied to the further development and improvement of the department’s program and its mission.”

The system also includes tools that allow a student to get secure, real-time information on their standing in the course, including how their performance compares to classmates. Histograms, bar charts and other graphic displays compare grades, track feedback from instructors and mark the fulfillment of learning outcomes.

The system also facilitates knowledge sharing. For example, students can exchange ideas and post questions about homework on a class forum.

Sayed, who sits on the university’s Faculty Committee on Education Technology, says that the EEweb concept is consistent with other campus-wide efforts, such as the Instructional Enhancement Initiative, a program whose aim is to provide students with personalized information about every class on campus, as well as improved computer labs and better communications links to classmates and professors.

Incorporating several levels of interaction is one of the most important aspects of EEweb.
At the end of each quarter, instructors and students fill out customized surveys for a particular course. Students assess the performance of the instructors, and how closely the course content met the expectations set at the beginning of the term. Instructors, meanwhile, offer their own feedback on whether course outcomes were met and students performed as expected. And every course has its own customized survey, allowing the department to gather targeted, specific feedback for a particular course. For example, for Probability 131A, in which students are to learn about probability distributions and Gaussian random variables, students use a 5-point ranking system to say how well they learned the designated course outcomes. If a particular outcome ranks poorly, then the instructor can consider ways of reinforcing that concept next time.

Administering these surveys online has improved the quality of the feedback gathered. “We find students armore forthcoming with their comments when they can complete their surveys from their homes or elsewhere, rather than rushing to fill out a paper form at the end of class,” said Sayed. He added that student response rate was high, with more than half of the students returning a survey.

Students are also asked to gauge how well-prepared they felt they were for the course in basics such as math, computer programming and writing, so that instructors can see whether more fundamental issues need to be addressed.

Students download assignments, tests and other handouts from Eeweb. [Click picture to see full size.]

Finally, when all the surveys have been administered and all student and instructor input has been submitted, EEweb correlates results across courses to generate a single report, providing a snapshot of the department’s performance as a whole.

“The EEweb interface plays a key role in collecting and analyzing the information ABET requires for accreditation purposes,” said Sayed. “It greatly reduces the amount of paperwork involved and provides a more comprehensive view than we’ve ever shown ABET before. Not only that, but EEweb also helps our department identify points of weakness and strength and to take corrective actions when necessary.”

ABET, Inc., is the recognized accreditation body for college and university programs in applied science, computing and engineering, which conducts periodic evaluations at campuses across the nation. ABET is next scheduled to assess UCLA’s Engineering School in 2006.

“I don’t believe anything this comprehensive has been done before on this campus or perhaps even elsewhere,” said Sayed. “EEweb serves our students and instructors on multiple levels, and provides an in-depth look at the extensive education and research activities within the UCLA electrical engineering department.”

Visitors can view EEweb at http://www.eeweb.ee.ucla.edu or write to sayed@ee.ucla.edu.