Evaluation of an M.S. program using synchronous digital video course delivery to remote students, and its expansion, enhancement and improvements

Abstract

The Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz has the Silicon Valley in its service area, and has working engineers from industry enrolled in its graduate engineering programs. In FIE 1996, we reported on plans to use a digital data link between a "matched pair" of classrooms (separated by a distance of about 30 miles and a range of coastal mountains) to link these students with our Santa Cruz campus graduate program, and thereby synchronously deliver an M.S. program in Network Engineering to Silicon Valley. In this paper we describe how our implementation matched our design, and evaluate the success of this undertaking from student and faculty perspectives. We also examine this program: it successes, the challenges faced, and the student and faculty experience and feedback. We discuss potential planned expansion of the program, and the some of the necessary or planned changes or modifications to the facilities used, including expansion to multiple sites, and extending from synchronous distance learning to uses of asynchronous delivery of some courses.