CACHE Vision Survey Results

• 10 departments (7 responses)

Cache Products Use1. Polymath 6/7 2. Cachet 4/7 3. Case studies 3/74. Energy modules/Guide to teaching design 2/75. Etomica, Teaching resource center 1/7

List in the survey• Polymath• APP contest• Case studies• Guide to teaching design, with internet links• Chemsep• Cachet academic job posting service• Etomica molecular simulation instructional modules• CACHE teaching resource center

Information Source1. Discussion with colleagues 5/72. CACHE News, Cache website 3/73. Mailing from Cache, email notices 2/7

List in the survey• CACHE News• CACHE sessions at AIChE meeting• CACHE booth at AIChE meeting• CACHE conference(s)• Email notices from CACHE• Mailings from CACHE• CACHE web site• Discussions with colleagues

CACHE’s future activities1. Gather, assess and curate information on the web that can assist in

teaching/learning chemical engineering topics (4/7)

2. Generate information (e.g. via surveys) relating to computing/IT in chemical engineering. E.g., industry needs; best practices in universities (3/7)

Other ideas:3. A broad (in terms of companies contacted) survey of industrial needs

for IT/computing training would help us select and evaluate software in our courses. A survey of companies by sector would also be interesting so that schools that seem to send students to specific sectors could tailor curriculum/software usage. The second topic doesn't seem as important to us - our faculty seem to be finding information about resources for teaching/learning on their won.

4. An online "warehouse" of educational modules for various chemical engineering topics would be extremely useful for supporting student learning and potentially "flipping the classroom" for some materials. With drastically increasing enrollments, it is very difficult for faculty members to find the time to develop such tools themselves. A community-wide effort to collect and distribute existing work would be a great start to see what is available and what might be needed.

5. One issue that plagues teaching chemical engineering topics is the lack of fresh example or homework problems that use computational resources. Students either have access to the solutions on line, or the problems are not able to be solved without significant education about the computational tools that is often not feasible in a packed academic quarters.

Products1. Tools that facilitate compliance with ABET (4/7)

2. Computer-based teaching materials, like etomica (http://modules.etomica.org) or the energy modules (http://tinyurl.com/energyModules). In what areas? –safety, process design, ChE topics (4/7)

3. Tools that enable faculty to leverage massive open online courses (MOOCs) (1/7)

Other ideas:4. A multimedia based instructional system for the newer versions of Aspen

Plus would be extremely helpful as we are seeing significantly increased enrollments over the past several years. Large class sizes are difficult/challenging for teaching simulation and I have enjoyed using the multimedia software developed by Seader, Seider, and Lewin to allow the students to teach themselves the basic steps, so that I can focus on more advanced topics. Unfortunately, the Aspen user interface has undergone a significant update in the past 18-24 months and as such the multimedia based instruction is no longer applicable. An updated version would be a tremendous help.

5. Our students continue to complain that examples in textbooks are too petrochemically oriented, without enough biological examples, despite well known authors of textbooks continually trying to remedy this. Case studies and computer-based teaching tools could be very helpful here.

6. Introduce computing to solve linear equations and/or ODE's and apply them to CHE problems of interest. Or at least a front end that would allow students to do a simple simulation of a process - such as the dynamic response of a tank to a step increase in concentration, with and without different types of process control.

Services1. Contests for students, like the mobile-device APP competition. (2/7)

2. Expansion of capabilities provided by cachet (www.cache.org/cachet).

3. Tools that enable faculty to leverage massive open online courses (MOOCs) (2/7)

Other ideas:4. Blogs/wikis for sharing experience/best practices of using software in

courses.5. I don't think an expansion of cachet is immediately needed, but the site

should be highlighted more to make sure that all faculty candidates utilize this tool. It would be tremendous if cachet could serve as the central hub for perusing resumes. If they could be categorized (perhaps by the candidates themselves as part of the submission process) in terms of primary focus areas in research and teaching that would be helpful as well.

6. Conference that focuses on intelligent systems - like the ISPE Conference nearly 30 years ago.

Needs1. Topics that you teach that could be made easier or more understandable

with an appropriate technology-based teaching tool. (4/7)

2. Information that exists in principle but has not been collected in a convenient form, and which could help you in your professional activities. (2/7)

3. Regular activities in your professional life that take more time than they should or need to. (1/7)

Other ideas:4. Development of simple instructional modules for incorporating process

simulation throughout the curriculum would also be helpful. In many departments the number of faculty members comfortable with process simulators like Aspen Plus is extremely limited, which results in this subject matter being taught only in very specific classes (often in the senior design sequence only). Having simple modules that could be provided as supporting tools in lower level courses would be a great way to get the students used to employing such advanced computational tools.

5. Collection of thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. Efforts for this do exist, but they are often focused on narrow areas of chemistry. We tend to find that we are accessing books from the 1970s, which is not as convenient as an on-line form.

Opportunities1. Technologies or practices that are used in industry that should have a larger

presence in chemical engineering education.(4/7)

2. Computing-related technologies that are used in research and which should be brought into practice in industry (e.g., as process design software was in the 1960s).(2/7)

Other ideas:3. Perhaps the initial step here would be a survey of the industry to see what

their needs are in terms of the skills that graduates should have before entering the workforce. As part of our ABET efforts, this should be assessed on a regular basis anyway, but employers are often reluctant to provide specifics and so departments rely on advisory boards and alums to help with this. It would be terrific if a professional organization could interface with the industry to help obtain useful information on what (if anything) is missing from our educational programs. Similarly, a survey of the needs of industry in terms of capabilities (not in terms of student proficiency) that would be helpful to them would be helpful in providing guidelines for dissemination of research results.

Ideas from the Breakfast 1. Use flyers at different AIChE sessions and Chair Forum

2. Use the same flyer at the meet the faculty session on Sunday to make the new faculty aware of CACHE

3. Create a blog

4. Need for new case studies

5. Need for ABET material – repository of self study reports or best practices

6. Material for online courses