Discusses the nature of and steps required in building an expert system. Includes comments by students given an assignment to choose a suitable topic and develop a small expert system related to that topic, as well as favorable faculty comments on the strategy. Also includes a student-developed expert system on rock-blasting. (JN)

Describes a three-credit elective course at Notre Dame, Design of Environmental Health Control Systems, offered to senior civil engineering students and graduate students in health engineering. (CS)

Presents background information concerning the establishment of a State Professional School of Civil Engineering with Teaching Clinic and Collectanea for Florida. (CS)

Compares two methods for ranking academic programs, the opinion poll v examination of career successes of the program's alumni. For the latter, "Who's Who in Engineering" and levels of research funding provided data. Tables display resulting data and compare rankings by the two methods for chemical engineering and civil engineering. (CS)

The results are presented of a survey of structural design engineers to determine current attitudes toward existing design specifications, techniques of analysis, and basic fundamentals. (BB)

Describes a two-semester project course required of all seniors at West Virginia University in the Department of Civil Engineering which involves team effort and encompasses four major areas of civil engineering: structures, geotechnical, transportation, and soils. (CS)

Describes an image database system assembled using separate computer components that was developed to overcome text-only computer hardware storage and retrieval limitations for a pavement design class. (JJK)

Briefly reports on the structure and evaluation of an individually-paced, two year civil engineering technology curriculum sponsored by a National Science Foundation grant. The written modules progress linearly with support media presentations. Students in the self-paced program generally outperformed lecture-based students on cognitive…

Develops a programed approach for developing design projects. Describes the initiation, design experiences, final report, and problems of the approach. (YP)

Narrates the history of engineering and engineering education in the United States during revolutionary times under these headings: before 1775; wartime needs; early concern for training; arrival of foreign volunteers; continuing education efforts; and after the war. A special section on 18th century French and English engineering is also…

Discusses the conduct of a civil engineering program at both graduate and undergraduate levels with emphases placed on complex environmental and social problems of contemporary society. Indicates that students are provided with the ability to understand goals, formulate problems, pose alternative solutions, and test the results in the real world.…

An experiment in which students were required to keep journals during a civil engineering course is described. Student benefits (journals as problem-solving tools and forums for personal comments), faculty benefits (sources of background information and use as evaluation/recordkeeping tools), and five major conclusions are discussed. (JN)

Provides rationale for using legal case study method to teach law applied to the construction process, giving general form of a typical case report. Suggests methods of using case study court reports in engineering curriculum, dicussing direction to take and selection of case studies. Lists examples available from Engineering Case Library. (JM)

Introduces two courses for developing relevant computer use in a civil engineering department. The sophomore course introduces students to a set of problem-formulation methods and computer-based problem-solving tools. The senior course introduces students to representative, professional quality computer-aided engineering tools. Discusses impact of…

Describes the engineering education program at the Aalborg University Center in Denmark. Details the aims of the program. Outlines the programs and multidisciplinary departments of the university. Explains how students are grouped around projects. Reviews the evaluation process. Examines the attitudes of students in the program. (CW)