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educated elite but, increasingly, must maximize
the potential of the workforce within the organi-
zation by harnessing all available brain power to
assure economic survival and success. Life-long
learning will provide for the development of a
more cohesive society much more able to operate
within a cross-cultural diversity.
We expect steady growth in global engineering
e-learning programs. The main drivers will be the
strong industry interest in recruiting students who
have some understanding and experience of global
industry, government funding agencies who are
slowly developing support for global engineer-
ing education, rising faculty awareness, and high
levels of student interest. It is not, however, easy
to do, and resource issues will slow the growth
rate. The following are the reasons why we think
global engineering e-learning programs are good;
ment and fully adopt simulated lab experiments
or self-guided online instruction. One reason is
the time it would take for faculty to learn how to
use new computer programs and to develop online
materials to replace their current versions. Another
reason is that laboratory science requires intuitive
observations and a set of skills learned by hands-on
experience, none of which can be fully imitated in
the digital realm. Simulations are a bridge from
the abstract to the real, combining old tech with
new tech to connect theory in the classroom with
real-world experience in the lab. The purpose is
to provide a creative environment to reinforce or
enhance traditional learning, not to replace it. As
students progress through the theory section, they
can quiz themselves on what they have learned. As
an example, in a virtual lab section, students learn
how to construct a data table by using chemical
shifts and coupling patterns from spectra of com-
mon compounds. Errors entered by the students
are automatically corrected and highlighted in
red. Once the table is complete, the student is
directed to select the molecular fragment associ-
ated with an NMR signal, and then assemble the
fragments to form the molecule. E-learning has
great potential for engineering education. Broader
use of e-learning will be driven by the next gen-
eration of students who will have had exposure to
e-learning programs in high school and will start
to ask for similar systems at the undergraduate
level. E-learning also will likely be adopted more
quickly for distance-learning courses or courses
for which lab costs or lack of lab facilities may
be a factor, such as those for nonscience majors
or those offered by community colleges or high
schools. It should be noted that the e-learning
model adopted in one university cannot be the best
model to follow in another college. The providers
of distance learning may have to accept that there
are limitations in all models of distance educa-
tion. The best opportunity lies in identifying and
offering the mode that suits the most students in
a particular cultural and regional context at a par-
ticular point in time. There is still work to be done
1. Preparing students for the global economy.
This is necessary and it will happen.
2. Everyone learning from the comparative
method: education, research, and service
global collaborations make everyone
smarter.
3. 3. There are good research prospects through
the education activities such as optimizing
virtual global teams, and through research
collaborations that are a byproduct of the
educational collaborations.
4. It builds international and cross-cultural
tolerance and understanding
7- concLudIng rEmArkS
One key finding was that the students wanted a
greater sense of community; they wanted more
interaction with lecturers and the university. Many
professors post a course syllabus, homework as-
signments, and study guides on the Web, and some
ambitious faculty with large classes may even give
exams online. But educators aren't ready to plunge
completely into the electronic learning environ-
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