Experiences with a personal computer network in electrical engineering education

At the ESAT (Electronics, Systems, Automation, Technology) laboratory of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium extensive efforts have been made on the implementation of exercise sessions on a PC network. Since 1986, 13 different exercise sessions of eight different courses take place on the network for 300 students in the last three years of electrical engineering. The courses cover several aspects of electrical engineering education: linear and nonlinear systems, switching and control theory, electronic measurements, digital data transmission, etc. All the exercise sessions are menu driven and have the same pattern so that the students do not need a background in computers or software. The use of a computer permits the student to spend more time on testing and analyzing several solution methods, conditions, restrictions and properties of certain techniques, etc. instead of wasting time on repetitive calculations. An example that demonstrates the advantages of using a personal computer to solve an exercise is given, followed by the purposes of the network. The configuration of the network, its hardware, and software are presented. The contents of each session are briefly discussed and one session is explained in more detail. Student evaluations are described that indicate the success of the networked exercise sessions