Blog Posts

I wish to close (or lessen) the gap between faculty and students in large public universities. Private schools are well-known for their small student:faculty ratio, which is conducive to building strong relationships between the two parties. For example, I have friends at private institutions who have had dinner parties, attended plays, and explored museums with faculty. These situations arise when faculty and students connect, which is often the case when there aren’t many students in each class. These extracurricular experiences don’t typically happen in large public universities simply because the professor can’t build a one-on-one relationship with all of the students in each class. In public schools, students often feel distanced from their professor, especially in lower-level classes where enrollment may be in the hundreds. As a (hopeful) future professor, I’ve thought of some strategies to bring students and faculty together. These can be adapted in a small private institution or a large school like VT:

1. Encourage students that professors are here to teach and are genuinely interested in them. Some students might think that professors are only hired to conduct research, so directly addressing that misconception by stating your role as an educator might make students more receptive to you.
2. Offer a small incentive for having students introduce themselves. I have 2 ideas for this: come to office hours and briefly chat about anything (the class, VT, life, the universe, etc.), or submit a 1-slide Powerpoint about yourself (hobbies, etc.). One of my former classes offered something similar to this; we had to submit a 5-sentence biography and a picture of ourselves. The assignment was only worth 2% of the total grade, so it was inconsequential if it wasn’t submitted, but it was an easy (and fun) way to earn quick points.
3. Attend out-of-class activities and encourage students to attend as well. For instance, a professor teaching a music class could suggest students see an upcoming concert. If the activity is related to class material and you state that you will attend, students might be highly motivated to go. Like the last point, you could offer some (extra) credit if they catch you at the event. This could also help town-gown relations, such as an art exhibit featuring pieces crafted by local artists.
4. Arrive to class early and stay late. Approach students in the front row and ask them how their day is. Because students will be transitioning in and out of the classroom, conversations will probably be very brief, but conversing for a few seconds every class quickly builds rapport.
5. Prove your humanity to the students. When I previously taught a small class, I would always open class with a comic strip. The strip would never be relevant to the lesson, but I found that showing the students that I had some form of a personality prompted students to reciprocate. After I read the comic strip, I would dedicate 5 minutes to talking about their lives. Although I lost about 10 minutes each class to these activities, I was able to get to know each student personally. By the end of the semester, the students and I were able to open up to each other freely. I will admit that the class only had 11 students, but I firmly believe the principles can be adapted to a class of any size.

Most of these 5 ideas are mainly focused around building strong rapport with students, but I’ve listed these because I believe that this is the first step to opening the doors to creative, out-of-class experiences. These experiences don’t typically happen in public schools, but I hope to see that in the future. I hope to bridge the gap between faculty and students, because learning is a two-way street.

This Inside Higher Ed article, titled “Why MOOCs Didn’t Work, in 3 Data Points,” summarizes the pitfalls of MOOCs as determined by a massive multi-year study led by MIT. It covers some problems, which I’ve summarized in this post, but I’m also listing some potential solutions.

To start, a MOOC is a massively open online course. As the name implies, MOOCs are essentially online classes offered by an institution that can be taken by anyone with an Internet connection. Classes range from basic mathematics to the art of 3D printing to business law; there’s almost certainly a class for every subject imaginable. All of the materials are available online, so users simply need to create an account on the proper platform (edX, Coursera, MIT OpenCourseWare, etc.), enroll in a class (or multiple classes), and start learning. Most classes follow the traditional “watch a lecture video –> complete an online worksheet –> take an online quiz” format. While most MOOCs are real classes that were “converted” to an online format by educational institutions, they hold no actual course credit. However, most platforms offer a paid “certificate” upon completion that verifies successful completion of a course. The certificate can be posted on LinkedIn, discussed in job interviews, and so forth.

Problem: One of the biggest downfalls of MOOCs is the incredibly low completion rate. Only 3.13% of MOOC participants finished a course in 2017-2018. This already low figure is troubling because it’s part of a downward trend; only 6% of participants finished in 2014-2015. Only 46% of participants who were seeking a certificate finished a course in 2017-2018. These figures have been declining over MIT’s 6-year study of MOOCs offered by MIT and Harvard.

One reason why completion statistics are so low is because MOOCs carry no credit in the real world. Currently, few (if any) universities allow using a MOOC to satisfy degree requirements. This provides little incentive for students to finish a class if they know it doesn’t count for anything, other than earning potential bragging rights, having the satisfaction of learning, or adding a casual interview topic. It’s easy to neglect a MOOC when trying to juggle it with other classes, work, family life, etc., but the fact that it holds virtually no weight makes it easier to forget.

Solution: One potential fix is to offer MOOCs that directly interface with a university degree. For example, if VT’s ME department decides to venture into MOOCs, they could produce an online version of Thermodynamics, which can count towards the degree if taken by VT students who earn a certificate of completion. Of course, the material would need to be of the same quality as the in-class Thermodynamics, but this is a possible alternative for students if they desire or require schedule flexibility (for instance, if someone is behind and needs to take it over the summer, but he or she already committed to an internship and cannot be on campus to take the summer in-class version). If this solution were to be implemented, completion rates wouldn’t skyrocket since the users described in this scenario only represent a tiny subset of all the MOOC users across the globe. However, successfully implementing 1 course could open the door for future educators.

Problem: Another reason why MOOCs are criticized is because they are shifting towards complementing a current education, rather than jumpstarting one. Geographical data reveals that users in the studied Harvard/MIT MOOCs overwhelmingly live in first-world countries (69%), yet 1.43% came from students in countries classified as “low human development.” Educators cite being bottlenecked by the available technology in those countries to explain why such a low percentage of students reside in lesser-developed countries. In fact, one quote from the article states that “Dramatic expansion of educational opportunities to underserved populations will require political movements that change the focus, funding, and purpose of higher education; they will not be achieved through new technologies alone.” In other words, radical educational changes (like popularizing MOOCs in underdeveloped countries) will require a massive infrastructural upheaval, because these reforms often need resources like money, Internet connections, and new buildings.

Solution: Simply put, there’s no easy solution to smooth the geographic distribution of MOOC users. Bringing MOOCs to more underserved countries requires bringing the Internet to those countries, which is a hard task since they just might not have the capabilities for it at this moment. MOOCs can consider packaging their classes into smaller “pieces” to reduce bandwidth usage (for those who have Internet access, but not much access). For countries who can’t access MOOCs, perhaps this is a chance to start an educational movement across the globe.

Personally, I find MOOCs interesting and useful for personal gain. I’m guilty of enrolling, but not finishing, a class. I think they should still continue to be offered as long as it doesn’t become an expense to universities or 3rd party platforms. Open-sourcing education is an incredibly valuable tool that can make a real difference to someone. Even though 1.43% of users in the MIT study live in an underdeveloped country, 1.43% is still about 55,000 users. This is an incredibly large number, and it would be a shame to see such a unique educational service disappear for monetary reasons.

As society continually drifts into the Information Age, printed media is quickly being converted into online blogs, newspapers, and videos. The same can be said about academic journals; many issues of long-standing journals are now downloadable as a PDF. Another trending topic is open-sourcing information. Many computer codes, graphics, and research-related items are now being posted online for free so anyone can use the files for their own benefit. Some academic journals have embraced open sourcing; one such journal is the Advanced Modeling and Simulation in Engineering Sciences journal (AMSES). As the name implies, this open-sourced journal focuses on modeling & simulation, multibody dynamics, nonlinear systems, and the underlying numerical methods used to solve these complex problems. As per other open-source information banks, every article published in this journal is available 24/7 at no cost. Users do not need to subscribe to an organization or pay a significant fee to access papers. However, authors of accepted papers must pay up to $1230 in “article processing charges,” but some (or all) of the cost may be waived if the authors belong to a university that is partnered with SpringerOpen, the “umbrella organization” of this journal. Interestingly, VT is a partner, so students who publish in this journal won’t have to pay the entire charge.

One unique advantage of this open-source journal is the ability to publish creative graphics to complement the paper. Publication gives publishers the chance to publicize extremely large datasets, post moving/animated images, and provide direct access to the data used to create the visuals so they can manipulate the data themselves. In addition, the SpringerOpen library is a popular “brand name” of journal collections, so articles experience high visibility once published. One interesting tidbit states that published articles are downloaded 7 more times, have 50% more citations, and 10x more online mentions than papers published in non-open access journals. This may be a financial consequence; it’s much easier to access these articles because they are freely available online (whereas traditional journals may keep their issues behind a paywall).

As for the AMSES journal itself, the editorial board consists of many reviewers worldwide. This is consistent with some of the famous mechanical engineering journals. For instance, the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Controls (non-open access) has many editors from not only the US but from many countries (Italy, India, and Canada, to name a few). The AMSES journal touts a fast reviewing rate; on average, it takes 61 days for the editors to make a decision and 22 days to publish an accepted paper, yet the acceptance rate is less than 18%. I’m not sure if this is a consequence of being fully online and open-sourced; many non-open source articles nowadays are also using electronic methods to review articles. I was slightly disappointed when reading through the Aim & Scope; it doesn’t mention why this article was open-sourced or provide any statistics that are commonly associated with traditional journals (like Impact Factor). I wonder if open-sourced journals have a separate set of metrics, given their intrinsically different viewpoint on ease of journal access.

I found a case from ORI’s website about Dr. Gareth John, a researcher at Mount Sinai’s medical school. I didn’t understand the technical details of the case, but in summary, he falsified a few medical samples and fabricated a set of corresponding data that he used in his publications. After being investigated, Dr. John entered into a settlement agreement with ORI. His research must be supervised for 1 year and his institution must submit certification that any of his research-based findings, procedures, and other related items are legitimately discovered. Another aspect of his punishment is correcting his falsified data in the journal hosting his publications.

Ethics is a critical aspect of one’s career; while publishing misleading data can benefit a researcher immediately, the long-term effects are not worth the risk. Dr. John’s reputation was most likely smeared. The link to his lab’s website is broken, and he holds a different job title on LinkedIn. Although I’m speculating, these changes are most likely the result of his misconduct. ORI’s website has many case summaries related to research misconduct. Frankly, I’m surprised to learn that this much tampering exists–and this is just within the medical field. One question I’ve always had is how one becomes accused of misconduct. My best guess is that someone reads the published (and falsified) paper in a journal, performs a similar experiment, obtains radically different results, investigates the falsified article in-depth, and reports the article via the proper channels.

I also wonder what happens if someone in a lab group reports internal misconduct to an authority. This is a crude example, but in the recent Marvel movie Venom, researcher Carlton Drake performs underground experiments on humans that end horribly. Dora Skirth, a scientist who works in Drake’s lab, disapproves of these experiments and reports them to journalist Eddie Brock, who publicizes the human trials. If this scenario happened in reality, would Dora Skirth be granted amnesty if the lab was dissolved? Even so, she would still be associated with the lab within the research community, so her reputation would still be damaged…unless she was granted anonymity as a means of protection. Does ORI have protocol for similar situations? I plan to read more into ORI’s procedures; they have detailed documents pertaining to handling protocol.

Mission and Vision Statements describe a university’s purpose, goals, and values. This is an important because there are so many different higher-ed institutions, so providing a mission and/or vision statement serves to differentiate one institution from another. For this post, I pulled mission statements from Harvey Mudd College (small private liberal arts/engineering school) and Virginia Tech (large public university) to illustrate the similarities and differences between mission statements. Here is Harvey Mudd College’s mission statement:

“Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities and the social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society.”

And Virginia Tech’s mission statement:
“Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) is a public land-grant university serving the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community. The discovery and dissemination of new knowledge are central to its mission. Through its focus on teaching and learning, research and discovery, and outreach and engagement, the university creates, conveys, and applies knowledge to expand personal growth and opportunity, advance social and community development, foster economic competitiveness, and improve the quality of life. “

Clearly, VT’s mission statement is much longer than HMC’s. VT also has a more “complete” mission statement; it’s easy to identify exactly what VT strives to accomplish. For instance, VT cites outreach and engagement as two goals. HMC does not mention either in their mission statement. Does this mean HMC is not committed to giving back to the community? Most likely not; public service is critical in today’s world and is performed by a vast majority (if not all) of the higher-ed institutions. Thus, I can reasonably speculate that graduates of HMC are well aware of the value of community service, even though it is not explicitly stated in the mission statement.

Length aside, the two mission statements outline different goals for their graduates. From digging deeper into HMC’s website, HMC classifies itself as a liberal arts school with a focus on engineering. This is reflected in the mission statement; HMC students learn not just their major (some STEM-related field), but are equally informed in humanities and social sciences so that they can fully understand the impact of their leadership on society. I highlighted “leadership” because this is a powerful term: HMC wants graduates to become not just fluent engineers, but leaders in their discipline. It’s clear that HMC puts a tremendous emphasis on grooming their students for the much-dreaded “real world.” This is consistent with their reputation: HMC is well-known for their stellar undergraduate teaching, leading to a 6+ figure mid-career salary.

On the other hand, VT’s mission statement focuses on creating and disseminating knowledge. While the mission statement certainly covers every facet expected of a large public land-grant university (teaching, research, outreach, etc.), it does not have the particular focus on students seen in HMC’s mission statement. This is acceptable, because VT was not designed to be a teaching-focused undergraduate-only institution like HMC. Although VT’s mission statement is more detailed, it seems too generic. It didn’t really tell me any specifics, such as the type of teaching focus (new pedagogy, technology-enabled, etc.), I was looking for. I was drawn more towards HMC’s statement because of its brevity and clarity. I could immediately tell what kinds of graduates HMC produces, just from reading the 1-sentence mission statement.

One of the suggested articles, What do universities want to be? A content analysis of mission and vision statements worldwide, found that virtually no mission statements included some sort of quantitative figure–which holds true for the two missions statements I selected. I suspect this is because including some number as a metric acts as a ceiling for the university. For example, if VT says that they want to “bring in $1 million in research grants this year,” $1 million acts as a “cap.” Why should VT be limited to just $1 million? What if they don’t achieve that metric in a given year? Should the Board of Visitors have to approve a new mission statement on a regular basis to accommodate economic trends, such as inflation ($1m now does not hold the same value as $1m ten years ago)? Although it would be nice to get a feel for the kinds of numbers VT (and other higher-ed institutions) hope to produce, I believe they don’t include such statements because it may inhibit the underlying purpose of the university.