2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

WIP: Increasing Engagement with Industrial Advisory Board Members through Asynchronous Assessment of Elevator Pitches

Presented at College Industry Partnerships Division (CIP) Technical Session 2

Abstract
As the Global Pandemic has continued to resolve, many programs have struggled to maintain active engagement with their industrial advisory boards. While hybrid meetings have helped to retain attendance, it is unclear if attendees are as engaged with the events. At the same time, student needs have increased, making faculty interaction and mentorship more challenging.

ABET Accredited Engineering and Computer Science Programs are required to demonstrate that students have an ability to communicate effectively, with Engineering Programs specifically being required to communicate effectively with a wide variety of audiences. Traditionally, programs assess this using formal oral presentations and written reports in various ways. However, these methods may not be as important for modern students entering industry or research, where the ability to be clear and succinct may be vital.

As part of the capstone sequence at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), students in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Programs are required to prepare and deliver an elevator pitch related to their project during the first term once the initial requirements have been established. This pitch helps to solidify the project scope and is used as part of the continuous improvement process for the programs.

To help improve the capstone experience, a subset of elevator pitches for the programs were evaluated by external, industrial advisory board members to provide students with formative feedback from a different audience as a pilot project. This Work In Progress paper will discuss the process used for external evaluation as well as key initial findings from doing this as part of the capstone experience.

Authors

Dr. Walter W Schilling Jr. Milwaukee School of Engineering [biography]

Walter Schilling is a Professor in the Software Engineering program and coordinates the Cybersecurity Minor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his B.S.E.E. from Ohio Northern University and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Toledo. He worked for Ford Motor Company and Visteon as an Embedded Software Engineer for several years prior to returning for doctoral work. He has spent time at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and consulted for multiple embedded systems companies in the Midwest. In addition to one U.S. patent, Schilling has numerous publications in refereed international conferences and other journals. He received the Ohio Space Grant Consortium Doctoral Fellowship and has received awards from the IEEE Southeastern Michigan and IEEE Toledo Sections, as well as the ASEE Computers in Education and New Engineering Educators Divisions. He is a member of IEEE, IEEE Computer Society and ASEE. At MSOE, he coordinates courses in software verification, real time systems, DevSecOps, Network Security, and other cybersecurity topics.
Dr. Derek David Riley Milwaukee School of Engineering [biography]

Derek Riley, Ph.D., is a professor and the director of MSOE’s Computer Science program, which includes an emphasis in artificial intelligence and deep learning. His teaching and research areas include machine learning, modeling, and mobile computing. Derek got his PhD at Vanderbilt University in 2009 where he developed high performance formal modeling and simulation methods for biochemical and industrial systems. In addition to teaching at MSOE, he provides data, algorithm, and AI consulting services, and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Download paper (2 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session