2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Background
The Master of Engineering Technical Management (METM) Program was founded in 2019 as an online graduate program for working professionals in the technical fields [1]. It has welcomed five cohorts of graduates since its inception. The program is currently delivered asynchronously online with the exception of two in-person Residency Week; students take the rest of the courses remotely, at their own pace, while balancing a full-time career and their family life.
Challenges in Front of Us
As the METM program matures and establishes its core curriculum and major partnering organizations (i.e. those who have employees graduated from the program), there is an increasing demand for flexibility in customizing the learning paths without committing to a full graduate degree, i.e. certificates consisting of different combinations of existing courses, especially when the financial and time investments required of getting a certificate are more manageable; additionally, students have the option to taking multiple stacks of certificate towards a full degree.
Due to the nature of the certificates and unique learner characteristics, it is best to offer them as online, asynchronous courses. Thus, the current in-person Residency Week courses must be converted into the same delivery format as the rest of the curriculum. Traditionally, instructors will redesign the course in terms of content, activities, assessments, etc. to adapt to the new delivery format and duration of the course, while keeping the same learning objectives and workload as if the course is offered in-person [2] [3]. This method could take a significant amount of time- on top of redesigning, instructors need to record their lectures for students to watch on-demand.
Solution
After brainstorming, the instructors for one of the Residency Week courses, TCMT630. Organizational Leadership for Senior Technical Leaders, decided to explore the feasibility of utilizing the power of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) to facilitate converting their course to an online course: this course is currently a five-day, in-person class, to be converted to an eight-weeks online course. The objective is to complete the conversion within a shorter lead time, and achieve a more comprehensive adaptation using a compilation of previously accumulated course materials (classroom recordings, lecture slides, etc.) when compared to the traditional conversion method.
Implications
This work-in-progress paper will discuss details of course structure, pedagogical adaptation, student engagement strategies, technological implementation, benefits and challenges of using Gen AI in this process, and future plan for implementation and evaluation of learning outcomes. Once tested, this AI-assisted conversion has the potential to become the “blueprint” to convert other in-person courses to online formats for the METM program. Findings in this study could also shine light for other educational programs or instructors who face similar challenges during their course development/transition, or those who want to try an alternative way of problem solving, e.g. taking a ride on the AI wave.