Evaluation

We plan the following evaluations of our project:

• Online attendance is verified by signing into the chat box at the start of the lecture and by a feedback form that the students fill out at the end of the class. The feedback form will document the students' immediate response to the classes with regard to material learned, difficulty level, and requested improvements, as well as with regard to hardware and software performance.
• We will keep track of lecture chat box traffic, video conferencing sessions, E-mail communications (excluding routine ones such as homework submission and administration) and newsgroup use.
• We will develop forms that the students fill out before starting the online classes and after completing the courses. In it, we will examine such issues as their preconceptions about engineering before the course and their assessment after the course, as well as their general satisfaction with the program with regard to effectiveness of learning and motivational effectiveness.
• We will develop and conduct interviews with community college transfers when they first enter our universities and when they graduate. We will solicit the students' opinions about the role of the program in their career decision making process, for identifying the key areas of importance for the study of mechanical engineering, and for the cost and time spend on their education.
• We will document the backgrounds of community college transfers that were exposed to this program and compare it to community college transfers in general and undergraduate students in general. We are especially interested in the question whether we can reach additional underrepresented groups though this program.
• We will document the total time to graduation and university time to graduation for ``Junior Jump'' students compared to other community college transfers.