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Course Preparation Guidelines
Below are some guidelines to consider when preparing your course for
publication on PDHengineer.com:
Course Topic Selection
1. If you seek to
reach a broad audience with your course, select a topic that is relevant to many
different engineering disciplines and/or industries. For example, power
distribution is relevant to almost every industry and would likely have broad
appeal. On the other hand, a course on the use of robotics in the
capacitor manufacturing industry would likely attract a smaller number of
engineers.
2. For maximum
audience appeal, you may want to select an introductory level topic in an area.
An advanced topic in any area of engineering will likely have a smaller audience
because there will be fewer engineers with the prerequisite knowledge required
to take your course. For example, an introductory course on centrifugal
pumps will likely have more appeal than an advanced course on design of pump
impellers, which would likely appeal only to engineers working in the pump
manufacturing industry.
3. You are
encouraged to emphasize the teaching of practical knowledge and skills in your
course. A certain amount of theory may be needed to help the student
understand the "why?" behind the material you are teaching. However, the
main objective should be to teach skills and knowledge that can be applied in
the student's professional practice. You should avoid extensive
theoretical discussions and formula derivations.
Course Writing Guidelines
1. The course must fulfill the
state boards’ requirements for a qualified course, which is one whose purpose
and objective are clear with a content that will “maintain, improve or expand
the skills and knowledge of the licensee’s field of practice”.
2. Select a title
for your course that is short, but descriptive. Site visitors should be
able to get a good idea of what your course is about by simply reading the
title. If your course provides a summary of the different types of heat
exchangers and their relative merits for specific applications, then a suitable
title would be "Heat Exchangers - Types and Applications". This is more
descriptive than simply titling your course "Heat Exchangers".
3. Write a course overview
that briefly describes the material that the course will cover. It should also
describe the types of engineers, applications and/or industries for which the
course would have particular relevance, as well as any basic or general
knowledge of the course material that the student is assumed to possess. The course overview should be no more
than about 1 to 3 paragraphs.
4. Your course must include a
section detailing the specific knowledge or skills to be taught or addressed.
Some state boards require that this information be included in any brochures,
advertisements or announcements about the course. You should think about
what knowledge or skills you would expect the student to retain after
successfully completing the course and list each in a short, bulleted format.
5. The main body of the course
should be laid out in a logical manner. The first paragraph/section should
serve as an introduction to the course. It is here that you want to introduce
basic concepts and definitions, describe the importance of the subject and
expand on the description in the course overview of subject matter that will be
covered in the course. You may want to lay out the organization of the course
in the first section by providing a list of the different sections/topics that
will be covered.
6. Major ideas, concepts,
components, categories, etc. should be segregated into different sections in the
course. Each section should have a title in bold letters. The course material may warrant sub-parts of sections which should
be titled in underlined text. This format helps the document to “flow”
and makes for easier reading. PDHengineer.com may edit your document when
you submit it, if necessary, to ensure consistency in the format of our courses.
7. Use examples.
Examples are a very powerful tool to help the student understand a concept that
you are trying to describe or to emphasize a point. When describing the
methodology required to solve a problem (particularly where number-crunching is
required), provide an example problem and go step-by-step through the solution.
8. Provide a summary at the
end of the course. The summary should reiterate the major ideas and concepts
that you want to emphasize from the course. If you want to direct the student
to additional resources available on the subject for independent study, include
these at the end of the summary.
9. Provide a quiz
(with an answer key) when you submit your course to PDHengineer.com . The
quiz format should be multiple-choice with each question having four answers (a,
b, c or d) to choose from. The quiz should normally contain the following number of questions
as a minimum :
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1 to 2 Unit Hours - |
10 Questions |
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3 Unit Hours - |
15 Questions |
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4 Unit Hours - |
20 Questions |
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5+ Unit Hours -
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5 Questions Per
Unit Hour |
10. The quiz questions should be
chosen to test a broad range of topics covered in the course. You are
encouraged to "mix up" the order of quiz questions relative to the order in
which the subjects were presented in the course. This requires students
who are unsure of the answers to search through the course, which helps to
reinforce the material presented.
11. The length of your course should be no greater
than 10 unit hours, although you may want to consider breaking up longer courses into smaller individual courses (4 hours or
less), if practical. Where long courses are broken into two or more
courses, the first course must be “stand alone”. In other words, the
student must be able to expand his or her skills and knowledge by taking only
the first course without taking subsequent courses. Where a prerequisite course
is required to take a second or third course, this must be clearly stated in the
course overview.
12. Copyrighted information
cannot be accepted by PDHengineer.com unless you have obtained the written permission of
the copyright holder. Where copyrighted information is used, you must state
that you are reprinting the information with the author's permission.
13. You may author your own
course or you may use technical information that is located within the public
domain on the internet. In either case, you will still need to provide a
course overview, specific knowledge or skills obtained and a quiz. Where technical information from the internet is included as part or
all of the course material, your course must include a URL to the website
containing the referenced information.
14. Graphics and images that are
part of your course should be embedded in the HTML, Word or PDF course file that
you send to PDHengineer.com or they can be sent as separate files.
15. When you submit your course to PDHengineer.com
for approval, include an estimate of the number of hours
it will require for the average student to read the course material and pass the
quiz.
Additional Information
Required
When you submit your course to
PDHengineer.com, please provide the following information:
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Name of author and professional
status (PE, Phd., etc.) |
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Name of company (optional) |
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Mailing address |
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Email address |
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State Where Licensed and Registration
No. (PE) and/or |
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University and Year Graduated (M.S.,
Ph.D) |
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