Multi-campus courses via video conference: an assesment

In order to increase the level and continuity of research at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been developed and signed between this institution and two universities in the U.S. to establish a collaborative doctoral program. The students accepted in this program obtain their PhD degrees from one of the U.S. universities, but perform most of their research work at UPRM. As part of these collaborative programs and as part of the NSF Engineering Research Center CASA, the students have the capability to take courses given by faculty in other campuses and attend research meetings via video conferencing. This effort has been possible thanks to the strong collaboration among professors from the four campuses involved in the Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere Engineering Research Center (CASA). The CASA core partners are UPRM, CSU, OU and UMass. Two such courses took place in the Spring semester of 2005; these are "Polarimetric Doppler Weather Radar" by Dr. V. Bringi from CSU and "Hazardous Weather Detection" by Kelvin Droegemeier from OU. Another course in the fall of 2003 was also offered from OU to UPRM students by Dr. Yeary. Some of the challenges found during the development of these courses have been administrative, technical and of personnel.