Spreadsheets: The Ideal Tool for Distance Learning in Engineering Education

Formal Engineering Education has traditionally been delivered using the low technology-high touch lecturing method, in which the lecturer and student meet face to face. Distance education in this field has been quite slow to develop primarily because of difficulty in delivery of practical based instructions and problems on integrity of assessments. Developments in information technology and the increased demand for further education by people already in employment have however changed this even in developing countries. It puts extra demand on Lecturers to guide distance learners in handling numerical computations so prevalent in Engineering. At the campuses, computer based methods are available in the high touch-high tech lecture method. High level and efficient computer software is used to help the student to simulate and solve some problems. However, such software is expensive-and therefore-not readily available to the distant learner. Spreadsheets on the other hand are almost universal on today's computers and they bridge the gap between hand calculations and high level programme computations. This paper therefore makes a case for the use of spreadsheets in Distance Engineering Education. An example in Spring Design, Selection and Adaptation is used to illustrate the simplification and other advantages of their use by practicing distance learners. (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 19: 216-223, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com; DOI 10.1002/cae.20235