IMPEL Grant

Developing Integrative Manufacturing and Production Engineering Curricula That Leverage Data Science (IMPEL) NSF-DUE ID: 1935646

These courses are the outcome of a grant designed to help address the data science skills gap in the current production engineering workforce and to ensure the future workforce is prepared to succeed in the Industry 4.0 environment.

More about: Developing Integrative Manufacturing and Production Engineering Curricula That Leverage Data Science (IMPEL):

Overview:

The main goal of the IMPEL project is to address the data science skills gap in the current production engineering workforce and to ensure the future workforce is prepared to succeed in the Industry 4.0 environment. The project has engaged in designing, developing, and deploying online data science curricula targeting professionals, undergraduate students, and community college students interested in advancing their skills and knowledge for smart and advanced manufacturing.

Approach:

To allow learners to tailor the curricula to their individual needs, the project has built a course-module recommendation system that prescribes the right set of courses/modules taking into consideration the learner’s aptitude, competency, and workplace needs. The project team has used a design based research approach to iteratively design, test, and revise the course modules. This effort is informed by active and experiential learning principles and the learning sciences literature. The project team studies the effectiveness of the online courses in serving multiple audiences and rigorously evaluates the program objectives and outcomes.

Purpose:

The vision of this project is aligned with the 2018 National Science and Technology Council’s report, “Strategy for American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing,” which emphasizes the urgent need for advanced manufacturing research and education. This project will generate new insights into scalable online engineering education and research foci. The results will be widely disseminated through technical publications, presentations, workshops, and collaborations with Manufacturing USA Institutes to reach over 290 employers and an estimated 80,000 production engineering professionals.

Outcomes:

The outcomes of the project are a sustainable, pedagogically-proven production-oriented data science curriculum for workforce training and education that can be replicated locally, regionally, and nationally; online courses/modules tailored for basic- and advanced-level learners; evidence-based online learning principles and insights formulated by the project team in collaboration with the Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning at Oregon State University; data science curriculum and courses/modules for building academic programs at Northeastern University and MassBay Community College; and a robust partnership with manufacturing industries and the Manufacturing USA institutes to scale up the dissemination of the courses to a nationwide audience.

Acknowledgment:

This project is funded by the NSF’s EHR Core Research: Production Engineering Education and Research (ECR: PEER) program. This award reflects NSF’s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation’s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. This funding is made possible by a $10 million gift in 2018 from the Boeing Company to create and study open source learning platforms to train and reskill workers in fields ranging from engineering to manufacturing.