Brochure

www.tektronix.com/courseware 3
Efficient Courseware Management using Tektronix Oscilloscope (TBS1000B-EDU)
Key Challenges
In 2012, Tektronix conducted an independent survey
among educators and students of electrical and electronics
engineering departments from selected universities in China,
India and the United States. The primary objective was to
understand the equipment requirements of university teaching
labs. Additionally, the survey investigated the key challenges
faced by educators when conducting laboratory classes
and students when performing lab experiments. The results
indicated that there is an opportunity for improvement in
the workflow of designing lab experiments, conducting labs
classes and actually performing the lab experiments.
The survey revealed that designing and creating new lab
experiments is the biggest challenge faced by educators. A
related concern is the challenge of updating existing material
to keep it current. When technologies change, lab equipment
is upgraded or as class lectures take on new directions;
educators felt that it is important to make sure lab exercises
are updated to reflect these changes. Updates can be time
consuming and expensive when labs are distributed via a
workbook.
For lab courseware development many universities suggest
that professors collaborate with each other and share
information. Although this has proven to be beneficial,
there is often a need to update material to a specific format
because there are no standard templates used throughout the
institution.
The survey also identified that it is important to provide
students with clear instructions for performing and completing
lab experiments. For a laboratory the supports multiple
courses it can be a challenge making sure that the appropriate
lab manuals are available when a specific lab session begins.
It can be a tedious task for lab administrators to setup lab
benches with printed lab manuals each time students from
different courses come to perform experiments.
For students, the key challenges are related to collecting
measurement results, sketching waveforms, taking
screenshots and organizing the data for lab reports, activities
that can be very time consuming. For lab administrators,
reviewing the lab reports can also be a challenge, the reports
are rarely consistent and often, students do not clearly show
what actual work was done to complete the experiment.
The survey identified a variety of key challenges faced by
educators, lab administrators and students when designing
and performing lab experiments. This application note will
provide a brief introduction to the innovative courseware
feature found on the TBS1000B-EDU series oscilloscopes and
how this new capability addresses the challenges identified in
the survey.
Figure 2. Relative ranking of challenges faced by teachers and students in basic EE laboratory classes.