The Student Journal for ECE 482--Purpose and Requirements
Practicing engineers maintain workbooks (a.k.a., journals). Through these workbooks, these engineers document the evolutionary development of new ideas, concepts, and products. This documentation is necessary as formal claims are made with respect to the rightful ownership of intellectual property through the filing of patents and licenses. These workbooks also become valuable resources as the engineers prepare reports and presentations since a well maintained workbook provides an efficient method for remembering and organizing detailed information.
With this in mind, each student enrolled in ECE 482 will be required to maintain a journal for the course. Much like the practicing engineer's workbook, this journal will document the evolutionary development of the student's knowledge and understanding of concurrent systems. The journal will provide documentation that demonstrates how well the student was able to fulfill the course learning objectives. The journal will also document the student's participation in class activities, design-team activities, and skill-team activities. Finally, writing regularly in the journal will stimulate the student to reflect on what has been accomplished to date and what remains to be accomplished in order to fulfill their own learning objectives for the course.
1.1. The journal must be bound in such a manner that pages cannot be added--e.g., spiral binders are acceptable; however, loose-leaf binders are not acceptable since pages can be inserted.
1.2. All entries on a given day should be signed and dated. Begin a day by signing and dating the journal and end the day by signing and dating the journal.
1.3. The journal may reference software, hardware, reports, etc. that you have produced as interim or final products.
1.4. The student's name must be placed on the upper-right corner of the outside cover of the journal.
1.5. Entries must be written in ink.
2.1. The journal must document the evolutionary development of the student's knowledge and understanding of embedded systems.
2.2. The journal must provide documentation that demonstrates how well the student was able to fulfill the course learning objectives.
2.3. The journal must document which class periods you attended and which design-team and skill-team meetings you attended.
3.1. The journal must be handed in to the course instructors for interim review twice during the term and at the end of the term.
3.2. On due dates, each student is responsible for submitting a high-quality photocopy of the journal pages for the period covered since the previous submission. The photocopy must be on 8.5x11" paper with student's name clearly marked.
3.3. Each student will be required to hand in a timeline of entries to the journal (i.e., a graph of the dates on which entries were recorded, to reflect frequency and patterns in using the journal).