DISCUSSION
Current Questions:
4/18/2020 12:55 PM Update: 4/20/2020	The Final (Double Value) Bonus Points are Posted on Schedule Page: I was able to post the final bonus questions before the promised Tuesday time. The Bonus assignment is worth double credit and will still be due at the original time. You can find the Bonus Assignment on the Schedule Page for 16 APR. My instructions for Question 3 might need an example, though. So here it is To do the line drawing right, we need to describe both a Negative and a Positive Paradigm, first. Something like: Dr. Jensen gives a multiple guess exam that no one can complete on time correctly, and then grades it strictly so that the other faculty will let him back into the Faculty Lounge. (Probably unambiguously negative paradigm.) Dr. Jensen gives a show-your-work exam that even though no one can complete it on time correctly, he gives partial credit, throws out the (statistically) worst problems, keeps the (statistically) best problems, and adjusts the remaining, so-so problems into bonus points to try to make up for his mistakes. (Probably unambiguously positive paradigm.) Then we would put together some more (plausible) scenarios that would provide a usable scaling, like: Dr. Jensen gives a true/false exam that while no one can complete it on time correctly, anybody who can get the first third right and still guess the last two thirds correct 50% of the time will pass. And that is so that the other faculty will let him back into the Faculty Lounge. (probably between the Negative and Positive, maybe slightly more negative.) Dr. Jensen gives an exam that no one can complete it on time correctly, but then allows any students that fail to get at least a B to take a make-up exam that is better written – but the top grade they can earn is capped at B. (Maybe a little more toward the positive than the last.) Of course the scenario that would actually happen (and should’ve been mapped) starts out like: “Dr. Jensen’s middle initials are M. S. & E. …” (Thanks, Trevor, for giving me a chance to clarify!) In the prompt you tell us to reference slides 12-18 of the ethics powerpoint to see the guidelines for professional engineers. Unless I am missing something there isn't even 18 slides in the entire presentation. And while some of the stuff does seem to be there the rest of the guidelines types stuff appears to be absent. I may just be missing something but figured it was worth calling attention to. The original slide deck for the Engineering Ethics lecture contained a few more slides and a different order. The edited deck that was presented has the NCEES Model Rules of Professional Conduct slides in positions 8 – 12. Please make sure that these slides are available for your use during an exam. (Good catch, William!) (next question goes here) (next response goes here)
Older Questions:
4/15/2020 1:08 PM	I am really confused and not sure what I am missing to find the formulas for t(e) and variance on the data and questions page. I have poured over the lectures and am convinced I am just missing something. Can you point me in the right direction or anything? (t(e) is the Expected Time (duration) of the task.  We find that from three estimated times: Pessimistic, Most Likely, and Optimistic.  We weight the Most Likely time by a factor of four (4 x Most Likely time), and then add the Pessimistic (longest time, weight of 1) and the Optimistic (shortest time, weight of 1) together to come up with a total.  We divide that total by six (the sum of the weights: 1 + 4 + 1 = 6) to come up with the Expected Time for the task. The Project Management slides have that formula on them and an example calculation somewhere around slide 42 or 43.  It would have been covered in the Part 2 lecture for 07 APR: Project Planning & Management.  There is also a slide on Variance of Activity Estimates (about # 45) that has a formula and an example. Var = [ Pessimistic – Optimistic]^2 /6;  which is the squared difference between the Pessimistic and Optimistic divided by the sum of the weights. The reason to calculate the Variance is to get at the Standard Deviation (the square root of the variance) for an event.  If we know the expected time (also called the mean) and the standard deviation (abbreviated SD), we can use a Normal Distribution to find the probability that we will complete the task(s) in X days. To do that, we compute the z-statistic: (difference between X and the mean) divided by the square root of the standard deviation.  The z-statistic lets us find the area under the Normal Curve from negative infinite to X, which is interpreted as the probability that it will take up to time X to complete the task(s). Look up the z-statistic value on the table axes and read the percentage from the intersection – converting the decimal to a percentage) Why do we calculate the variance instead of the standard deviation?  Because variances add and means add, but standard deviations do not.  Say we wanted to find out the probability of completing half of the Critical Path activities by day X.  We would add up the Expected Times for the first half of the Critical Path activities to get a mean, then we add up the Variances for the first half of the Critical Path activities and take the square root to get the sd. Then we calculate the z-statistic from X, mean and sd; look it up on the Normal Table, and (magically, to the business majors) we have a reasonable estimate of the chances that we will be half done by day X. Hope this helps … whoops, you’ve already found the slides!  Oh well, I’ll post this to the Discussion Page. [This is why I hate distance learning discussion pages!] I was working through homework 04 and I am getting stuck on what the slack means. I looked through the solution and noticed that it is using the network tab. I filled in that tab already (we did these charts in my mine management class) and I am confused as to where the slack is coming from? The slack is defined as the difference between the Latest Start and the Earliest Start of a task. (It could also be calculated as the difference between the Latest End and the Earliest End.) What you wisely were reverse-engineering was my lazy-derriere way of calculating the slack time for events on the spreadsheet. The interpretation is that the slack is the time between when you could start a task and when you have to start a task, without delaying the end date of the project. Tasks on the Critical Path have no slack – any delay on the Critical Path tasks would delay the delivery date. A project manager could “play” with the slack time to help keep a project on-track … on-time, on-budget, meeting functionality. In practice, there are at least a couple of ways that slack time gets used for meeting either the time or budget constraints: 1. If a task has some slack time, the resource(s) associated with that task might be used to help another task that is behind to get caught up. 2. If a task has some slack time, the resource(s) associated with that task might be the lowest cost/time estimate for the Crash Cost/Crash Time for other tasks on the Critical Path. 3. If a project must be crashed, the slack time may represent a limit on how much Crash Time is available to the project to still bring it in on-time (although at a higher cost). 4. Although we did not talk about it, the slack time may be used to help Level Resource usage across the project (people, equipment, money, …) to avoid peak overloading of a particular set of resources. (I figured that we should save SOMETHING for the Project Management course to teach …) Another option for slack time, if the resources are right, is to provide extra brain-power for research/development to address the functionality piece. Probably more answer than you really wanted … but it was a good question!
4/2/2020 12:03 PM	When you moved on to Part 2 today going over the excel documents when switching to the Shewhart excel you were not sharing your screen so I am unsure if there is something wrong with how my file pulls up and looks. My one concern is with the R chart, which I attached an image of. I am not sure if it is supposed to show a line for the upper and lower limits of the data, but mine does not. Does this have something to do with the range of the chart? It sounds like I need to re-record the Part 2 video – the “shared screen” must not really be a shared screen, but rather a shared application.  Both chart types were on the same screen, but they were different Excel instances … thanks for the clue! To answer your first question though:  the control limits SHOULD show on your chart.  The reason they don’t is probably that you clicked on the TAB for the chart rather than going back to the DATA TAB and clicking on the BUTTON for the chart.  (It is incredibly tempting to do that for me, too.) Clicking on the chart BUTTON runs the program that calculates the control limits for the particular chart.  (And as you will find out if you take IENG 486, there is a different calculation for the control limits for each type of chart.)  The good news is that you should not have to do all the steps for generating data all over again – just got back to the DATA TAB and click on the correct chart button. In my house I do not have a printer. I also do not have an ability to purchase one. What could I do to work on putting together my engineering notebook for this class? I personally have been taking my notes over your slides in OneNote and am curious if this would work as a digital engineering notebook? I think that using OneNote as your engineering notebook will work fine – and when this virus stuff is all over, you will be in a good position to print off your file and stick it into your notebook for any future use. NOTE: For Future Exam(s): I am trying to work out how to come up with a better exam, especially for distance engineering classes.  I really dislike multiple guess exams. I don’t think they really test you on the content (it’s more testing on the question format), and there is some research to back me up.  I also am very uncomfortable with the RESPONDUS exam surveillance process that is being pushed. Not using RESPONDUS would also allow the next exam to be open lecture slides, lecture video, engineering notes and text. That would get around the lack of printer – somewhat. It is pretty likely, though, that I would need everyone to have their campus MS Word downloaded to their tablet (Google Docs won’t substitute), and you will have to get familiar with the formula editor in order to show some of your work. Best to find out if you can do that sooner, rather than later …
3/31/2020 3:26 PM	I am not getting any questions on the course material – so I hope that taking more time with the lecture is helping. However, I have my doubts … so please do not hesitate to ask course questions. Please continue to let me know if some of the online technology is not working as well in your “hunkered down” conditions. I will try to adapt as best as I can to help. For example, I have had some students from this and other classes that: - Have slow video downloads on their home internet connection. (Large files take a long time…) I am trying to post videos by the night before they are scheduled – try downloading them overnight instead of during the day when bandwidth is in heavier use. I can try to break them into smaller videos, but the production time to set up, record, and post-process the videos will increase just as quickly. If I can do that over the weekend, you will need to consider the next situation … - Can’t download multiple video files on their home internet at one time. I think you need to download them serially, not simultaneously. The bottleneck could be your internet, your laptop hard disk, and possibly whatever else is running on your computer at the same time. - Don’t have a printer at home to print lecture slides for the engineering notebook. Wow, I just didn’t consider this possibility at the start of the semester – because every student had access to campus printers back then. If you can get an inexpensive inkjet printer for under $100, that might be about the only solution. The cost is on par with a used textbook, but I think the value is higher for printing the slides and material. You can save money if you get a high capacity black ink cartridge and print the slides in pure black and white (not color or grey scale). - Don’t have their engineering notebook / textbook / laptop with them. If you left your notebook with me, I have mailed it to you already. - Can’t hear the audio over their laptop built-in speaker. Try adjusting the computer audio from the speaker icon at the bottom right of the system tray (which you have probably already tried). If you have some earbuds or headphones, you can probably connect them to the same audio plug as on your computer, or you can sync them with your computer if they are Bluetooth capable. - Can’t see the hand-drawn material on the video with their laptop screen. I will try to minimize using the whiteboard feature on Zoom, but if I have to use it, I will also try to post a final, hand-drawn and scanned image via a link on the Discussion Page. Just check and download it before watching the lecture … - Don’t remember their top-secret grade code. If I sent you your engineering notebook, it will be on the inside cover. If you took the first exam, you got a 3 x 5 notecard with your code on it. If that doesn’t exist any more, e-mail me and I will respond. - Find themselves drifting off during the pre-recorded online lectures. Yea, I used to nod off sometimes even when my favorite prof was teaching my favorite mfg. processes class. I felt a little bit better when I went to a faculty candidate presentation at the U of IA and saw that the WHOLE faculty fell asleep during the presentation – AND THEY STILL HIRED THE GUY. I will continue to try to modulate my volume and pacing, try to throw in silly/odd/humorous/ thoughts, and try to build in some break points; but I think this is a big limitation of the pre-recorded lecture and technically detailed content. Try hitting the pause button, stretching and getting a cold drink … - Don’t like that the pre-recorded lectures run longer than the in-person class period. I have to own this one, most of the lectures are gonna run longer. Three reasons why: (1.) We lost one week to weather before the break, and another week to campus virus prep (while you had a second week of break) – so all the contingency time I had built into the schedule has been used up. (2.) Doing distance ED doubles the amount of prep for each lecture and adds post-processing time afterward – so there is NO time for re-recording. (3. Biggest Reason) The learning objectives are still the same, so we will still have to cover the same content even though the term is shorter. So I am trying to do it by running the lectures slightly longer, rather than add additional lectures as HW. The Pause Button will still work … .
3/24/2020 10:08 AM	Why are we doing class discussions this way instead of over video meeting or on a D2L chat? The infrastructure that is needed at our campus was neither ready nor tested for these unforeseen circumstances. Bandwidth is the biggest issue – it is the surge in immediate demand that has to be addressed. The ITS department will work as hard and fast as they can to get the bandwidth and infrastructure we need – and the Zoom folks are probably responding as quickly as they can, too. When these services become consistently available and reliable, we will make good use of them. In the meantime, we are will do the “old school” methods to alleviate some of the bandwidth issues. (New questions go here) (New answers go here).