EE Professors -- Textbook recommendation needed, please!

So are all of us overworked EE professors at the community college level. Comes with the territory. If she doesn't understand that now, god help her in the years to come.

The first time you offer an on-line course, you had best be prepared to spend five to ten times the time you spend in a B&M (bricks and mortar) class setting the sucker up and doing all the detailed explanations that you can do in the classroom with chalkboard. You don't have that luxury on line.

The upside to that is that once you have the course "canned" it is about ten percent of the work of a B&M class for years to come.

If your instructor doesn't understand this, gently inform her of the way the real world works.

Jim

Reply to
RST Engineering (jw)
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Background: I am posting this inquiry on behalf of a slightly overworked EE professor at the local community college. I am currently taking a distance learning class on circuit fundamentals, and the professor is planning to offer a distance learning class on basic transistor and amplifier theory in the near future -- as soon as this Spring, if possible. Among the holdups is that she needs to find the right textbook, ASAP. (And for my part, I am hoping to take the class this Spring, which is why I am helping her in her textbook hunt!)

Obviously, she needs a decent textbook in basic transistor and amplifier theory, something at roughly the level of "Electronic Devices" by Floyd (Prentice Hall).

The kicker, however, is this: The way she runs her distance learning classes, she wants to be able to give her students fairly detailed solutions to all the homework problems, and she doesn't always have time to work out all those solutions herself (she is running multiple distance learning classes). Therefore -- she needs a textbook where the publisher will provide, to faculty members, detailed, worked solutions to the homework problems in the text, preferably in electronic form (such as .pdf), so she can send these solutions out to the students.

The way my current class is working is, we first try to work the homework problems on our own; but then compare our own efforts to the solved solutions (sorry, I guess that phrasing is redundant), both so we can see if we've done it correctly; and so if we have not done the problem correctly, we can learn how to do it right. For this class on circuits, we are using "Engineering Circuit Analysis" by Hayt, and apparently they do provide her with the solutions in .pdf form, so she can send them to us. Apparently, she has so far been unable to find a similar text for transistor theory and applications.

I've checked the Web site for "Electronic Devices" by Floyd myself -- I happened to pick up the text a few years ago -- and I cannot tell from that site whether or not the publisher provides detailed solutions for the HW problems at all, let alone provides them in .pdf format or similar.

Anyway, bottom line: I (we, actually) appreciate any recommendation for a good sophomore/junior level textbook on transistor theory/basic applications, plus appropriate related topics -- basics of op-amps, oscillators, you probably know what else applies -- where the publisher will provide, to the instructor, .pdf or similar files with detailed, worked-out solutions to the homework problems presented in the textbook.

Please be kind enough to send leads my way, via this newsgroup or the e-mail (slightly mangled, below), and I will forward them to the professor.

Thanks! Steve O. steveqdr useThatFirstPartJustAsIs AATT RemoveSpamProtectPhrase Yahoo DDOOTT Ccoomm

Reply to
Steven O.

Hello Steven,

If I'd have to start out again I would certainly pick Horowitz, Hill: "The Art of Electronics". Winfield Hill is actually an active participant in this newsgroup (sci.electronics.design).

A source that might help in distance learning would be MIT. AFAIK they placed most if not all of their courses online. But I have no idea how this can be handled from a copyright point of view. Best would be to talk to them about it.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Steven,

One option is Introductory Electronic Devices and Circuits by Paynter (Prentice Hall). The companion site is at

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Your professor should check with professors at other colleges that offer distance learning in the EE field. They may be her best source for textbook recommendations and to educate her about what is required to set up a useful distance learning course and the virtual labs that may go with it. Among others, Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) offers several distance learning courses.

Richard

Reply to
Richard

McGraw-Hill has bundled a complete course that even a community college "professor" can handle, this book gets good reviews:

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Reply to
Fred Bloggs

Hi, Steve. Floyd is a good two-semester junior college-level textbook.

If you and the instructor are otherwise happy with the book, I'd recommend using the Prentice Hall Rep Locator on the website to get in touch with the customer service rep for her school and department. She can get all kinds of information on how the textbook, lab manual, Multisim, the instructor text, CD-ROMs, website and other teaching materials can be integrated into her online course.

Usually, with multimedia extravaganza courses like this, other resources are available from the publisher which haven't been included for one reason or another. Sometimes, these can be pried loose before, but not after, the course textbook decision has been made.

So, put the publisher customer service rep to work, and see what Prentice-Hall can do to sell the text to the professor. After all, that's what the CSR is paid to do.

Good luck Chris

Reply to
Chris

My experience is that "turnkey" solutions never are turnkey. Just the same the Malvino texts are usually pretty good, rarely excellent, more about practical, less about deep theory.

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JosephKK
Reply to
JosephKK

The University of Wyoming is big into distance learning including GE and Surveying. Try looking at their offerings.

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JosephKK
Reply to
JosephKK

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