Preparing the future entrepreneurial engineering workforce using web-based AI-enabled tools

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly developing field with growing importance in engineering, mainly as it serves to better understand and manipulate big data. However, the literature is sparse on how to educate engineers on the use of AI applications. For many years, a role-playing simulation known as the ‘Beer Distribution Game' has been a staple of industrial engineering education and an established vehicle for teaching the fundamentals of supply chain management (SCM) technology. The purpose of the study is to suggest an alternative and effective way to introduce AI and web-based games to students. This paper introduces and applies two types of web-based AI-enabled tools in a second-year industrial engineering classroom including OpexAnalytics (a web-based AI-enabled Beer Distribution Game learning module) and CompareAssess (a web-based AI-enabled tool to promote ‘learning by evaluation’). Findings provide evidence of this 5-week web-based AI-enabled learning module's effectiveness in improving student perceptions and learning outcomes related to the intersection between supply chain management and artificial intelligence. The intention for this module was not to sufficiently prepare students for data science and artificial intelligence work assignments; however, this module offers a starting point for further skill development in higher-level coursework.

KEYWORDS:

• Undergraduate
• Artificial intelligence
• Supply chain
• Big data

Acknowledgement

Portions of this manuscript were presented at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Virtual Conference, June, 2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Bosman

Dr. Lisa Bosman, PhD in Industrial Engineering, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation at Purdue University. Her desire to increase STEM education accessibility and attainment have resulted in her founding of the Purdue University iAGREE Labs (HYPERLINK “http://www.iagree.org/”www.iagree.org). Dr. Bosman has authored over 60 publications, obtained over $2M USD in research funding, has been an invited speaker and workshop facilitator for over twenty national and international engagements, and currently serves as an engineering councilor for the Council of Undergraduate Research (3-year commitment, 2019-2022), and as a division officer for the American Society of Engineering Education (5-year commitment, 2018-2023). In addition, she has recently authored two texts: “Teaching the Entrepreneurial Mindset Across the University: An Integrative Approach” (Springer-Verlag GmbH, 2021) and “Teaching the Entrepreneurial Mindset to engineers (Springer-Verlag GmbH, 2018).

Bhavana Kotla

Ms. Bhavana Kotla is a PhD student at Purdue University.

Aasakiran Madamanchi

Dr. Aasakiran Madamanchi is a Lecturer III in Data Science within the School of Information at the University of Michigan. His teaching and his research focus on computational workforce development. His interests include democratizing data science and accessible computational workflows, tools and educational methods. Prior to his role at the University of Michigan, he was an independent interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellow in the Future of Work & Learning in the Polytechnic Institute at Purdue University. His Ph.D. is in Cancer Biology from Vanderbilt University.

Scott Bartholomew

Dr. Scott Bartholomew is an assistant professor of Technology and Engineering Studies at Brigham Young University where he works with aspiring secondary education students. Bartholomew is a former middle school technology teacher who lived in the Philippines for two years as a religious service missionary and, prior to his role at BYU, Dr. Bartholomew was an assistant professor of Engineering/Technology Teacher Education at Purdue University. Bartholomew is involved in several international STEM education efforts including a position as a Fulbright Scholar (Philippines) and a US-Embassy STEM Grant representative (Turkey). His research revolves around teacher professional development, open-ended design assessment, and international STEM education. Bartholomew's hobbies include volleyball, fly-fishing, and he and his wife are the proud parents of four children.

Vetria Byrd

Dr. Vetria Byrd is an assistant professor of Computer Graphics Technology in the Polytechnic Institute at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Dr. Byrd is the Director of the Byrd Data Visualization Lab where she does research on data visualization pedagogy and develops data visualization curriculum for undergraduate and graduate level courses. Dr. Byrd is the founder and organizer of BPViz: Broadening Participation in Visualization (BPViz) Workshops designed to introduce data visualization to persons interested in building data visualization capacity skills. Dr. Byrd has given numerous invited talks on visualization and has been featured in HPC Wire online magazine (2014), and numerous workshops nationally and internationally. Dr. Byrd received graduate and undergraduate degrees at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in Birmingham, Alabama which include: Ph.D. in Computer and Information Sciences, Master's degrees in Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Dr. Byrd's research interests include: data visualization, data visualization capacity building, high performance visualization, big data, and collaborative visualization. Dr. Byrd's research utilizes data visualization as a catalyst for communication, as a conduit for collaboration, as a pathway to STEM and as a mechanism for broadening participation and inclusion.