User:Eml4500.f08.ateam/hw 1/overview

EML4500 - Week 1 Summary

Overview: EML4500 is an upper level engineering course in the field of Finite Element Analysis and Design. The course, taught by Dr. L. Vu-Quoc at the University of Florida is an overview of the Finite Element Method and its applications. Throughout the course of this semester we will be introduced to the different aspects of the FEM and be applying these to solve different engineering problems. The curriculum will be presented to us through lectures from the professor and homework assignments that will assist in our understanding of the material. To ease in the understanding of the material we will work in small groups that will collaborate on weekly homework reports to be submitted using Wikipedia.

Wiki Homework Reports: As stated previously, we will be using Wikipedia (MediaWiki, WikiVersity,...) to submit our weekly HW reports. Working in small teams, we will be collaborating on the current HW questions and lecture notes to form a weekly HW report. These reports will consist of two parts: the HW problem statement/solution and a summary of that week's lecture notes. For the problem statement and solution we will work with our team to come up with a solution to the problem to the best of our ability and form this into the report. After proof-reading and, if needed, editing each of our team members contribution to the report, our team leader will submit a final copy using our Wiki page. The second half of our weekly reports will consist of a summary of the prevous week's lecture notes. For this section, we will take the lecture notes, rewrite them in our own words and also add any comments or suggestions to clarify and topics that we might not fully understand. In addition to the notes we will also redraw any figures or examples that would assist in our learning of the material.

Pros/Cons of Using Wikipedia: Using Wikipedia to work together and submit our HW reports has its pros and cons. Working in our teams will help our understanding of the material, but also presents some difficulties. This is where using Wiki will help. With this, we will be able to collaborate no matter where we are. As Dr. Vu-Quoc stated, "Even if a group member is in Australia, they will still be able to collaborate with the team." This will be beneficial further in the semester when our schedules keep the entire team from being able to meet in person. As with most good things there is the bad part. For our situation, that problem is the "vandalizing" of Wikipedia pages. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone on the internet. This is an issue for us when it comes to submitting our weekly reports. Anyone with malicious intent could go to our page and edit our work to provide incorrect results or even just vandalize it with inappropriate content as seen by an example in class. To counteract this issue, we will be submitting the archived version of our report. Once a page on Wikipedia has been archived, that version can not be changed. The following versions might have been edited, but the archived copy will remain the same.