Richard L. Zollars Washington State University Jim Henry University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Screen Using Control Station ® Screen Using UTC Site No differences in learning the course material were observed although this aspect was not assessed directly. The students biggest concern is time, time, time. Anything that will shorten the amount of time needed to complete an assignment will be the favored mode of operation. Assess student learning/attitudes prior to first exposure to each technique to determine initial learning curve differences In 2002 we initiated a study to compare student responses and learning using both a simulations package (Control Station ® ) and the remotely operated modules at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Student feedback indicated two concerns: 1) difficulty logging on to the UTC site 2) data analysis for results from the UTC site took too long For 2003 we again conducted the Process Control class at WSU as we did in 2002 using both Control Station ® and the remotely operated experiments at UTC. To address the complaints from 2002 we arranged a scheduling algorithm so that students could sign-up for blocks of time on the UTC site. The students were also allowed (encouraged) to use the data analysis tools in Control Station® for all analysis, regardless of the source of the data. Students in the 2003 class were asked to respond to 10 questions concerning their experiences. Seven of these questions had been used in The results are shown to the right from the 19 students in 2002 and the 12 students in 2003 who responded (“Strongly Disagree”= 1 and “Strongly Agree”=5). These responses show the following: The students in 2003 were neutral on the effectiveness of the scheduling algorithm, but had no difficulties using the analysis tools in Control Station ® for analyzing their data Despite being able to schedule times on the UTC site the 2003 students found remote operation to be even less available than did the 2002 students (Question #2) The 2003 students also felt that the simulated process gave a more real life experience (Question #5) The 2003 students felt, even more strongly than did the 2002 students, that they learned the material better using the simulation software (Question #9) In response to some open ended questions about their experiences the 2003 students: Acknowledged that the best feature of the UTC site was that it was real equipment, even with the quirks that working with real equipment brings Agreed with the 2002 students that the best feature of the simulation software was the ability to conduct experiments at faster than real time speeds. The 2003 students most common suggestion for improving the remotely operated equipment was to provide a means for fixing equipment problems in real time. A complete listing of the student responses is available at Other than the two changes noted above the conduct of the Process Control class at WSU in 2003 was the same as before: half of the class used Control Station ® and half used the UTC site each student did as many experiments using Control Station ® as the UTC site the task was the same regardless of where the assignment was being performed students were surveyed for their impressions about using Control Station ® or the UTC site at the conclusion of the course A typical assignment is shown to the right and the computer screens seen by the students using Control Station ® and the UTC are shown below.