| Date | Speaker | Talk |
| Dec 2, 2004 | Michael I. Shamos, Distinguished Career professor, ISRI, Carnegie Mellon |
Learning by Doing in the eBusiness Technology Program |
In 2001, ten SCS faculty members were asked to design an complete one-year professional master's program in eBusiness Technology that would not rely on standard course work but would consist entirely of skills-oriented projects to be completed by teams of students under the guidance of mentors with work graded by faculty members. This is believed to be the first full degree program of its kind offered anywhere. It was first delivered at Carnegie Mellon West starting in 2002 and has been completed by both full-time and part-time students, resident and non-resident. Beginning in the fall of 2004, the program was offered for the first time to 30 full-time students in Pittsburgh and 9 students at CMU West.
In this talk we will cover the objectives of the program, the methodology used to construct it, modes of delivery, how students are divided into teams and how individual assessment is accomplished even though work is performed collectively. We will discuss its strengths and weaknesses, its innovative grading system, which awards only three possible grades: A, B- and F, and distance aspects of the program.