| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 14, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | January 10, 2022 |
| Award Number: | 1801019 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Virginia Carter
vccarter@nsf.gov (703)292-4651 DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $500,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $500,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
5500 IRVINE CENTER DR IRVINE CA US 92692 (949)451-5326 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
15445 Lansdowne Rd Tustin CA US 92782-0223 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Advanced Tech Education Prog |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
Photonics, precision optics, and lasers are high-tech devices that interact with light. Almost all modern consumer electronics contain some photonics technology. Photonics are also important in new technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality that are used in education, space, and military applications. Across the United States, the yearly number of graduates from community colleges in the photonics field is far lower than the demand for new photonics technicians. To help meet this demand, Irvine Valley College will team up with six other colleges and universities in the western region of the United States to create and promote more pathways for students to successfully pursue technician careers in the photonics industry. The team will work with photonics industries to develop new course materials that will be openly available. New digital badges that represent desired skills or abilities in photonics will also be created so that technicians with these skills can by more easily identified by prospective employers. This project will assist in growing and strengthening the nation's photonics technician workforce.
The goal of this project is to prepare highly-trained technicians for the photonics workforce through collaboration among Career and Technical Education (CTE) faculty and industry professionals throughout the western region of the United States. The main objectives are to: 1) establish a curriculum development framework for open-license, online educational resources to support the training of new or incumbent photonics technicians and faculty members; 2) develop and pilot the open educational resources, including courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, and streaming videos; and 3) create, pilot, and facilitate the use of industry-standard digital badges for photonics technicians; and 4) facilitate a western regional network of photonics faculty and industry. The developed curriculum will be openly accessible through a Creative Commons license, and the digital badges will be created through Concentric Sky's Badgr platform. The approach will be shared across states via the partner colleges: Oregon Institute of Technology in Portland, OR; Lake Washington Institute of Technology in Kirkland, WA; Spokane Community College in Spokane, WA; Gallatin College in Bozeman, MT; Idaho State University in Pocatello, ID; and Pima Community College in Tucson, AZ. Project results and best practices will also be disseminated throughout the nationwide NSF ATE network and other national venues, to support national development of photonics degrees and certifications for technicians.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The teaching materials converted to OER via the OPAL-TEC Development grant cover the first three of four courses I teach in the Laser Technology program at Pasadena City College (PCC), including Fundamentals of Light and Lasers, Optical Devices, and Quality Assurance of Precision Optics. (If you are interested in the fourth course, Metrology of Optical Systems, please let me know.) Fundamentals of Light and Lasers is largely based on the course of the same name developed by the NSF organization OP-TEC in the 2000s. Optical Devices is loosely based on another early OP-TEC course called Elements of Photonics. The latter two courses I wrote for the NSF/OP-TEC in 2013 and 2015.
These materials are now available as OER, which means they are licensed under Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0. These OER are intended to be seeds for current and future technician-education programs in the optics industry. Take from these OER what you can use, disregard what is not relevant for your students.
OER developed under the OPAL-TEC development grant is now delivered to the NSF and uploaded to the NSF's ATE Central website. However, the NSF elects to archive, but not distribute, grant materials. So I will soon be routing you a link to the PCC Sharefile repository, from which you may download all OER (teaching materials) directly, including the import file (.IMSCC) for the Canvas learning-management system (LMS). If you happen to use the Brightspace D2L LMS, my colleague Trent Berg, formerly of Gallatin College, created and made available via this grant a video demonstrating how to transfer a Canvas import file to the Brightspace D2L LMS. If you use other LMSs, the teaching materials are available directly on the Sharefile repository.
I thank all involved for their support throughout this grant's development, but I wish to thank my family, friends, and reviewers who tolerated and helped as I developed this OER. Much of this material has been and is being continually peer reviewed by the PCC LaserTech program's industrial partners, as I refine and modernize curricula each semester. Some of this grant's participants deserve direct commendation for their role.
- Grants Analyst Rachel Manders has supported me since I started writing NSF grants in 2011, and served as the primary fiscal agent this grant via Irvine Valley College (IVC).
- Dr. Desir? Whitmore of the Exploratorium and Stephanie Bostwick, formerly of Lake Washington Institute of Technology, worked with me as the grant's original authors.
- Darrell Hull of the University of North Texas provided outstanding external evaluation.
- Librarian Walter Butler of Santa Monica College, formerly PCC, served as the grant's librarian to guide the conversion to OER. Walter also researched many of the open-source figures and images, and did an amazing job to ensure all figures and images were either properly attributed or created by me.
- Deans Debbie Vanschoelandt at IVC and Martha House at PCC helped guide my participation in this grant.
- My wife Erin Monacelli took many of the images.
- My daughter Alexa Monacelli patiently modeled for many of the images. (And learned a few practical skills along the way!)
- OER technical reviewers included Dr. Desir? Whitmore of the Exploratorium; Professor Judy Irwin, formerly of Spokane Falls CC; Dr. Amanda Meier of Front Range CC; Dr. Anca Sala, formerly of Baker College; and Elizabeth Noonan of Gallatin College. I am particularly grateful for their constructive feedback.
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Brian Monacelli, Ph.D.
Principal Optical Engineer
Laser Technology Professor, Pasadena City College
Last Modified: 09/04/2022
Modified by: Brian Monacelli
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