Continuing education courses emphasizing hands-on DSP experiments for night-school students

The recent rapid increase in digital signal processing (DSP) applications has generated a need for electrical engineers with DSP backgrounds; however, a university-industry gap still exists. At Southern Taiwan University of Technology (STUT), a sequence of innovative DSP courses, which emphasize hands-on experiments and practical applications, has been developed for continuing education in electrical and computer engineering. These courses are taught in the evening for night-school students, and are separated from traditional classes for regular full-time students. The program requires the participators to have at least three years of working experience before enrolling in the program. It enables the night-school students to experiment with sophisticated DSP applications to augment the theoretical, conceptual and analytical material provided in DSP courses. The inclusion of both software and hardware development permits students to undertake a wide range of real-time DSP projects in the field. Analysis of assessment data suggests that the introduction of a digital signal processor fundamentals course can increase learning interests and overcome the prerequisite problem of a DSP laboratory experiments course.