Challenges and Lessons Learned in Teaching a Graduate Human Factors Course on a Compressed Schedule

Abstract

There is a current tendency for industrial engineering departments to augment their Masters Degree programs with programs targeted for off-campus students who are employed full time. These programs are motivated primarily by the revenue that they can potentially generate for academic departments. In this paper we discuss one such program in which each course is compressed into three consecutive weekends, and discuss the challenges of teaching these students a course on human factors engineering under these curriculum design constraints. Examples of lessons learned in teaching this course are summarized and possible interventions in course design are discussed, with the understanding that teaching such a course affords the opportunity for achieving buy-in to the human factors and ergonomics discipline within these students' respective organizations.