From help-request at octave dot org Wed Apr 13 23:45:26 2005
Subject: Re: Teaching Using Octave
From: "Steve C. Thompson" <sct at ucsd dot edu>
To: "Burke, Dr. Richard" <RBurke at sunymaritime dot edu>
Cc: help at octave dot org
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:41:46 -0700

Prof. Burke,

I just wanted to commend you for considering GNU Octave for teaching.
This is a very good idea for many reasons.  As you probably know, the
GNU Octave Manual is available for $30.  Requiring this manual for the
class would be a great way to help free software (and at $30, it is
relatively cheap for a textbook).

Will the students have a lab with computers running Octave or will they
have to install the program themselves.  Depending on their computer
proficiency, installation might be an issue.  I don't have experience
with Octave on Microsoft Windows (I use Octave on Debian GNU/Linux,
which installs with ``apt-get install octave'').  Chances are the
majority of the students, if they have a computer, will be running MS
Windows.  So the ease of install on this platform might be a issue.

Assuming the students have a working version of Octave, then they just
need to learn how to use it.  The Octave Manual should give them plenty
of guidance.  Possibly you can allocate 5 minutes per lecture about how
to use a certain command.  ``Today class, I'm going to tell you about
the hist command.''  I would tell the students to subscript to this
list, help at octave dot org, for two reasons:  they can use it to ask
questions, and they can learn about the community of users helping users
and about free software.  Tell them to look at
http://www.octave.org/archive.html if they get stuck, and tell them to
help each other (of course, making it clear than they have to turn in
work that is there own).

I don't have any first hand experience with this topic, but I hope to in
the future.

Good luck,

Steve

On Apr 13 18:04PM, Burke, Dr. Richard wrote:
> 
> I know a bit about the history of Octave, and if I'm not mistaken,
> several faculty have taught courses using Octave. I will be teaching a
> course called Engineering Analysis in the fall, and I am thinking about
> basing the course on Octave. The course is for junior level engineers
> from mechanical, electrical, and related disciplines. 
> 
> A few questions:
> 
> 1.	Is there anything published about your experience or the
> experience of others in using Octave as the computational basis for a
> course? There are countless books based upon MATLAB, MathCAD, etc.
> 2.	Is the Octave documentation adequate for undergraduate
> engineers? I am concerned about having the course devolve into a
> software tutorial, and like most small college programs, we do not have
> teaching assistants.
> 3.	Any advice as to whether (or how) I should do this?
> 
> Thanks for any help you can give me.
> 
> _______________________
> Dr. Richard Burke, '72
> Chairman and Professor of Engineering
> Maritime College
> State University of New York 
> 6 Pennyfield Avenue
> Throggs Neck, NY 10465
> 
> Voice:  718.409.7411
> Fax:    718.409.7421
> 
> 
> 



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