This paper reports a 2+2 Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering (BSIE) online option at Lamar University (LU), first launched in fall 2014 after ABET's vote to continue the program's accreditation in light of this online program option. It is the first BSIE 2+2 online program in the country. Students may choose to complete their first two years' regular fundamental courses at LU, at a community college or other university. Then they may choose to complete the last two years at LU via distance education. All online courses are delivered and managed through the Blackboard system. Some courses are currently under review by the rigorous 'Quality Matters' standard and as an objective, all courses will need to pass the standard requirement. Several courses have lab requirements. Some labs, such as Work Design, were converted to video-based labs; while for other labs, such as Manufacturing Processes, students come to campus for one or two long weekend labs during the program. The courses' labs that require software such as PTC Creo and Rockwell Arena are administered interactively in real time via Adobe Connect. Students can access the professional version of the campus software via a Remote Desktop system. The senior design course is a project based class with the same structure as our face to face track. This program provides a unique pathway for completing an engineering degree that allows students who cannot attend full time due to work, location and family responsibilities to complete an engineering degree. While a significant number of students attend pre-engineering programs at community colleges, the number of students who are interested and capable of completing an online program is significantly less. A second population of students who drop out of engineering programs for work or family reasons after completing sophomore courses also has interest in this program. In addition to presenting the program design and operation, this paper discusses the potential market for the program nationwide, preliminary student performance, and the results of a faculty survey about online courses.

In an effort to reduce well failures, Mobil elected to investigate the reasons for rejection rates in new sucker rods. Independent third party inspections indicated a combined 14.3% rejection rate for new sucker rods from all manufacturers during 1990. Inspection results indicated a variety of rejects led to these failures. However, each manufacturer also had specific problems that led to the rejection of their rods (e.g. cracked pins, hardness variations, etc.). This paper presents the finding of laboratory analyses of certain sucker rod defects, as well as the resultant development of a comprehensive sucker rod specification. Results of comprehensive testing of new sucker rod boxes in accordance with API 11B are also presented and discussed. Introduction Mobil's concern over the quality of new sucker rods arriving in the field prompted the move to independent third party inspection of these rods in 1990 and 1991. A three year summary for West Texas inspection by third party inspection is shown in Table 1. The results of the 1990 inspection program are shown in Table 2. Out of 40,424 rods inspected, 14.3% were rejected for various reasons described. In most cases, each manufacturer had significant rejects in a specific category indicating a problem of quality control in manufacturing. One significant problem identified for manufacturer E was a high rejection of rods from eddy current testing that the third party inspection company qualified as large hardness variations. Periodically, several other manufacturers had the same problem. Since this problem is not addressed in API Specification 11B, it was decided to determine the cause for the eddy current rejects and determine if in fact they would be detrimental to the serviceability of the rods. P. 733^