Education development employing latest free space optical research papers for undergraduate communication engineering students in class and examination

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce advanced undergraduate communication engineering students to the newest research papers in the optical communications field. An elective course named 'Selected Topics in Communications' offered to final year students in Electronics and Communication department, faculty of Engineering, Arab Academy for Science and Technology (AAST), Egypt, focuses on free space optics (FSO). The course objective is to equip students with the necessary theoretical models and the practical knowledge of free FSO from the most recent research. The course studies the current FSO capabilities, constraints, challenges and applications both indoors and outdoors in atmospheric, space and underwater channels. The main prerequisite to the course is digital communications due to the dependence on optical technology on high speed transmission and different modulation techniques in order to achieve best performance. In lectures, we define what a paper is and identify their different types. We explain the difference between conferences and journals, the reviewing process and their requirements. Lectures include how to read and write a technical research paper. Such lectures are to familiarize students with the construction of a paper, how is it organized how to scan for certain information and read results. In tutorials, students practice on different research papers and extract required information according to prepared question sheets. At least 25% of the course marks are dedicated to research papers. Lecturers pick an unknown paper for examination. On the other, students are required to perform a paper presentation after choosing a recent paper on a certain topic.