Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-1324
May 10, 2007

Finance Committee
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dear colleagues:

In response to Dr. Lee's request, I am pleased to submit the following additional request for the Visualab (PS231-B):

  • Twelve (12) 1-Gigabit Ethernet lines to upgrade all [used] lines in the Visualab (PS231-B). The current connections are 100-Megabit. TNS requires that all departments pay for the upgrade to 1-Gigabit. Their charge is $306 per line. The total cost to upgrade all lines to 1-Gigabit is $3,672.

The Visualab leads development of web-based teaching and research applications in hydraulic and hydrologic engineering.

The lab specializes in dynamic web-content development with PHP scripting. It features forty-six (46) online scripts (onlinechannel.sdsu.edu, onlinewsprofiles.sdsu.edu, onlinerouting.sdsu.edu, onlinecomp.sdsu.edu, onlinehydro.sdsu.edu, onlinetc.sdsu.edu, onlineregression.sdsu.edu, etc.). These scripts are extensively used in undergraduate instruction of CIV E445 (Applied Hydrology; 20 students per semester) and undergraduate/graduate instruction of CIV E 530 (Open-channel Hydraulics; 25 students per semester). Additional scripts are currently under development, with substantial graduate student participation.

Students are now learning PHP programming in class projects and special studies. A new 500-level course entitled "Web-based Engineering" is being planned for Spring 2008.

The lab is also used by graduate students in the following courses: in CIV E 632 (Computational Hydraulics; 10 students), CIV E 633 (Environmental Hydrology; 15 students), CIV E 634 (Surface-water Hydrology; 15 students), and in special studies (CIV E 798; 4 students per year) and thesis (CIV E 799A and B; 2 students per year).

Sincerely yours,

Victor M. Ponce
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

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