Abstract
This paper describes the creation and utilization of a video tutorial library by the Mechanical Engineering Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), which is a primarily undergraduate institution. The library was started in March 2013 and currently contains over 600 original videos covering topics in statics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, strength of materials, stress analysis, control systems, computer programming, numerical methods, and heat transfer. Twelve faculty members and full-time lecturers have contributed to this library by either creating videos or allowing their in-class lectures to be recorded. In addition to full-length lectures, the library contains numerous shorter videos covering single topics and example problems. The videos are hosted on the department’s YouTube channel and organized on a website called ME Online (www.cpp.edu/meonline). All videos are captioned and available to the public as an open educational resource. As of April 2019, the YouTube channel has accumulated over 4.2 million views and 37,500 subscribers. The funding to develop content for the video library was obtained during 2011-2017 through a series of small internal and external grants for the purpose of course redesign. Costs were kept low by utilizing on-campus entities and student assistants to help with recording and editing, and faculty members volunteered their time to maintain the YouTube channel and ME Online website. In addition to being a supplemental resource for students at Cal Poly Pomona and around the world, videos have been repurposed for flipping a computer programming course and fluid mechanics course, as well as teaching a massive open online course. In Winter 2018, a survey was administered to 340 mechanical engineering undergraduate students at Cal Poly Pomona to gauge the impact of the video library on their academic career. Information was gathered on awareness of the video resources, frequency of viewing, perceived usefulness, and other topics. The majority of students were aware of the video resources, felt the videos had a positive impact on their education, and felt the videos helped improve their grades in at least one class.