Chaas95

About

NYU Tandon Senior studying Civil Engineering

Purpose

This space will be used assignments pertaining to engineering economics, policy, and leadership

Notes related to Wikipedia work and activities

Wikipedia Work:

Thinking about Sources and Plagiarism

Blog posts are considered a poor source of reliable information because the source of the blogger's information is often un-cited or unreliable. In a similar vein, a press release is also considered a poor source of information because the information is new and therefor did not have time for proper confirmation or due-diligence of information.

The context of information is just as important as the information's source. One might want to refrain from using a company's webpage as the sole source of information from that company due to the possibility that information is being filtered to better portray the company. While the information might not necessarily be false, the omission of information, such as scandals or lawsuits, can be just as misleading and lead to inaccurate assumptions about a company or firm.

A copyright violation is the use of another's work or idea protected by law without permission. Plagiarism on the other hand is using the work or ideas of another and claiming it as one's own. Public domain indicates intellectual work whose rights have expired or been voided. Fair use on the other hand is another individual's work or ideas that has been copyrighted but is permitted to use without permission by the US government.

Some ways to avoid plagiarism are never copy and paste text, formulate your own ideas based off what you have read, and simply providing citations wherever you can. It is always better to have too many citation than not enough.

What's a Content Gap?

A content gap is a lack of information pertaining to a certain topic. A content gap might arise due to the topic being obscure or less popular and therefor less information about it exists. One way to remedy an existing content gap is to fill in the information if you have a relevant background and experience in the topic. A specialized training in a topic offers a foundation on a topic that the general public lacks. It is important to be unbiased when fixing content gaps on Wikipedia. One must provide all information on a topic to result in an accurate portrayal.

The link for the Engineering Economics journal is not functional at the moment.

Article Evaluation:

Notes on John Charles Lounsbury Fish

• Professor of Civil Engineering at Stanford University
• Author of a variety of works ranging in topics from railroads, engineering economics, drawing and lettering, and surveying
• Exposed to the practice of Civil Engineering at a young age in his home town in Ohio

Notes on Engineering Education North America

• Both Canada and USA have accredited engineering education programs
• Canada offers 4 year accredited bachelors degrees as well as 3 year diplomas which can achieve licensure via examination
• In the USA typical bachelor program lasts 4 years with 2 years of core courses and 2 years of specialized courses
• In the USA most bachelor degrees end with a cumulative project
• 4 years of training after receiving the bachelors degree is required to become a PE in the USA
• Continual education is required to keep one's license in the USA
• Mines engineering was one of the first disciplines to be taught in Mexico

Notes on Transport Economics

• "The allocation of resources within the transportation sector"
• Estimating the supply and demand of transportation facilities is more complicated than other industries due to vastly different choices made within the system
• Expanding capacity of existing transport infrastructure often doesn't relieve congestion as a new demand is induced
• People tend to see owning a personal car as a goal which puts more strain on infrastructure than public transportation
• Bicycles can increase household income by 35%