Abstract

The National Center for Optics and Photonics Education (OP-TEC) is dedicated to meeting the U.S.’s demand for photonics technicians. A key to meeting this demand is assisting two-year colleges in providing flexible and effective means for preparing these technicians. To this end, OP-TEC has developed a hybrid online course that can be used for multiple purposes, including faculty development, student enrichment, and employee retraining. The online delivery mode and multipurpose capability of this course provide two-year colleges an educational delivery platform that can reach well beyond their local service areas and provide undergraduate students and already employed technicians an opportunity to engage in this technical area. This paper will focus on the use of this course as a tool for retraining technicians who are already employed (“incumbent workers”) by photonics and photonics-related companies. It will explain why these workers are important to meeting the technician demand of U.S photonics employers, present the structure of the course and its components, and describe a recent implementation of the course by Indian Hills Community College, Ottumwa, Iowa, in retraining employees at Mound Laser and Photonics Center in Miamisburg, Ohio.

© 2009 Optical Society of America