Abstract

Since the advent of the communication revolution and global Internet system, the rate of creation of new knowledge is increasing at almost a geometric rate in diversity of applied fields. The global competitive economic system is driving everybody to rush into the technology innovation process. This is acutely apparent in all technology fields, and especially, in optics/photonics. Today’s technology knowledge will become almost obsolete tomorrow. Then how do we create lasting textbooks for technicians? Different industry segments use same photonic sciences but for different applications and with different emphasis on different principles. Then how do you create textbooks that are customizable for different industry sectors? Rapid innovation and competition is also creating pressure on technicians to know and learn more with appropriate mathematical foundations that high schools are unable to provide. We will present concepts and ideas on how industries, professional societies and interested individuals can create a “lasting” series of textbooks that are rapidly updateable along with extra, mathematically oriented examples to keep up with the technology changes and quickly customizable for different industry sectors. These concepts evolved through the experience of the NSF supported project, STEP (Science and technology Education in Photonics). The objective of STEP is to create a set of optics/ photonics textbooks for technicians. The first overview text, “Fundamentals of Photonics”, is already under field test. Explore cord.org on the web for more details.

© 2001 Optical Society of America