Undergraduate program accreditation for undergraduate engineering programs is challenging to faculty. Departments are required to accumulate data and then apply measures to both their outcomes and objectives in their program. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, ABET, is an accreditation organization for college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. The quality of engineering programs has become a fundamental issue in the educational system in the United States. Accreditation confirms that the institution or the program meets minimum quality criteria. ABET has become more important when licensure is required in many states for engineers to practice. According to information provided in ABET website, "Many state board of professional licensure in engineering and surveying require applicants to have graduated from an ABET-accredited program. In states where non-ABET graduates are permitted to be licensed, an additional four to eight years of work experience may be required." ABET provides a sets of goals and objectives for accreditation and evaluates and certifies the engineering related education. In order to prepare for an evaluation of their program, the faculty develops a methodology of assessing the performance with respect to outcomes and objectives that are defined in ABET criteria. Each engineering program develops its objectives and performs internal evaluation to meet ABET criteria. Sources in literature describe different approaches and present various tools to design effective processes for evaluating engineering education and to satisfy ABET criteria. Miller and Olds introduce an evaluation matrix which provides performance criteria, implementation strategies, and evaluation methods. (Olds 1998) Owen, Scales, and Leonard explain the importance of creating a database of outcome indicators for engineering programs. There are many other sources in the literature describing different techniques to create surveys for measuring success and providing strategies to integrate assessment and evaluation into engineering education [Owen 1999]. Besides the sources in literature, experiences of institutions when they were accredited provide various approaches. The United States Military Academy (USMA) prepared multiple programs for a joint ABET accreditation. They first established the committees for each department and developed cross-program reviews. The cross-program review helped them to identify problem areas and make to correction early.
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