Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association

Contents

Executive Summary

1. Criteria 2000: A Long Term View

2. Process for Transition: The Institution Perspective

3. Transition Problems and Suggested Solutions

4. Examples: Satisfying the Criteria

5. Complying with the Criteria: Problems Encountered

6. An Opportunity for Improvement

7. ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 Merits NEEDHA Cooperation

Copyright (c) 1997 National Electrical Engineering Department Heads Association

Executive Summary

Accreditation of higher education institutions and programs is, to one degree or another, seen as part of the background of higher education -- a background that may be necessary but is not part of the core of the academic enterprise. For engineering educators, accreditation is closely coupled with ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Recently ABET has looked carefully at itself: at what it does and how it does it. The results of this work are embodied in the document ABET Engineering Criteria 2000. The intense and far reaching study which preceded ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 focused on four issues:

1. the current accreditation criteria are too long and encourage a rigid, bean counting approach that stifles innovation,
2. the current accreditation process demands excessive time commitments,
3. accreditation visits occur too frequently,
4. the demands of ABET participation limit the volunteers seeking ABET leadership roles.

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 seeks to change the focus from external, end-item inspection to development and implementation of internal assessment and evaluation processes to assure that program quality is sustained and enhanced. This casts the visiting team and the institution into cooperative rather than adversarial roles

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 provides a necessary part of the new accreditation structure, but additional parts are needed. This new structure will seem as different from what we have known in the past as the new criteria differ from the previous criteria. Under ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, visits serve to evaluate the processes, methods, and practices within a program in the context of institutional program goals. Similarly, so must the Self-Study Report describe the assessment process and what the process shows about the program, student learning, and continuous improvement of the program.

These and other changes in the ABET accreditation process require different approaches and skills on part of the ABET Team Chairs and Program Evaluators and necessitates revised selection procedures along with different orientation and training for these volunteers. Likewise, changes must occur in the understanding and involvement of deans, department heads/chairs, and faculty regarding the accreditation process. Full development and implementation of the new accreditation process requires support, encouragement, and participation from many parts of the engineering education enterprise.

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 places more emphasis on what students have learned than on what they are taught. These criteria offer a fundamentally new approach to the accreditation of engineering programs, and imply rather substantial changes in the way we deliver engineering education. This suggests a substantial initial transition effort and initial transition time for each institution. It is important for the faculty in each program to give significant thought to this initial transition. Even after the new approaches stimulated by ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 are implemented within a program and the "transition" phase is completed, change will persist.

The underlying philosophy of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 is very different from that of the previous criteria; even the vocabulary is different. Hence it is quite reasonable to anticipate and prepare for some problems in the initial implementation of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000.

In approaching the new criteria we must think broadly about the means by which students and graduates demonstrate their accomplishments. It is important to recognize that the overall educational process is a system with many components, and that each criterion need not (and often will not) be addressed by a single, isolated educational activity.

Based on the comments of a number of engineering educators who have reviewed ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, some real or perceived problems in complying with the criteria have been identified. They fall into four broad categories:

1. resources,
2. complexity,
3. scope, and
4. time scale.

The new accreditation process and structure anchored by ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 offers an opportunity for continuing and long term improvement of engineering education programs. The new criteria expect each engineering program to place a high priority on meeting the needs of its students, prospective employers, and other stakeholders who depend on the engineering college. This offers opportunities not only for engineering colleges but also for NEEDHA.

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 recognizes the diversity of engineering education along with the strength this brings, and represents the culmination of a substantial process of study and consultation with diverse stakeholders. ABET is now drafting the guidelines and process for the Self-Study and visit. These parts of the structure are vital to the success of the overall effort, and they merit similar breadth of involvement and energy in their construction.

NEEDHA Committee on Accreditation Issues
Edward W. Ernst
Barry J. Farbrother
John A. Orr
Paul Penfield, Jr.
Roger P. Webb
Sherra E. Kerns, chair

The NEEDHA Committee on Accreditation Issues has prepared this document for the NEEDHA membership. The Committee intends the document to provide background and perspective about the accreditation of engineering education, particularly with respect to the major changes inherent in ABET Engineering Criteria 2000.

This document was approved by the NEEDHA Board of Directors, August 29, 1997.

1. Criteria 2000: A Long Term View

Accreditation of higher education institutions and programs is, to one degree or another, seen as part of the background of higher education -- a background that may be necessary but is not part of the core of the academic enterprise. As such it is often the focus for controversy, seen as fulfilling a necessary function by some and peripheral at best by others. Several years ago one of the opinion columns in the Chronicle of Higher Education offered the bold statement that accreditation was the principal agent for quality assurance in higher education. For engineering educators, accreditation is closely coupled with ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. ABET has a history of more than sixty years, tracing its origins to 1932 as ECPD, the Engineer's Council for Professional Development. For most of its sixty plus years ABET has been continually changing as it sought continuous improvement through a process of incremental change.

Recently, ABET has looked carefully at itself: at what it does and how it does it. The results of this work are embodied in the document ABET Engineering Criteria 2000. The changes suggested by this document are clearly not in the "continually changing -- incremental change -- continuous improvement" mode. Rather, they are significant changes both in what ABET does and in how it does it. ABET is changing from its role of assuring minimum standards in engineering education to a broader role of stimulating quality improvement. The intense and far reaching study which preceded ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 condensed a large amount of concern, discussion, thought, understanding, and foresight to focus on four issues and the responses proposed for consideration by ABET and the engineering education community. The four issues -- concerns and criticism of the present process -- can be stated briefly:

Issue 1: The current accreditation criteria are too long and by their very nature encourage a rigid, bean-counting approach that stifles innovation, even though the EAC sincerely tries to avoid this.

Issue 2: The current accreditation process:

1. makes excessive time demands on commission members and program evaluators;
2. includes multiple levels of inspection (editing) that delay the process and may distort visiting team findings;
3. forces the EAC, the Engineering Accreditation Committee of ABET, to deal with massive amounts of information in a limited time, placing undue weight on isolated phrases in the Statement to the Institution, and the effectiveness of the Team Chair presentation;
4. provides only limited opportunity for productive dialogue between the institution and the visiting team in resolving differences and correcting deficiencies;
5. offers the institution no opportunity to appeal to an independent body except for denial of accreditation.

Issue 3: Accreditation visits occur too frequently, and place unproductive time burdens on the institutions under evaluation.

Issue 4: It is difficult to attract technically active, mid-career professionals from industry or education to leadership roles in the accreditation process because of:

1. excessive time demands;
2. lack of recognition for accreditation work in the reward structure of many major industrial employers and (especially research) universities; and
3. the lengthy service on professional society committees required before one is invited to serve in an accreditation leadership role.

The responses the study has proposed to these issues have been both general and specific. In general, they seek to change the focus from external, end-item inspection to development and implementation of internal assessment and evaluation processes to assure that program quality is sustained and enhanced. This casts the visiting team and the institution into cooperative rather than adversarial roles. The response recognizes that the volunteer-intensive nature of the ABET process has been a source of strength but the changes needed require different training and experience for these volunteers if they are to meet the demands of the new ABET posture. The proposed responses allow more flexibility in the way we educate undergraduate engineers and allow undergraduates to study a wider variety of technical and liberal arts subjects as they pursue an engineering degree. They recognize the diversity of engineering education along with the strength this brings and the changes proposed should help to increase both the diversity and the strength.

By adopting ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, the ABET Board of Directors has moved ABET engineering accreditation to the forefront of the movement to change the way we approach quality assurance and accountability for higher education in the United States. ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 calls for engineering schools to adopt a continuous quality improvement posture and to more formally accept their central role in assuring the quality of the education they offer.

Accountability in higher education has two modes: external and internal. External accountability provides evidence and assurance, largely to outside audiences, that, at a minimum, basic educational responsibilities implicit in the degrees awarded and the broad mission of the institution are being accomplished. Internal accountability is campus-centered and focuses on accomplishment of the specific academic aspects of the mission along with implementation concerns. ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 guides engineering colleges in meeting their needs in both modes. The criteria provide both a guide and a stimulus to put in place an assessment process and an assessment culture for internal accountability and continuous program improvement. Similarly, the criteria guide the colleges in the use of outcome measures for external accountability. External accountability and internal accountability are linked.

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 provides a necessary but not sufficient part of the accreditation structure; it does not by itself change the way ABET accredits engineering programs. Alone, these new criteria cannot/will not provide adequate response to the concerns and criticisms of the present process -- issues one through four in the preceding paragraphs. For the ABET leadership the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 represents -- necessarily -- the first and most visible part of the new accreditation structure. Much of the remaining accreditation structure must be changed in ways that will seem as different from what we have known in the past as the new criteria differ from the previous criteria.

Under ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, evaluator visits will focus on the processes for creating and assessing particular educational programs at an institution. The focus of a visit will not be on what students know and when they learned it, but rather on how a program's educational processes embody its goals, and on how assessment methods and metrics are used to assure that programs improve over time. While student work products can serve as evidence of some aspects of the educational process, the visit is not an end-item inspection of graduates. The visit serves to evaluate the processes, methods and practices within a program in the context of institutional program goals. As the visit focuses on the assessment process, so must the Self-Study Report describe the assessment process and what that process shows about the program, student learning, and continuous improvement of the program.

The new accreditation process will emphasize even more than at the present the need for more dialog between the team and the institution, both before and after the visit. Both oral and written dialog should be designed to clarify meaning, to correct misunderstandings, and to reduce the time demands on all parties.

These and other changes in the ABET accreditation process require different approaches and skills on part of the ABET Team Chairs and Program Evaluators and necessitate revised selection procedures along with different orientation and training for these volunteers. Likewise, changes must occur in the understanding and involvement of deans, department heads/chairs, and faculty regarding the accreditation process. They must enlarge their knowledge of ABET: what it does, how it does it, and what they must do to satisfy ABET criteria and benefit from the accreditation process.

ABET has chosen to develop these and other aspects of the accreditation process based on ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 through a pilot program with selected institutions. Again, for developing the new accreditation structure, the pilot studies are necessary but not sufficient. Full development and implementation require support, encouragement, and participation from many parts of the engineering education enterprise including: deans, department heads/chairs, faculty, industry supporters, and ABET Participating Bodies.

Within broad limits, each engineering school is expected to define its role, its unique place in the spectrum of engineering education. This includes describing the goals and objectives for the education programs they offer and, equally important, implementation of an assessment process to determine how well these goals and objectives are met. The criteria also ask the schools to use the assessment for continuous improvement of the quality of the programs. The ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 process anticipates a cooperative relationship.

2. Process for Transition: The Institution Perspective

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 places more emphasis on what students have learned than on what they are taught. These criteria offer a fundamentally new approach to the accreditation of engineering programs, and imply rather substantial changes in the way we deliver engineering education. There is a large pedagogical difference between conventional course-based engineering education (i.e. one based on "topics covered") and an outcomes-based approach. Moreover, ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 mandates assessment related to a broad range of outcomes. Resource and time limitations (for both institutions and students) will probably require some substitution of new approaches and methods for existing methods, rather than a simple addition of outcomes assessment to the status quo. This suggests a substantial initial transition effort and initial transition time for each institution. It is important for the faculty in each program to give significant thought to a plan for this initial transition, and to make the plan explicit to ABET.

Items to be addressed in the initial transition plan:

1. Recognize that ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 implies changes in the way we deliver engineering education, not just an addition (more assessment and/or more curricular content) to the status quo.
2. Recognize that process impacts designing, assessing, and evaluating the educational program. Thus we should presume visits conducted during the transition period will include a review of the transition process at the institution.
3. Recognize that this process itself must be designed and implemented, and that several groups of people will be involved (such as faculty who deliver the program, students, alumni, employers, college and university-wide administrators and committees).
4. Develop institutional and program-specific educational objectives, and gain any needed faculty and/or administrative approvals for these objectives.
5. Coordinate these institutional and program objectives with ABET Engineering Criteria 2000. Identify the ways in which the existing programs and processes do not match ABET Engineering Criteria 2000.
6. Adopt program educational objectives and map these onto ABET Engineering Criteria 2000; consider formalizing some of these objectives as degree requirements.
7. Modify the curriculum, courses and projects as necessary to address the objectives; provide opportunities for students to demonstrate appropriate outcomes (and to provide assessment data). At each stage, specific aspects will be modified. Note that as new aspects are added some previous academic components will no doubt be removed because they are not relevant to the program objectives and because academic programs must continue to fit within a four-year framework.
8. Identify appropriate individual measures (attributable to specific students and potentially usable as degree requirements) and group measures (not attributable to specific students, such as anonymous surveys).
9. Consider how conventional grades (ABCDF) may be related to measures of outcomes that represent achievement of educational objectives.
10. Consider means for integrating extra-curricular aspects that address ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, and define assessment measures.
11. Develop a plan to test and validate the outcomes assessment process.
12. Develop a transition time schedule.

3. Transition Problems and Suggested Solutions

The underlying philosophy of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 is very different from that of the previous criteria; even the vocabulary is different. Hence it is quite reasonable to anticipate and prepare for some problems in the initial implementation of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000. The following list identifies some of these likely problems:

1. The need to understand the meaning and implication of each criterion and the need to understand the implications of specific word choices in ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 (i.e. for example, the academic and assessment differences between "understand" vs "ability to apply").
2. The transition from "weakest link" requirements (i.e. that all students must satisfy all criteria) to a system in which these are neither feasible nor desirable.
3. The time scale for implementation and validation of new approaches. Planning and initial implementation require a minimum of two years with at least six years for complete implementation and demonstration of results by alumni. Such changes will be ongoing.
4. Resource issues, including the cost of implementing outcomes assessment and the educational process approach which implies significant and continuous faculty involvement in program assessment and improvement.
5. The need for Program Criteria to follow the philosophy of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 while also identifying the specific defining characteristics of a successful graduate of each program (i.e. that set of specific knowledge/skills/etc. which define an "electrical engineer").

The following recommendations are made to assist in the transition to ABET Engineering Criteria 2000:

1. The primary focus during the transition should be on the implementation of the new process, rather than on the extent to which students have been shown to satisfy each of the new criteria.
2. The focus by ABET in their visit reports and accreditation actions should be on recommendations for program improvement rather than the present focus on the presence or absence of deficiencies.
3. Program Evaluators and Team Chairs must recognize the lead-time for considering, approving, implementing and assessing educational changes. It is unrealistic to assume that programs can or will instantly adapt to the new criteria when they become official.

4. Examples: Satisfying the Criteria

In approaching the new criteria we must think broadly about the means by which students and graduates demonstrate their accomplishments. It is important to recognize that the overall educational process is a system with many components, and that each criterion need not (and often will not) be addressed by a single, isolated educational activity. While the means of achieving the desired competencies are varied, the means by which those competencies will be demonstrated are even more varied, ranging from conventional exams to reports of post-BS activities. Further, not all students need to demonstrate a given educational outcome via the same measures. For example, some students might demonstrate oral communications abilities via capstone project presentations, while others might demonstrate them via assessments conducted in a course on communications skills. Of course, the system which identifies and tracks the outcomes and assessments must be in place. Another important aspect is to differentiate between assessment tools which measure overall success of the program regarding a specific objective, and measures which are used to monitor the performance of individual students with respect to graduation requirements. Both will be important and useful in reports to ABET and in monitoring and improving the program, but they are quite different from the students' points of view!

The following list of means for demonstrating that the criteria have been satisfied, although incomplete, may stimulate the addition of other means to the list.

1. Conventional exams
2. Oral and written presentations with formal assessment of the presentation
3. Student portfolios with evaluation of their contents
4. Other student-centered information, such as educational goals developed by each student, periodic student reviews of progress toward their goals
5. Periodic, comprehensive departmental reviews of student work (such as capstone project reports) against departmental and ABET requirements
6. Processed data from several sources to demonstrate meeting one goal. For example, success regarding the ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams might be demonstrated by outcomes of role-playing activities in a social science or management course, together with teamwork skills learned in an introductory design course, and actual design practice in a senior project.
7. Nationally-normed exams
8. Student surveys and results from other assessment tools such as interviews and focus groups
9. Input from Advisory Committees
10. Alumni surveys
11. Input from employers
12. Data on alumni career paths. It must be recognized that our graduates' "success" is truly measured by each graduate, and not by income level, job title, or career path inside or outside of engineering.

5. Complying with the Criteria: Problems Encountered

Based on the comments of a number of engineering educators who have reviewed ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, some real or perceived problems in complying with the criteria have been identified. They fall into four broad issues:

1. Resources: for faculty and administration, the need for additional resources, including faculty time, both to implement responses to some of the new criteria and to the substantial assessment and program improvement process. For students, the need to fit the new educational objectives into a four-year program, either by displacing current academic content or by gaining efficiency in some way.
2. Complexity: the apparent difficulty of gathering specific data and assessing student accomplishment of some of the criteria.
3. Scope: Some academic aspects of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 could be accomplished in educational activities outside of the engineering science and design component, implying coordination with and approval by non-engineering faculty and administrators. This is certainly feasible, but adds to the implementational complexity.
4. Time Scale: While it is important for engineering education to learn how to respond quickly to the need for change, some time lags (such as the four year time to degree) are inherent in the system, and necessitate a significant initial transition period. Further, the effects of the ongoing changes associated with ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 will follow, with significant time delay, the changes in the program.

6. An Opportunity for Improvement

The new accreditation process and structure anchored by ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 offers engineering education an opportunity for continuing and long term improvement of engineering education programs.

The new criteria require that a process for continuous quality improvement be put in place. Further, they expect each engineering program to place a high priority on meeting the needs of its students, prospective employers, and other stakeholders who depend on the engineering college. Thus, improvement of the quality of the program depends less on emulating the program of another college than on evolving a program that serves the needs of the stakeholders.

In seeking long term improvement for engineering education, the new criteria and the new ABET accreditation process offer other related, perhaps more specific opportunities.

• Criterion 3 requires that, "...Each program must have an assessment process with documented results... The assessment process must demonstrate that the outcomes important to the mission of the institution and the objectives of the program ... are being measured..." The criteria provide an opportunity to implement an outcomes assessment process that serves as a basis for better program accountability and program improvement. Present ABET criteria ask what you teach -- what the courses cover; the new ABET criteria ask what students learn. These require ways of assessing these learning outcomes.

• Criterion 3 also requires that, "...Evidence must be given that the results (of the assessment process) are applied to the further development and improvement of the program..." thus, ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 offers an opportunity for each engineering program to develop and implement a continuous improvement culture. Improving engineering education programs should not be regarded as something new. However, much of the program improvement of the past has focused on improving the technical content mixture of the curriculum. The new criteria expect improvement in other arenas as well. (Note the first part of Criterion 3.) Further, improvement in all areas is to be assessed by examining the outcomes -- what students have learned -- rather than the process -- what the curriculum covers. Thus, this provides an opportunity for coupling curricular changes to expected outcomes.

• With ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 in place as the keystone for the ABET accreditation structure, developing the process required for the new accreditation structure will require support, encouragement, and participation from many sectors. This provides an opportunity for the chairs/heads of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering departments to provide crucial leadership needed for making the change to the new accreditation structure. As noted previously, ABET Team Chairs and Program Evaluators will require orientation and training different from that offered in the past. Many of the new Program Evaluators and Team Chairs will not be persons experienced in the previous process. Department chairs/heads should take this opportunity to encourage and support faculty (perhaps themselves) to seek the orientation and training to become Program Evaluators and, eventually, Team Chairs. Similarly, the department chairs/heads should take the opportunity to seek orientation and guidance about making the program changes needed to comply with ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 and follow this with a process for making the changes in their departments.

• NEEDHA itself has a unique opportunity to help and support NEEDHA members as they seek to make the change to accreditation under ABET Engineering Criteria 2000. This support could take many forms, including: workshops for chairs/heads and faculty, consultants for departments, and sharing information among NEEDHA members about outcomes measures used.

7. ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 Merits NEEDHA Cooperation

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 is a bold step forward allowing ABET to aid the engineering colleges that comprise our diverse engineering education enterprise as they pursue continuing improvement in the quality of the education they offer their students. These criteria allow more flexibility in the way we educate undergraduate engineering students and allow undergraduates to study a wider variety of technical and liberal arts subjects as they pursue an engineering degree. ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 recognizes the diversity of engineering education along with the strength this brings. These changes should help to increase both the diversity and the strength of engineering education and our profession.

These new criteria form the keystone of a new ABET accreditation structure. This structure differs greatly from what the engineering education enterprise has used in the past. The ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 document represents the culmination of a substantial process of study and consultation with diverse stakeholders. The guidelines and process for the Self-Study and visit under ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 are now being drafted. These aspects are vital to success of the overall effort, and they merit similar breadth of involvement and energy in their construction. We now recognize that new, more effective models of engineering education require a new relationship between ABET and the engineering programs seeking accreditation. ABET's unique position can help these programs assess, evaluate, and continuously improve their educational effectiveness; this requires a cooperative relationship with shared objectives.

Obstacles and impediments appear frequently along the pathway to change. The concept of self-evaluation and continuous improvement is foreign to the academic culture, and engineering faculty, department chairs/heads, and deans must learn and grow if they are to successfully apply these concepts to their programs. ABET must set high standards for the effectiveness of institutional processes, and some programs may not be able to meet them. However in the final analysis, ABET's role may be like that of a truly dedicated faculty member who sets high standards for student achievement and then does all that can be done to help students meet the standards.

In implementing the new accreditation structure anchored by ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, overcoming the obstacles and impediments will be greatly aided by the cooperation of the department chairs. Recognizing this, NEEDHA has established the Committee on Accreditation Issues. The charge to this committee includes facilitating cooperation between NEEDHA members and ABET and others interested in the accreditation of engineering programs.

NEEDHA Committee on Accreditation Issues
Edward W. Ernst
Barry J. Farbrother
John A. Orr
Paul Penfield, Jr.
Roger P. Webb
Sherra E. Kerns, chair

Author: Accreditation Issues Committee | Created: Aug 29, 1997 | Modified: Dec 15, 2004
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