Quality assurance for engineering education in a changing world

• Autores: Winfred M. Phillips, George D. Peterson, Kathryn B. Aberle
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 16, no. Extra 2, 2000 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Accreditation and Quality Assurance ), págs. 97-103
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Faster computer chips, corporate mergers, new Internet applications: every day, we are reminded ofthe sweeping technological change and globalization that appear to be dominant trends of the newmillennium. Rapid and multifaceted, these changes can be daunting to engineering educators.Unable to predict so volatile a future, we nonetheless have to make decisions today about what toteach future engineers and how to prepare them for an increasingly international workplace withoutcompromising the hard-won quality of our programs. Fortunately, we have an organizationdedicated to ensuring the quality and relevancy of engineering education in the US ± and,increasingly, to helping engineering education programs in other countries strive for goals similarto our own. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, or ABET, is a federation of28 professional engineering and technical societies that accredits some 1,500 engineering programs,700 engineering technology programs and 50 programs in engineering-related areas. To receiveABET accreditation, engineering programs must go through a rigorous examination that includesself-study and peer review by a visiting team of engineering academicians and professionalengineers.Founded in 1932, ABET significantly boosted the quality and credibility of US engineeringprograms, but some raised concerns that its rigorous criteria also resulted in too much standard-ization of engineering programs. In response, ABET has launched a revolutionary make-over of itsaccreditation procedure aimed at facilitating innovation and creativity. Engineering Criteria 2000,or EC2000, changes the emphasis of the accreditation evaluation from what is taught to what islearned. Administrators will have more leeway in how they set up programs and teachers will havemore freedom in what they choose to teach and when, but the results in terms of studentachievement will have to be top flight. EC2000 also improves the accreditation procedure inother ways. It requires programs, for example, to show evidence graduates are prepared for the jobmarket. It also requires programs to set in motion a continuous improvement process. Following athree-year period for the procedure to be phased in, ABET will evaluate that all programs under theprocedure in 2001. Although it is a major undertaking, ABET's endeavors are far from limited toEC2000. With new technologies such as robotics and so-called `nano machines' in medicine,traditional engineering disciplines and the applied sciences are becoming increasingly blurred.ABET recently recognized this trend by expanding its mission to include accreditation of appliedscience programs. Following an agreement with the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board,ABET will have a new commission to accredit computing science programs in 2001.ABET's most far-reaching work, however, is on the international level. The organization isworking closely with engineering societies and educators in many countries to help them developaccreditation procedures similar to the ones ABET uses, such as peer review. This effort hasresulted in, among other things, memoranda of understanding with organizations in severalcountries, including Argentina and France. Other countries with equivalent accreditation pro-cedures, meanwhile, have an agreement known as the Washington Accord that allows forrecognition that their basic engineering education meets similar standards. These countries areAustralia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and theUS. With engineers working across oceans and continents on a widening scope of projects, thequality and relevancy of engineering education is more important than ever. ABET will continue tostrive to keep the bar high