Effective, Efficient, Direct Assessment Of Programmatic Outcomes

Western Kentucky University is in the late stages of completing it’s first ever EAC of ABET accreditation process. The self study reports for civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering were submitted in July of 2004, the site visit took place in November of 2004, and the final recommendations of the evaluators will be presented to the ABET board in July of 2005. While a discussion of that visit is not allowed at this time, a mock visit was performed by a former ABET evaluator in the summer of 2004 who found all 3 programs to be in very good shape with respect to meeting the necessary requirements for accreditation. In addition, the entire engineering faculty attended multiple training and working sessions run by Ron Miller and Barbara Olds, both of whom are well known and respected in the area of outcomes assessment, in the early stages of the development of the programmatic objectives and outcomes. This paper will present the method developed to utilize direct assessment of outcomes in an efficient manner in order to eliminate potential problems in the area that most institutions struggle with, which is Criterion 3.