Abet Best Practices: Results From Interviews With 27 Peer Institutions

ABET2000 criteria permit a variety of approaches to assessment. While this flexibility allows each institution the freedom to develop practices best suited to its particular circumstances, such flexibility can also create doubt whether the assessment practices employed will be found to be satisfactory by ABET evaluators. As the College of Engineering & Applied Science at CUBoulder prepares for a fall 2005 ABET General Review of all of its programs, a number of peer institutions and knowledgeable experts were interviewed to gather information about “best practices” in the field of assessment and accreditation. This article summarizes data collected from telephone interviews with thirty-three individuals from twenty-seven institutions. Twenty questions asked respondents about their measurement methods for objectives and outcomes (advisory board input, alumni surveys, senior surveys, portfolios, FE exam, etc.), methods for engaging faculty and rewarding ABET coordinators, degree of college oversight, and methods for ensuring that a continuous improvement process is in place. The resulting data reflect a clear commitment to assessment and continual improvement on the part of virtually every respondent. Taken as a whole, these data provide a catalog of potential best practices. The data also reflect the difficulty in creating accurate and meaningful evaluation measures of highly subjective criteria.