Developing Assessment Tools For International Experiences In Engineering Education

Many international initiatives have emerged in response to the increasing perception of the need to educate the new engineers with global competencies. Study abroad programs, multinational projects, blended courses with international experiences embedded, new courses in the curriculum about globalization and international research collaboration are some of the activities that are being used to help the students to develop abilities beyond the traditional analytical knowledge to be competitive in the global market. However, there is neither enough data nor formal assessment practices in place to formally evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives in reaching the desired objectives. Additionally, their multinational and multicultural nature make more challenging the evaluation process due to the demanding time and resources. This paper reports a work in progress related to the development of assessment tools for international collaborative initiatives in engineering education. The final goal is to have a set of tools for objective assessment that can be adapted and/or adopted to measure performance, establish effectiveness and enhance quality of different international educational experiences.