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Quality Planning in Engineering Education: Analysis of Alternative Implementations of a New First‐Year Curriculum at Texas A&M University
Author(s) -
FournierBonilla Sheila D.,
Watson Karan L.,
Malavé César
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/j.2168-9830.2000.tb00531.x
Subject(s) - plan (archaeology) , implementation , curriculum , quality (philosophy) , strategic planning , quality function deployment , set (abstract data type) , task (project management) , engineering management , process management , process (computing) , computer science , management science , function (biology) , engineering , systems engineering , operations management , software engineering , management , value engineering , pedagogy , sociology , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , evolutionary biology , biology , economics , history , programming language , operating system
In general terms, traditional strategic planning may be described as a mechanism for generating a set of targets and approaches for achieving the established purpose of an organization. For it to be effective, a strategic plan must serve as the basis for creating a set of well‐defined operations that align with the organizational goals and strategies. Because the task of generating an effective plan requires knowledge, time, patience, and persistence, not all organizations are prepared to devote the time and energy that is required to produce a meaningful plan. It is the intent of this paper to describe an approach to quality planning which was used to make major curricular changes in the first‐year engineering education program at Texas A&M University. The planners' intention in this instance was to apply quality function deployment matrices, systems engineering concepts, quality management principles, and multi‐attribute utility analysis to the evaluation of curriculum alternatives in an effort to make the planning process less complex and more systematic.