ABET Foundation Ceases Consulting Sevices

At the insistence of ABET Inc., the ABET Foundation was forced to cease its ABET preparation consulting services. Institutions that sought assistance in preparing for ABET accreditation went to the ABET Foundation to contract for highly qualified and vetted consultants, most of who were former commissioners of their respective ABET commissions. This move is sending shock waves throughout the community of academic programs who use this service to understand their programs' compliance with ABET criteria before an ABET accreditation visit. It was one more step taken by these programs toward continuous improvement that the ABET criteria require. The Foundation provided professional consulting services which helped the academic community immensely. It was a service that was in high demand and over its short 8 years in existence helped hundreds of programs both within the US and outside of it. 

Assessment Advantage is quite sorry to see this widely used service end and encourages ABET Inc. to reconsider allowing the ABET Foundation to provide these vital consulting services. In the meantime, Assessment Advantage commits to fulfilling the same role that the ABET Foundation played, by being a one stop organization for providing highly qualified consultants, with the same fee structure and policies that were in place with the ABET Foundation.

Assessment Advantage expands its services

In addition to accreditation services, Assessment Advantage is now able to provide engineering services and program management consulting to government and industry clients through the addition of experienced subject matter experts in the areas of aircraft design, structures, crashworthiness, aerodynamics, aircraft performance, software integration processes, business operations, program management and process improvement. We are now able to serve government agencies and commercial companies to help technically or with managing of programs and processes. All of our principals have over 20 years of experience in their field of expertise. Tapping experience helps smooth out the ups and downs of program execution and provides a resource to forcast potential future pitfalls. Drawing on technical exdperience aids in identifying technical risks at an early stage so that early cost-effective mitgation action can be taken before it becomes a costly mistake to undo.

While the technical consulting is more focused on aerospace/defense, software processes, program management and process improvement services can be applied over a wide range of programs and projects. We always begin by assessing where you are so that we can help negotiate the path to where you want to be. We look forward to a new set of challenges in the future.

Workshops at Chitkara University and Anurag Group of Institutions, India

 

  

In early February, Assessment Advantage presented workshops on ABET processes and assessment under the sponsorship of IUCEE at two locations in India. The first took place at Chitkara University, Chandigarh and the second workshop was presented at the Anurag Group of Institutions in Hyderabad. Both workshops were attended by faculty members from each region who were keenly interested in the ABET accreditation process and learning assessment techniques. Their very active participation spawned lively discussions that always helped clarify key points. The hospitality shown by both universities to the participants and to Assessment Advantage further contributed to the overall success of the workshops. These kinds of efforts will help faculties understand the US accreditation process and whether or not they desire to pursue that level of endorsement of their programs, they received tools and techniques that can still be applied to their programs for continuous improvement.

Another Solution to the Assessment Dilemma

One sees many articles in publications extolling the virtues of assessment as a better tool to measure student learning than the traditional course grades that a student receives. Why is this? Two recent commentaries in the Chronicle of Higher Education (March 4, 2011) Let’s Close the Gap Between Teaching and Assessing, and Why Do I Like Assessment? Let Me Count the Ways discuss why assessment is a powerful and meaningful approach to measuring what students learn in a course. The authors of both commentaries state that developing a good assessment approach involves thinking about what the students need from the course, the learning objectives, and how they relate to needs of constituents. If these learning objectives are developed in advance, as they should be, and the course is built around them, one can be more assured that the students are apt to learn the “right” things. What a student needs to be successful in today’s work force involves more than the traditional disciplinary facts. Without a plan to teach and satisfy these needs, students may not be getting what their future employers expect from them. Text books do not always address these needs, focusing mainly on the facts and solving problems, yet courses are traditionally built around the text book. Yes, as the authors of both commentaries state, the assessment approach takes more work to plan, execute and evaluate. But the payoff is great, because you instantly have a better understanding of what your students are getting from your course or your program and you can make improvements and adjustments along the way.

Many programs go through the motions of developing and implementing an assessment program, simply because it is required by the accreditation agency. This is the wrong motivation and leads to a poorly executed process yielding poor or irrelevant results. Faculty members become disgruntled and unsupportive. Besides the motivation, how many faculty members are schooled in assessment techniques? How many assessment tools are based on student opinion? And as the commentary authors point out, this added task on the faculty members does not earn them more compensation, nor does it help advance to tenure or promotion. It takes time away from what is “important” in that regard.

The authors make a great case for outsourcing assessment. A company with the expertise to develop a tailored assessment process working with your faculty (not one size fits all) and then doing the bulk of the assessment work, documentation and reporting, frees up faculty members to accomplish what is “important” to them. At the same time, the important task of assessment is accomplished by experts with the faculty remaining in charge of all decisions regarding the process and improvement. At Assessment Advantage we do just that.

So, the problem the commentary authors point out - that assessment is good and necessary if done well, but faculty members have very practical reasons for paying it lip service - has another solution rather than trying to rally the troops. Outsource the work task to experts while keeping the decision making with the faculty.

Links to commentaries:

http://chronicle.com/article/Lets-Close-the-Gap-Between/126499/

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-I-Like-Assessment/126498/

Quality Control of Your Engineering Programs

Continuous improvement became a requirement for accreditation of engineering programs by listening to the needs of industry who by and large were the users of the engineering graduates. All manufacturing companies and many companies that provide engineering services practice quality control of their product. The existence of their business depends on consumers buying and continuing to buy. It used to be that armies of inspectors examined each product item to ensure it met specifications. This added cost and time to the production process. Today, organizations like ISO have refocused quality to look at the process that produces the product. If the process is defined and followed, the resulting product should meet specifications and only spot checking is required. The quality organization is smaller and refocused, resulting in less cost and less time added to manufacturing while enhancing quality.

From this culture then, industry wanted quality control implemented in the academic environment. They wanted engineering programs to understand the needs of the community that hired their graduates and they wanted a mechanism in place that identified when those needs were not being met so that corrective action could be taken. But unlike industry, engineering programs or engineering colleges did not possess a quality organization. It does not make economic sense! So it was left up to faculty members, already over tasked, with little or no training and perhaps with a biased view, to check the quality of their own work!

Assessment of engineering programs is not a full time job. But a viable assessment process must be established, documented, routinely conducted with an independent view and results published so that action can be taken to improve the program as necessary. What makes sense is to outsource this task to an organization that specializes in academic assessment, is familiar with ABET accreditation processes and understands continuous improvement in an academic environment. Continuous improvement is so important that it has become a corner stone of engineering accreditation. Contract with an expert do it for you!