Electrical and computer engineering are two of the most rapidly changing areas of technology in today's society. Therefore, constantly evaluating and updating our programs is critical to their survival and growth. For several years the department has been applying the concepts of continuous program improvement to our programs. Our efforts in this area have been spurred on by ABET 2000. ABET has outlined a "2-loop" approach to program improvement shown below:
The left loop shows the steps involved in establishing and assessing program objectives; the right loop show how outcomes that support the program's objectives are developed and assessed. The interaction between the loupes assures that the outcome assessment are used to verify that the program's objectives are met.
The first step in establishing a process by which we can continuously improve our programs is to define the objectives for the graduates from our engineering programs. The objectives for the Chico EE and CMPE programs are mapped to the ABET Criteria 3 to show how Chico satisfies the ABET Criteria. Because objectives are defined at a relatively high level, measurable outcomes are have also been defined for each program. A mapping of outcomes to objectives is The objectives and outcomes for the programs are listed on the the Objective and Outcomes page.
After defining the objectives for our two degrees, it was necessary to create a curriculum that supports these objectives. We evaluated each of the courses in our undergraduate program to see how the expected outcomes for the courses supported the program objectives. The relationship between course outcomes and program objectives is shown on the Course Outcomes page.
Defining objectives, outcomes, and assessment methods is a good start toward a continuous improvement program, but processes must be in place to ensure that objectives and outcomes are reviewed, that assessment data is collected and analyzed, and that changes are made to the program when necessary. The process that we have established for our programs is documented on the Process page.
The Implemented Changes shows the results of the continuous improvements. This page gives a brief description of the changes made to the electrical and computer engineering programs along with the reason for the changes. It also indicates how we will measure the impact of the changes in future assessments.
College of Engineering, Computer
Science, & Construction Management
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0003
530-898-5963 webmaster@ecst.csuchico.edu
