Abstract
<span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><strong>Academic accreditation of degree programs is becoming an important mean for many institutions to improve the quality of their degree programs. Many programs, in particular computing and engineering, offered by many schools have engaged in the accreditation process with different accreditation bodies. The most known accreditation body in the Unites States of America for engineering, computing, technology, and applied science programs is ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). A key problem towards the satisfaction of ABET accreditation criteria is the appropriate definition and assessment of program educational objectives for a specific degree program. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Program Educational Objectives are important as they represent the ultimate mean to judge the quality of a program. They related directly to student outcomes and curriculum of a degree program. We propose a set of guidelines to help understand how program educational objectives can be defined and assessed. We relate and use examples from our practical experience acquired while working on the ABET accreditation of a Software Engineering progra</strong></span>
Highlights
Accreditation of academic programs is a peer-reviewed and voluntary process used by academia to assess and evaluate the quality of their degree programs
We discussed in this paper some guidelines related to the definition and assessment of program educational objectives for ABET accreditation by focusing on computing and engineering programs
program educational objectives (PEO) have a link with student outcomes as well as with curriculum; the importance of defining and assessing them correctly
Summary
Accreditation of academic programs is a peer-reviewed and voluntary process used by academia to assess and evaluate the quality of their degree programs. General criteria, applicable to all programs in a category (e.g. Engineering programs), include students, program educational objectives (PEO), student outcomes (SO), assessment and continuous improvement, curriculum, faculty, facilities, and institutional support. We discuss the definition and assessment of program educational objectives by considering engineering and computing programs. In addition program educational objectives have a direct link with student outcomes and curriculum of a degree program. We discuss, the links between program educational objectives and student outcomes as well as with curriculum and show an example of mapping between them. We focus after defined program educational objectives and mapped them with the institutional mission and the student outcomes, on the assessment of attainment of program educational objectives and discuss which assessment instruments and processes can be applied, and show some analysis and improvement actions from a software engineering program. We, conclude the paper by summarizing the main ideas underlining the definition and assessment of program educational objectives
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