Web-Based Engine for Program Curriculum Designers

Abstract

Educational institutions pay careful attention to the design of program curricula, which represent a framework to meet institutional goals and missions. Of course, the success of any institution depends highly on the quality of its program curriculum. The development of such a curriculum and, more importantly, the evaluation of its quality are complex and time-consuming processes. This traditional approach requires many cumbersome manual iterations, making it a long and error-prone process. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a new curriculum support engine as an alternative approach. The proposed curriculum support engine is a Web-based application that helps in designing any program curriculum in real time. The engine incorporates several important features, allowing the verification of the proposed curriculum coherence and the generation of statistics necessary for academic and accreditation purposes. Useful viewing and editing tools are also provided. The proposed curriculum support engine is flexible and allows additional criteria that the curriculum designer can specify to be incorporated. In particular, the engine covers the Accreditation of Canadian Engineering Programs (CEAB), the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), and the Commission of Academic Accreditation of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of UAE (CAA-UAE).