National Board Of Accreditation Research Articles

Impact assessment of outcome based approach in engineering education in India

Outcome Based Education is one of the most significant developments in Indian engineering education in recent years. Outcome based approach is a shift of teaching learning paradigm from teacher centric to student centric. Outcome based education has been practiced worldwide since nineteen nineties, In India adoption of OBE was a result of signing Washington Accord. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), apex body for monitoring quality of engineering education in India has made it mandatory as a part of accreditation. The positive results of implementing OBE in engineering education are inevitable but whether the faculty members are prepared to implement the strategy is the question to be answered. This paper discusses the impact assessment OBE in the Indian engineering education. The study is carried out through a survey. The observations are encouraging, the concept of OBE in terms of curriculum design, delivery, assessment, evaluation and reflection is penetrating in the Engineering education in India but still trainings in certain aspects are required.

Enhancing Attainment of Graduate Attributes through Data Mining

Graduate Attributes (GAs) in outcome-based education (OBE) are a major concern of the stakeholders, especially students, which are to be assessed during their academics. ​ National Board of Accreditation, India has suggested graduate attributes which in turn help students in the attainment of educational objectives. The graduate attributes are salient and important for all the graduating students. Graduate attributes are acquired through curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Analyzing a student’s performance during their academics is crucial for increasing the chances of employability. Currently, no system measures students' performance based on graduate attributes. This system supports collection, management, analysis and visualization of graduate attributes. We propose a model that produces graduate attribute scores based on the credentials entered by the student and provides recommendations for activities required to attain all graduate attributes as output. This model also provides improved visualization of reports in graph and tabular form. This paper is an attempt to help in enhancing the standards of the higher education system by evaluating students’ data through the foremost attributes that reflect student performance.

Developing Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Professional Educational Institutions through Reinforcement of Accreditation Framework

This study identifies the underlying dimensions which promote entrepreneurial environment in the professional institutions. We analyze the present status of the entrepreneurship as included in the accreditation processes by two accrediting bodies in India i.e. National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). We devise a model to expand the presence of entrepreneurship aspect into the assessment criterion pertaining to entrepreneurship within these frameworks of accreditation. The study used two scales for obtaining data from the professional institutions. While one scale for measuring the entrepreneurial intentions was adopted a new scale for measuring the ‘support to entrepreneurship by institutions, was developed. Exploratory factor analysis performed on the data identified the seven dimensions, which create a positive impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the professional institutions. Bivariate Correlation analysis is performed and results reveal a significant relationship between entrepreneurial intentions of the students and the supporting entrepreneurial activities by educational institutions. The present study conducted in December 2018, evaluated the Entrepreneurial intensions of the students enrolled in the professional programs and their linkage with the support to entrepreneurial activities by the educational institutions. The study has identified five main factors namely, training, guidance and counseling, Infrastructural support, networking opportunities and incubation and mentoring and two weakly supported factors – participation in entrepreneurship events and patent licensing and technology support. These factors can collectively help promote entrepreneurship in the professional institutions. The seven dimensions were proposed to be included in the accreditation process as the present accreditation framework in India was found to be adversely skewed towards entrepreneurship. The paper attempts to begin a debate on how accreditation can drive the national education agenda rather than merely play the role of quality assessor which igonores the vital aspects of entrepreneurship

DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE OF FACULTY AND STUDENTS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING TO MEET THE GLOBAL STANDARDS

In 21st century, the major challenge in engineering education in India is to meet the demands of technical profession and emerging job market. Now a days the education pattern, nature of jobs and services are fast changing across the world. Skill is becoming a commodity that can be bought from low-cost providers anywhere across the globe. Also in the digital world, knowledge is no longer confined to experts only, rather computer and internet connectivity has empowered every citizen to look for anything and everything. In this context, the engineering education of any country is very critical/crucial for determining its global positioning as well as ensuring the prosperity of their citizens. So engineering education system should be modified to enable our students to develop the skills like creativity and innovation, communication, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, collaboration and teamwork. Communication and collaboration are identified as an essential competencies by almost all of the organizations who are seeking competent employees. All the professional/accreditation bodies like Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), Washington Accord or National Board of Accreditation (NBA), India have already elaborately stated about the students learning outcomes, program educational outcomes, list of competencies, professional/ ethical responsibilities of engineers/ engineering educators/ academic institutions. 
 The aim of this study is to define parameters for measuring competence required for engineering faculty and students in meeting the global standards. The study also focused to discuss current scenario of Indian engineering education system giving special attention to Kerala. Also, the study aspired to develop a competence measuring model. 

Experiences of Teaching Computer Network Course through Lesson Outcomes

National Board of Accreditation (Abbreviated as NBA) is an official and independent accreditation body of India. Many engineering colleges must adhere to the quality requirements as per the NBA guidelines. Every engineering institute must prepare a Self-Assessment Report (SAR) and submit it to a peer review team for getting NBA Accreditation. In recent years NBA has changed input-output based traditional education system to Outcome-Based Education (OBE). OutcomeBased Education is an approach where each course can have atleast N number of outcomes that students will learn at the end of the semester for a particular course. Later on, these course outcomes can be mapped with Program Outcomes (PO) and Program Educational Objectives (PEO). According to the NBA, CO's are the most granular level of objects that can be defined over a particular course. The problem with particular CO is that they are much generalized and can be mapped to 2-3 chapters of the same course. It becomes very difficult to assess student based on a particular CO. The solution is provided in this paper by dividing CO's in further lesson Outcomes (LO) for effective teaching-learning. The paper also takes a real case study of course – Computer Networks which is an undergraduate course of Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering (MPSTME, Affiliated to NMIMS University). After defining LO's of the said course, the paper shows different Course Exit Survey Records in a graphical manner for better understanding. The methodology defined by author outperforms the current existing method defining CO's

Effectiveness of Curriculum Design in the Context of Outcome Based Education (OBE)

Outcome Based Education (OBE) is now a days becoming a mandate in almost all higher educational institutions across the country as it turned out to be an authorized signatory member of Washington Accord (WA) in 2014 through the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). The fundamental concept of outcome-based education is to ensure continuous improvement at all levels of teaching – learning – assessment process. Though there are several programmes were organized to build the competency of OBE, the present traces of implementation of OBE in educational institutions clearly demonstrate the lack of understanding the real implementation of OBE and strictly it is a serious concern. Even these traces are observed in the programs, which are accredited. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to enable the stakeholders to truly understand some of the basic elements of OBE, which will really help them to deploy the philosophy of OBE in the way it is expected for continuous improvement.

Enhancing Attainment of Graduate Attributes Using Data Science

Outcome Based Education (OBE) refers to the practice of measuring the outcome of education based on certain goals which should be met at the end of the educational training. There are many ways to calculate these outcomes using parameters like Course Outcomes (CO), Program Outcomes (PO) or Graduate Attributes (GA). These attributes are particularly important for assessing student performance, especially after the National Board of Accreditation has adopted the Washington Accords process for accreditation. In this paper we propose a system to measure the Graduate Attributes which are nothing but the Program Outcomes (PO) of students using a web portal. We aim to make use of readily available student data like assignments, practical, term test marks, attendance, etc to measure Program Outcomes (PO) of the students for various subjects. This will help the faculty as well as students to identify their strengths and work on improving their weaknesses. We believe that this system will be mutually beneficial for teachers, students and the institute as well.

Application of quality function deployment for the prioritization of National Board of Accreditation quality parameters

PurposeOwing to high competition in education sector, quality in education has become utmost important criteria to deliver better education service. For this purpose, it is required to monitor the quality of education. This paper aims to prioritize National Board of Accreditation (NBA) quality parameters in engineering education as per student’s needs using quality function deployment (QFD).Design/methodology/approachThis study is conducted among students of an institute of National importance in three stages. Stage 1 involves conducting interview with 23 students to find the student’s requirement from an institute. Further Stage 2 involves importance rating collection through questionnaire survey method. In this stage, 228 students have given a rating of each student’s requirement. Finally, Stage 3 involves establishing correlation between student’s requirement and NBA quality parameters that has been done by 20 academic experts and finally making a QFD matrix for ranking of each NBA quality parameter.FindingsThe result of the study first indicates that among all students’ requirements, job-oriented requirement is the most important need, and ergonomics-based requirement is the least important need of students. Further, to fulfill their needs, an institute has to focus on each NBA quality parameter. But among all NBA quality parameters, student’s performance is highly desirable quality parameter.Practical implicationsThis study will help top management of engineering institutions in making better policies and strategies for preparing their quality framework. These strategies will indirectly fulfill the customer needs that help in attracting more number of students toward those institutes.Originality/valueIn India, NBA is one of the leading bodies that monitor the quality of education. On the other hand, the institution has to satisfy the need of customer of education sector; therefore, prioritization of NBA quality parameter as per student’s need is one of the important needs that will help engineering institution to focus on a certain parameter to get a good quality certificate and also attract a number of meritorious students.

A Review of NBA's Accreditation Criteria for Programmes in Pharmacy

In India in order to ensure the quality of technical education, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has established the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) in 1994 to formulate the criteria or standards, by which individual programmes in any pharmacy institution can be evaluated. This article mainly focuses on the revised norms of NBA accreditation for Pharmacy institutions as published in January 2013. The nine criteria identified by NBA in this revised document are briefly presented. Concepts like Programme Educational Objectives (PEOs), Programme Outcomes (POs), Course Outcomes (COs), and Mapping will be new to the readers to figure out in the latest document of NBA. Accordingly, this paper is written to describe the assessment method used to measure the PO via direct assessment of the course outcomes (Cos) as an improvement to previous practice where the COs were assessed indirectly using survey and examination results.

Attainment of Programme Outcomes through Course Outcomes in Outcome Based Education:A Case Study

In the new Outcome Based Education model as prescribed by National Board of Accreditation (NBA), one of the most important criteria is the Attainment of Programme Outcomes (POs). The Programme Outcomes are specific rather than narrower statements that describe what students are expected to know and be able to do upon the graduation. These relate to the skills, knowledge, and behavior that students acquire in their matriculation through the programme. The Programme Outcomes can be attained through the attainment of Course Outcomes of the courses pertaining to that programme. In this paper a sample course viz. Building Enterprise Applications has been selected to demonstrate the process involved in the attainment of Course Outcomes. The contribution of Course Outcomes to Programme Outcomes is also demonstrated.

Attainment of Course Outcomes: - A Sample Empirical Case Study for Incorporating Outcome Based Education

Outcome based education (OBE) is now inevitable and is a directive for education as per standards stated by National board of accreditation (NBA). Course outcomes (CO) and Program outcomes (PO) are two crucial aspects pertaining towards effective OBE incorporation. To achieve this, mapping of course outcomes with program outcomes is a major concern. As per accreditation guidelines of NBA direct and indirect tools must be deployed for calculating the attainment of Program Outcomes. Certain CO-PO mapping strategies must also be defined. This paper presents an empirical case study of the subject Operating Systems and Administration in the third Semester of Computer engineering curricula of Savitiri bai Phule Pune University (SPPU), India. The Paper gives a threefold contribution: - a) proposes an empirical algorithm to estimate the correlation between the CO and PO. b) Three direct schemes of CO attainment are designed along with two indirect schemes c) Final attainment estimation is done by integrating the above proposed schemes.

Innovating Development of the NBAGraduate Attributes

The main issue the Indian engineering education system has been facing is poor employability. Earlier solutions to tackle the issue were unclear and now the NBA (National Board of Accreditation) has provided solution by identifying a list of graduate attributes.The attribute list has defined what is to be done and has left the task of how it is to be done to the engineering institutes.The colleges are not able to manage the 'how' part due to the heavy curricular load and the paucity of qualified faculty.We present a solution of conducting a one-day workshop on 'innovating success' that can help develop the attributes and identify appropriate final year projects, which can further accentuate the development. We conducted the workshop at a leading college in the state of Maharashtra that was successful in providing opportunities to develop the attributes as per the participants' rating. The workshop also provided a superior learning experience as per the overall workshop rating given by the participants. It was 4.5 out of 5. We need to extend the workshop to two days, or carry out iteration, or design a semester long course to strengthen the development. Given the size of the Indian engineering education system, we would require effective scaling solutions.

Service Learning Course in the Engineering Curriculum:EPICS

In the quest for approaches to recreate real configuration experiences in our classrooms, the model of community service learning is frequently ignored within educational curriculum. It is, however, a powerful model for learning the engineering design process. SR Engineering College introduced the EPICS - Engineering Projects in Community Service as an elective course in the curriculum. This academic credit based course is highlighted with its objectives and some projects are illustrated to give complete awareness about the course modules. The projects selected illustrate: mechanical, civil, electrical, hardware and software design in the context of service learning. A discussion of how the Program Objectives align with the National Board of Accreditation's Outcome Based Education (NBA's OBE) criteria is also included.

Attainment of Course Outcomes in Outcome Based Education: A Case Study

In the new Outcome Based Education model as prescribed by National Board of Accreditation (NBA), one of the most important criteria is the Attainment of Course Outcomes (COs). The Course Outcomes can be attained through several Direct and Indirect Assessments. This all can be achieved with clearly defining the Course Outcomes of the Course. In this paper, we have taken a Sample Course and we have clearly explained the methodology used in the assessment of attainment.

New Wave of Accreditation in Indian Higher Education : Comparison of Accreditation Bodies for Management Programmes

The Indian educational system is witnessing yet another major shift. Currently, more and more higher educational institutes are going for national and international accreditations. The accreditation process helps educational institutes in achieving augmented academic quality by benchmarking, and also enable students and various other stakeholders to be informed of choices with regard to institutions. Some institutions are already accredited; some are in the process, but majority are in the thinking phase. This paper presented a comprehensive comparison of some of the most respected international accreditation bodies like AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) - USA ; AMBA (Association of MBAs) - UK ; EQUIS (EFMD Quality Improvement System) - EU ; IACBE (International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education) - USA ; and also the major Indian accreditation bodies, NBA (National Board of Accreditation) and NAAC (National AssessmentaAccreditation Council). This comparison is a ready reckoner to have an understanding of various management accreditation boards in terms of eligibility, duration of accreditation, criteria, and so forth.

Implementation of Outcome Based Education: A Beginning

Ever since Outcome Based Education (OBE) has been made mandatory for accreditation of an engineering programme by National Board of Accreditation (NBA), many engineering institutes have adopted OBE. OBE model of accreditation focuses on objectives and outcomes of an engineering programme. It requires evidences of attainment of the predefined outcomes. The basic difference between OBE and traditional learning is that OBE is more 'Learner Centric' and focuses on what a student has learnt rather than what the faculty teaches. 'Learner Centric' model places the student at the centre of the learning process. At the heart of OBE are the Graduate Attributes. Marathwada Mitra Mandal's College of Engineering (MMCOE) is implementing OBE in all its undergraduate programmes since semester-II of academic year 2014-2015. This paper is an attempt to put forth the initiatives taken by MMCOE to adopt OBE philosophy. A Microsoft Excel-based system is used for computation of CO-PO attainment.The system takes into account both direct and indirect tools of assessment.

OBE Module for Placement of Undergraduate Program Students

The scenario of engineering education in India is changing through the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) process which has shifted its focus from output based education to Outcome Based Education (OBE). Purpose of monitoring the OBE is to manage the attainment of graduate attributes as required by many quality assurance guidelines. Maintaining right quality in education is essential for the overall growth of human race to sustain. Hence it can be said that, quality is not a choice but it should be mandatory. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test amodel for understanding application of levels of Bloom's taxonomy and hence to determine its impact on student's learning process. This paper discusses on the impact analysis of OBE module designed and implemented for improving the employability of the undergraduate students. Choice of test modules for OBE module was done as per the common placement criterions of companies by conducting the sessions such as technical test, aptitude test, and the personal interviews. The pre-test in all three categories helped us to analyze the grey areas of students and design training accordingly. The post test portrayed that, training based on results of pre-test could improve the performance of the students at apply and analysis level. Thus OBE based placement module has justified its importance in enhancing the ability level of students for quality placement.

Attainment of "Project Management and Finance" Graduate Attribute (GA) for Post Graduate Program in Engineering through Course Project

The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) in India has specified specific graduate attributes for post graduate program in engineering. In B V B College of Engineering & Technology, Hubballi, the Production PG program has made an attempt to design and conduct the course project from last two academic years in the core course Project Management at 1st semester level, which has been designed to address the graduate attribute 7 related to Project and Finance. Based on this the program outcome for our PG program is defined as Ability to carry feasibility study and evaluate projects considering economical and financial factors. Keeping this outcome in mind, the course project has been conducted addressing feasibility study, economical and financial factors as mentioned in attribute 7. The students were made to work on this course project for the duration of 12 weeks, which included activities like industrial visit, literature review, preliminary study, feasibility study, facets analysis, report submission and oral presentation. The evaluation process for this course project was rubrics based consisting of two different outcome elements and related performance indicators to address particularly the graduate attribute-7. The work carried out by the students focuses completely on the analysis of facets of projects from marketing analysis to ecological analysis. The conduct of course project in the core course like project management really differentiates the learning of post graduate level to that of undergraduate level as more work is being carried on the analysis part during the process of course project. The percentage attainment of each outcome element addressing the attribute-7 for both the academic years i.e 2013-14 and 2014-15 has been compared.

On-Line Engineering Education with Emphasis on Application of Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom proposed the taxonomy of thinking skills. The thinking skills are defined at six levels, specified as Level 1 (Remembering), Level 2 (Understanding), Level 3 (Applying), Level 4 (Analysis), Level 5 (Evaluation) and Level 6 (Creating). The first three levels are generally classified as low order learning skills and next three levels are often referred as critical thinking/Higher order skills. American Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) [1] enlists that curriculum should be aligned to the specified Graduate Attributes. The alignment of Graduate Attributes mandates that the Teaching Learning Process be designed to be Outcome Based as enshrined in the objectives of Outcome Based Education (OBE). The Washington Accord [2] and other National Protocols like National Board of Accreditation (NBA) [3] have stressed the need for Outcome Based Education in Engineering spectrum. The OBE stipulates that the students after passing out from the selected programme, will be equipped with the outcomes stated for this programme. The OBE necessitates the implementation of all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy in the Teaching-Learning Process as applicable to Engineering education to achieve the resultant outcomes. The present System of teaching the courses using only the and method does not afford enough time to implement all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. At the maximum, only the first three levels can be implemented. The teachers are finding it difficult to apply next three levels due to the paucity of time. As a result of this, the students are being denied exposure to Critical Thinking/ Higher order skills, thus adversely impacting the important outcomes. It is imperative that the and method of teaching be complimented with On-line Engineering Education. The Online Engineering education coupled with Chalk and Talk method will allow the implementation of all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy in the Engineering curriculum thus fulfilling the objectives of OBE can be possible.

Outcome Based Assessment:A Case Study on Undergraduate Course on Control Systems

The Outcome Based Assessment (OBA) has been one of the major concerns of most engineering departments in India since the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) has made it compulsory towards programme accreditation. Implementation of the OBA may not be an easy task when considering the mapping of the course outcome (CO) to Programme Outcomes (PO). This paper describe the analysis process of the CO and PO attainment for an undergraduate course on control systems, a subject, which is offered to 3rd year students of Electrical & Electronics Engineering at Manipal University. Two methods are incorporated for the assessment of course outcomes and PO attainment (1) direct measurement, and (2) indirect measurement. As a whole, this paper gives complete procedure and a sample analysis for Outcome Based Assessment starting from course curriculum development to its outcome attainment based on defined criteria's.