This article is first of a series that will present how we, at the Gateway Coalition, are developing, implementing, and institutionalizing a comprehensive assessment process in our member institutions. There are many driving forces behind such an objective. The push is on for an assessment system that will indicate quality, success or failure in undergraduate engineering education.
Faculty wants to know if they are teaching the right mix of skills and knowledge.
Industry is involved with hiring practices geared toward those who demonstrate the specific competencies they seek. Unless we measure our program results in terms of student learning outcomes, we will undermine our search for the best potential students, peak performing professors, and even accreditation. The new criteria clearly state that each program must have an assessment process with documented results. Evidence must be given that the results are applied to the further development and improvement of the program. Finally, the assessment process must demonstrate that the outcomes important to the mission of the institution and the objectives of the program are being measured.