Ohio State University

College of Engineering

1999-2000 Academic Year

R. J. Gustafson

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Services

July 2000

 

 

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to create a brief record of activities related to continuous quality improvement activities for undergraduate programs in the College of Engineering during the academic year 1999-2000 at the College level. This is to coincide with similar reports done by each program. It is an overview or summary of activities and accomplishments. It is not intended to be a full report on each item.

Accreditation Visit

In the fall of 1999, fourteen engineering programs of the College of Engineering received accreditation review under the ABET EC2000 criteria. The Computer Science and Engineering program also underwent accreditation visit under CSAB at the same time. The Surveying program also received an accreditation review under the ABET RAC Criteria during the Autumn Quarter. Much of the focus of the programs and College during the early portion of the year was around preparation for the accreditation visits.

Outcomes Assessment Committee Formation and Charge

At the beginning of the 1999-2000 academic year a committee which had been previously charged with ABET Review preparation was officially renamed and reconstituted as a standing committee of the College under the title of Outcomes Assessment for UG Engineering Programs. The following describes the duties and makeup of the committee.

 

Duties : This committee has the responsibility to:

•  Oversee the development and implementation of the College's Outcome Assessment Model for Undergraduate Engineering Programs, with particular attention to ABET's Engineering Criteria.

•  Serve as a vehicle for programs to exchange experience and coordinate activities directed towards continuous program improvement.

•  Recommend activities and support innovations in curriculum assessment.

•  Coordinate Program Self-Studies in preparation for ABET reviews.

Results from Senior Exit, Alumni and Manager/Supervisor Surveys for 1998-99

A report of results of surveys collected during the 1998-1999 academic year was issued by the OAC in August of 1999. The report was distributed to all programs, the executive committee of the college and key committees within the College. The report included information from senior exit interviews, 2 nd , 6 th and 15 th year alumni.

 

Primarily based upon items with the largest difference (negative and positive) between Importance and Ability/Preparation, the OAC recommended six areas for high priority consideration by the College. For each of the areas, a brief statement of activities directed at improvement in the College will be given.

 

AREA

ACTIVITY/ACTION/ACCOMPLISHMENTS (Primary Entity)

Communications

  • Intro. to Eng. program and courses approved by faculty. Pilot of 300 students through program in 1999-2000. (Core Curriculum and Academic Affairs Committees)
  • FEH program expanded from three to five 36-student sections CEEGS Dept.)
  • Liaison with Dept. of English established (Core Curriculum Comm.)
  • ENG 367 Second Writing Course added (TCRC)

Teamwork

  • Training and practice in teamwork introduced in IE program (College)
  • Team developer software piloted (FEH Program)

Basic Science

  • Revised engineering core curriculum model adopted (College)
  • Liaisons with Math, Chemistry, Physics and Biology established (Core Curriculum Comm.)
  • Proposal for Chemistry 125 content revision developed in collaboration with Chem. Dept. (Core Curriculum Comm.)
  • Data on surveys shared with Math, Physics, Chemistry (Core Curriculum Comm.)

Business/Finance

  • A study task force developed a special questionnaire on this topic sent with alumni surveys and to Depart Advisory Committees (Outcomes Assessment Comm.)

Stay Current

  • Specific activity deferred (Core Curriculum Comm.)

Ethics

  • Study of how ethics is taught in College and ethics course development funded (Gateway/NSF Coalition Project)

 

 

 

Action Around Student Experience Factors

 

A segment of the surveys also quantified quality issues related to the student experience at Ohio State . Although the OAC did not make specific recommendations for action based on this data, the following activities for 1999-2000 should be highlighted

 

Topic

ACTIVITY/ACTION (Primary Entity)

Advising

  • Direct Enrollment of students into the College encouraged (College)
  • Plan developed for all engineering students to directly enroll beginning AU 2001 (College)

Career Services

  • New web-based system installed for CO-OP/Intern and graduate placement (Career Services Section)
  • Evaluation and updating of Career Services Seminars completed (Career Services Section)

TA's

  • TA training for IE and FEH initiated (College and CEEGS)
  • Graduate course in College Teaching offered (FABE Dept)
  • Collaboration with Office of Faculty and TA Development strengthened, joint seminars offered to faculty and TA's (College)

Physical Facilities

  • Renovation of 2nds Floor of Hitchcock Hall for 1 st year program planned for Su 2000 (College)

 

Engineering Core Curriculum

A proposal for the revisions of the Engineering Core Curriculum developed over the past four years was approved by College faculty vote in Autumn Quarter. During the academic year, each program developed a plan for implementation of the new core. In May 2000, the College proposal and proposals from all sixteen programs of the College were submitted to the University Committee on Academic Affairs.

Alumni Surveys for 1999-2000

The OAC made the decision to continue use of the Alumni (2 nd and 6 th year) and Supervisor/Manager (15 th year alumni) Surveys developed the previous year. The surveys were adapted to a form, which could be scanned, for the College level portion of the surveys. Surveys were distributed to all three alumni groups. Data was scheduled to be summarized and shared during the summer of 2000.

A special survey related to defining the reason for the identified gap between Importance and Ability/Preparation in the area of business and finance was added to the Alumni surveys. Data was scheduled to be summarized by the Outcomes Assessment Committee during the summer of 2000.

EBI Senior Exit Survey

The OAC decided to try a one-year experiment in use of a multi-university senior exit survey developed by Educational Benchmarking Inc. (EBI) of Saint Louis , MO. Results of this survey will be available during Summer 2000 also.