Unifying program-level ABET assessment data collection, analysis, and presentation

Assessment of engineering and computer science programs involves a significant effort in data collection, analysis, and formatting of results for presentation to an ABET evaluation team. At the University of South Florida, we have developed a web-based system to unify program-level data collection, evaluation, and presentation for all programs in the College of Engineering. The goal of our web-based Accreditation Portal is to both improve the efficacy of assessment activities in the College and provide a clearer view of continuous improvement results to constituents and ABET evaluation teams. For each defined program educational objective and student outcome there are links to pages for Performance Indicators, Methods of Assessment, Assessment Data, Evaluation, Changes, and Closing the Loop. For each of these assessment steps Word, Excel, PDF, text, and/or image files can be uploaded. The portal also includes survey tools to enable data collection. We describe the development and deployment of the portal. We show a full sample assessment loop for a mock objective. Our evaluation of the portal is based on a trade study with comparison to several existing web-based assessment systems. Faculty members in the College are using the portal.