Short-cycle assessment techniques for ABET Criteria 2000 compliance

Presented here are methodologies aimed at engineering programs preparing for accreditation under ABET Criteria 2000 and have a limited time frame in which to demonstrate tangible results. Many of the commonly promoted assessment activities such as the FE exam, GRE, exit interviews and employer interviews require many years before trends can be established. Proposed changes that require bureaucratic procedures or interdepartmental agreements also slow the pace of implementing improvements. Programs under tight time constraints may wish to choose alternate methods that provide faster turnaround times. This paper is addressed to programs that have already established educational objectives and wish to use methods that will generate assessment results in a relatively short period of time. The following are assessment and administrative techniques recently used by the School of Engineering at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico to shorten the cycle time of assessment and produce documented progress in achieving educational objectives.