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Session 2149

Establishing Baseline Goals and Objectives for the Development of Educational Outcomes Using an Online Instrument John C. Wise, Peter J. Shull The Pennsylvania State University

Introduction

A primary effect of the ABET TC2K accreditation requirements1 is to cause programs to organize and make explicit that which has usually been done implicitly. For example, many programs have existing objectives and outcomes with which they operate, although they are often unstated or relegated to the course level with little attempt to coordinate them systemically. Prior to the creation of outcomes and objectives to satisfy ABET criteria, it is important to establish a reliable baseline of this current state, a snapshot of the existing curricular and instructional activity. Taking the time to do this will accomplish three important goals:

1. The faculty will become familiar with the terms to be used in the development of ABET outcomes and objectives while working in the comfort of their existing courses. 2. The faculty will identify areas of weakness in existing educational practices and assessment processes. 3. ABET design groups will be able to locate existing measurement points for collecting embedded data related to outcomes.

Penn State Altoona is currently testing an online system designed to collect data on existing practices in an unobtrusive and consistent manner. Each week, faculty are asked to log on the system and enter their goals and objectives for the past week, along with a short synopsis of their effectiveness in achieving them. This information is stored locally and can be accessed in order to develop a list of objectives currently being pursued by each faculty member. Collecting this information as near as possible to its presentation to students controls for gaps in memory that are sure to come up in any post-semester meeting on course objectives. This activity is useful on several levels. The faculty benefit from the weekly reflection on each class, something that is all too often seen as a luxury. The data thus obtained can be used by an ABET group to map the objectives against ABET outcomes, check for redundancy, and identify omissions. This provides an excellent starting point for outcome and objective definition as well as an indicator for embedded assessment opportunities.

This paper will report on the current state of the online data collection process and faculty response to this system.

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Shull, P., & Wise, J. (2004, June), Establishing Baseline Goals And Objectives For The Development Of Educational Outcomes Using An Online Instrument Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13419