ABET Accreditation: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
This article reviews the purpose of ABET accreditation, the associated criteria, the volunteers
that provide the accreditation reviews, and the role of AIChE in the accreditation process.
Most people don’t read the proposed changes to the ABET criteria, especially not those in the APPM (Accreditation Policy and Procedure Manual.) Recently approved changes mean that you will need to update your public information about your accredited programs to comply with the new requirements before your next evaluation. The new language is “accredited by the (Applied and Natural Sciences…
Most of ABET’s volunteers and leaders are engineers. Engineers can’t resist tinkering to improve things. A big change is brewing in the ABET EAC criteria, impacting Criteria 3 – Student Outcomes and Criteria 5 – Curriculum. The changes in Student Outcomes will significantly change what you measure – adding some, combining similar ones and removing others. The changes in Criteria…
Lots of programs incorporate soft skills topics in the major design project, labs or first year engineering survey courses. Other programs create a separate catch all course for these topics. While either approach meets the ABET requirements, students often find this boring and tedious because the material is delivered in a traditional manner with lectures, reading and some writing and…
In April 21, 2012, I presented FACT or FICTION: the Fine Art of Convincing Your Program Evaluator that You Actually Do what You Wrote in the Self Study. Long title but critical to accreditation. I’ve been a Program Evaluator for years and know that there is very little time for your program evaluator to review the evidence and decide if…