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An Evolving Capstone Course used in ABET Assessment

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Conference

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Atlanta, Georgia

Publication Date

June 23, 2013

Start Date

June 23, 2013

End Date

June 26, 2013

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

ETAC/ABET RELATED OUTCOME BASED ISSUES

Tagged Division

Engineering Technology

Page Count

8

Page Numbers

23.164.1 - 23.164.8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--19178

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/19178

Download Count

531

Paper Authors

biography

Wesley L. Stone Western Carolina University

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Dr. Wes Stone is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering and Technology at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC. He earned his bachelors degree from the University of Texas at Austin, masters degree from Penn State, and PhD from Georgia Tech, all in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include manufacturing processes and quality techniques. He also serves as the program director for Engineering Technology at WCU.

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biography

Guanghsu A. Chang Western Carolina University

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Dr. Guanghsu A. Chang is currently an associate professor of the Engineering and Technology Department at Western Carolina University. He has spent the last 21 years in teaching industrial and manufacturing engineering programs. His research interests involve the study of robotic applications, manufacturing automation, Design for Assembly (DFA), and Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) applications. He was a vice president of Southern Minnesota APICS (2009-2012). He holds both MSIE, and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas at Arlington.

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Abstract

An Evolving Capstone Course used in ABET Assessment The Department of Engineering and Technology at ___ has developed a capstonedesign course sequence that provides students with an industry-relevant project, whilegenerating an excellent opportunity to assess many of the ABET (Accreditation Board forEngineering and Technology) student outcomes, commonly called “a through k.” Thetwo-semester course sequence enters its sixth year, seeing a healthy list of projects thatprovide cross-functional opportunities for teams composed of undergraduate students inEngineering Technology, Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, andElectrical Engineering. Each of the capstone projects is assigned a faculty mentor, who acts as a resourceto the team, providing guidance as well as technical expertise. The mentor is alsointegrally involved in project grading, as well as course-related program assessment.Each of the a-k student outcomes used in program assessment for ABET accreditationhas been broken into multiple “performance indicators (PI).” Each of these PIs has itsown related assessment task. Those assessments that are associated with the capstonesequence are part of a team effort, involving the faculty mentors and lead instructor. This paper documents the system used to put the structure in place to provideconsistency in assessment, as well as minimization of tedious effort. Faculty who arehaving increasing demands placed on their time need to have tools in place to facilitatedata entry and report generation. A database that has been developed for assessmenttracking is used as a vehicle to standardize and simplify the assessment process.

Stone, W. L., & Chang, G. A. (2013, June), An Evolving Capstone Course used in ABET Assessment Paper presented at 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--19178

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