Creation Of A Greater Caribbean Regional Engineering Accreditation System
- Conference
- Location
-
Louisville, Kentucky
- Publication Date
-
June 20, 2010
- Start Date
-
June 20, 2010
- End Date
-
June 23, 2010
- ISSN
-
2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
-
International
- Page Count
-
14
- Page Numbers
-
15.334.1 - 15.334.14
- DOI
-
10.18260/1-2--16933
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/16933
- Download Count
-
603
Paper Authors
Hugo Pirela InterAmerican Development Bank
Dr. Hugo Pirela is a representative of the Interamerican Development Bank in the Dominican Republic and leads the Greater Caribbean Region Engineering Accreditation System project.
Gisela Coto Quintana SINAES
Dr. Gisela Coto Quintana is the International Consultant on the Greater Caribbean Region Engineering Accreditation System project, and is an engineering accreditation expert in the SINAES, an accreditation agency in Costa Rica.
Juan Luis Crespo Marino Universidade da Coruna
Dr. Juan Luis Crespo Mariño is a Research Associate on the Greater Caribbean Region Engineering Accreditation System project and is a Professor, expert in accreditation systems, at the Universidade da Coruña in Spain.
Maria M. Larrondo Petrie Florida Atlantic University
Dr. Maria Larrondo Petrie is Associate Dean and Professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University in the USA. She is also the Executive Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI), on the Executive Committee of the International Federation Engineering Education Societies (IFEES) and on the Board of the International Division of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE).
Miguel J. Escala Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo
Dr. Miguel Escala Figueredo is Rector of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, INTEC, in the Dominican Republic. INTEC is the institution leading the Greater Caribbean Region Engineering Accreditation System.
Zenaida Otero Gephardt Rowan University
Dr. Zenaida Otero Gephardt is Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Rowan University. She is Vice President of Accreditation of the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institution (LACCEI), where she organizes the Organization of American States' Workshop on "Advancing Strategies for Improving Engineering Program Accreditation and Quality Assurances in the Americas". She is also an officer of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) International Division
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
The Creation of the Greater Caribbean Region Engineering Accreditation System
Abstract
This paper describes the creation of a new Engineering program accreditation system for the Central America and Caribbean Region, called the Greater Caribbean Regional Engineering Accreditation System (GCREAS)1. This initiative was funded by the Inter American Development Bank through the efforts of the Engineering for the Americas (EftA) initiative2, uniting representatives from international organizations, government agencies, professional organizations, accreditation bodies, universities and industries, and endorsed by the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Lima Declaration of 20043. The outcomes of the first phase4 of the GCREAS project are described, including a summary of an extensive comparative analysis conducted of different accreditation systems around the world, advances in creating and approving the standards, governance and operations. Quantitative data from the feasibility study are presented to help determine whether there is a critical mass to enable the implementation of a sustainable GCREAS system and to help scope the efforts to be undertaken within the framework of this project, aimed at building a model of engineering accreditation for the area.
Introduction
Engineering for the Americas (EftA)2 started as a grass roots initiative uniting engineering education organizations, government agencies, professional organization, accreditation agencies, universities and industries, endorsed by the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Lima Declaration of 20043. EftA is headquartered at the Organization of American States in Washington DC, USA. In 2004, in its Science, Technology, engineering and Innovation for Development: A vision for the Americas in the Twenty First Century5, the OAS cited several times the usefulness of regional accreditation for the mobility of students. The OAS held the first Engineering for the Americas Symposium in Lima 2005, there was a call from the Caribbean delegation for a regional accreditation system for the Caribbean region. This region with its isolated islands, multiple languages and educational system based on the U.S., Spanish, French, British, and Deutsch systems, posed a particular challenge. EftA first initiative was to fund, together with industry, a consultant to write a grant proposal to the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) to fund the effort, which was expanded to the Greater Caribbean Region Engineering Accreditation System (GCREAS)1 to include Central America. The IDB funded the GCREAS proposal, as well as another for the creation of ACAAI (in English, the Central American Architecture and Engineering Accreditation Agency)6. ACAAI serves Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, which all speak Spanish and who opted to follow the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board standards. The GCREAS base study analyzed the feasibility of implementing a sustainable GCREAS system.
The GCREAS Base Study
A consultant conducted a base study to compare and contrast Engineering degree accreditation systems and models, and to propose a model and characteristics for the GCREAS operation and
Pirela, H., & Coto Quintana, G., & Crespo Marino, J. L., & Larrondo Petrie, M. M., & Escala, M. J., & Gephardt, Z. O. (2010, June), Creation Of A Greater Caribbean Regional Engineering Accreditation System Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16933
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2010 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015