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Session No. 1621

Does It Also Make Economic Sense: Economics of Assessment

Erdogan M. Sener

Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

Introduction The Department of Construction Technology of the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology (PSET) at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has offered ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accredited programs since 1984. The Department went through another accreditation visit in the Fall semester of 2000 and was accredited for another six years for all of its programs. Despite the comfort and reassurance this has provided, we have not lost sight of the fact that the next round of assessment-based accreditation, using ABET/TAC 2000 criteria (TC2K) for Technology, will be challenging. Consequently, the Department is continuing its assessment work at full speed with the understanding that we need to do assessment and implement continuous improvement for the next six years if we want to keep our accredited status.

The Department also went through an IUPUI review in 2000. All our courses state, cover, emphasize, and implement both the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning (PUL) and the ABET objectives. Our assessment efforts in all courses have tried to keep both the ABET and PUL based IUPUI accreditation/evaluation in sync.

Since most of the faculty members in our programs in the School are technical professionals (mostly engineers), it is kind of in our nature to try to optimize everything we do and try to see whether what we do makes economic sense. Inevitably, we are looking for economic feasibility, break-even points, and a benefit/cost ratio that is feasible and defendable also in the case of assessment activities that the School is involved in. I usually get the feeling that one reason why I see some resistance to assessment undertakings from some of my colleagues is probably due to the fact that they are not sure whether there is also an economic justification to all this even though we do not much of a choice.

So far assessment work has progressed with the premise that this is a good thing to do, and that we are required to do this whether we like it or not, and that there is a lot of qualitative justification for these undertakings in terms of the enhanced qualitative results we undeniably attain. Nevertheless, it is on my mind and probably on the mind of a lot of faculty in the PSET to see, even roughly, whether assessment can also be justified in the engineering economy

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and 1 Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education

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Sener, E. (2005, June), Does It Also Make Economic Sense: Economics Of Assessment Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14295