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Effecting Improvement In An Industrial Engineering Program By Applying Outcome Assessment Results

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Conference

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Honolulu, Hawaii

Publication Date

June 24, 2007

Start Date

June 24, 2007

End Date

June 27, 2007

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

IE Program Design I

Tagged Division

Industrial Engineering

Page Count

19

Page Numbers

12.578.1 - 12.578.19

DOI

10.18260/1-2--1987

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/1987

Download Count

469

Paper Authors

biography

Leslie Potter Iowa State University

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Leslie Potter is Lecturer in the IMSE Department at Iowa State University. She has extensive professional engineering experience, including seven years with Deere & Company in various engineering and supervision capacities, gained prior to joining the IMSE department at ISU. She is currently teaching her seventh year of capstone design. Her research interests include capstone design course effectiveness, engineering communications, and team homogeneity. She is a member of ASEE.

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biography

K. Jo Min Iowa State University

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K. Jo Min is Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in IMSE Department at ISU. He teaches courses in sustainable production systems and market-based allocation mechanisms. His education research interests include outcome assessment, teaching and learning of global enterprise perspectives, as well as international student team management and effectiveness. He is a member of ASEE and IIE.

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Frank Peters Iowa State University

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Frank Peters is Associate Professor in the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering Department at Iowa State University. His teaching interests include manufacturing processes and systems. He is Co-Chair of International Task Team for the College of Engineering. He is a member of ASEE, AFS, IIE, AWS and SME.

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Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Effecting Improvement in an Industrial Engineering Program by Applying Outcome Assessment Results

Abstract

Soft skills and abilities such as ABET-specified outcome item (h) [the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context], which is mandated for all engineering programs, are difficult to assess, and difficult to improve. In this paper, in the context of Industrial Engineering, we show how such outcome items can be assessed and improved. We achieve this through a continuous improvement process via changes to the capstone design course and the creation of a Kaizen course, both of which emphasize qualities important to all vested interests, including students, industrial partners, advisory board members, and faculty. Improvement in the achievement of outcome item (h) is demonstrated first. This is followed by improvement in the achievement of various other outcome items. Results of outcome item measurement are compared between both students and industrial partners. Finally, insights obtained from the experimental Kaizen course are described, and future course changes are detailed, including methods of outcome assessment.

Background

Since 2000, all accredited engineering programs have been required to document assessment of outcome items a-k as defined by ABET.1 Some of these outcome items can be classified as ‘hard’ skills, such as (c) [an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability]. The evaluation and assessment of ‘hard’ skills is generally considered to be significantly easier than that of ‘soft’ skills and abilities, such as (h) [The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context]. Without good assessment methods, determining if improvements have been made becomes even more difficult. If a program can successfully assess the softer skills as required by ABET, then its ability to improve is significantly increased. Moreover, measuring the impact of these improvements can then also be accomplished through the cycle of assessment.

An ongoing cycle of assessment and improvement activities that effectively improve the soft skill requirements of an engineering program can most likely successfully impact all skills and abilities—both hard and soft. In addition to curriculum improvements, the assessment cycle can and should also include the periodic evaluation of departmental educational objectives. These relationships and the cyclical process are currently used in the Industrial Engineering (IE) program at Iowa State University (ISU) (see e.g., Ball et al. (2007) for the departmental improvement efforts on global enterprise perspectives)2 as shown in Figure 1.3 A continuous improvement process can also be applied to individual courses. Over multiple semesters, the changes made within a course can be tracked through the assessment process, and by tracking assessment scores, changes for improvement can be identified.

Potter, L., & Min, K. J., & Peters, F. (2007, June), Effecting Improvement In An Industrial Engineering Program By Applying Outcome Assessment Results Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--1987

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