B.2Program Educational Objectives

This section describes the educational objectives, the process by which these objectives are determined and evaluated, and how the program ensures these objectives are achieved, and the system of ongoing evaluation that leads to continuous improvement of the program.

WSU BSCE Educational Objectives

The five educational objectives of the BSCE program are:

  1. To produce graduates recognized by industrial, government, and academic entities as having a sound, current, and comprehensive education by providing a balanced and integrated hardware and software educational experience that is rich in modern laboratory, project, and design experiences, and which emphasizes team participation, problem solving, and communication skills.
  2. To prepare and retain students, who, upon graduation, will be motivated to pursue lifelong learning, continuing education, and graduate studies, as required by their personal development goals, through a stimulating, broad, and modern educational experience which is well grounded in the mathematical, scientific, and engineering principles, as well as in the fundamental concepts and theory of computing.
  3. To instill a sense of social responsibility, a code of conduct, and ethical values appropriate to the discipline in the CS&E students, so that they are valuable contributors in their societal and professional environments.
  4. To encourage broad participation in our programs of women and minorities, and of non-traditional students (such as part-time, working, returning, and disabled students) through accessible facilities and through our scheduling and conduct of late afternoon and evening classes.
  5. To recognize and encourage excellence in faculty teaching, research and service.

The objectives are publicized in several places includingthe department web site (http://www.cs.wright.edu/cse/) and the Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering Program descriptive brochure (distributed to prospective students and available for review). This brochure also serves as a means of keeping high school advisors informed about our programs.

These five goals are consistent with the Mission Statement of the University, reproduced below.

Policy number: 1003

Subject: WrightStateUniversityMission Statement

Date issued: September 1997

Authority: Board Resolution 97-13 (December 3, 1996)

Mission Statement

WrightStateUniversity will be a catalyst for educational excellence in the MiamiValley, meeting the needs for an educated citizenry dedicated to lifelong learning and service. To those ends, as a metropolitan university, WrightState will provide: access to scholarship and learning; economic and technological development; leadership in health, education, and human services; cultural enhancement; and, international understanding while fostering collegial involvement and responsibility for continuous improvement of education and research.

We analyze briefly how the departmental objectives are in consonance with the mission of the institution:

“Meeting the needs for an educated citizenry dedicated to lifelong learning and service” is in agreement with objectives 2 and 3.

“Access to scholarship and learning” isin agreement with objective 4.

“Economic and technological development” is in agreement with objective 1.

“Leadership in health, education, and human services” is partially covered on the educational aspects and in agreement with objectives 1 and 2.

“Cultural enhancement; and, international understanding” is in agreement with objectives 3 and 4.

“Fostering collegial involvement and responsibility for continuous improvement of education and research” is a statement with which objective 5 shows consistency.

B.2.1.1Significant Constituencies of the Program

We consider our constituencies to be the students, the faculty, the employers of our graduates (many represented by the Dean’s College Advisory Committee), co-op students, our alumni, ABET, and the community at large. We maintain our interface in the computer field through a Departmental Advisory Council, and Information Technology Research Institute with business leaders in the IT Alliance (an organization of business and professional leaders in information technology) and through professional societies and government.

The five objectives were subject to the discussion, input, and modification by the constituencies. Continuous evaluation of the objectives has been carried out and refinements are expected to take place regularly with the same constituencies, augmented with results from alumni and employer surveys. We address interactions with and inputs from our constituencies in the remainder of this section and briefly cover how they play a part in the continuous improvement cycle.

B.2.1.1.1Current Students

We are in close contact with the students in classes and receive individual course and global feedback in course and exit evaluations. There is also an open door (and open e-mail) policy in the department and students also contact administrators, faculty, and their mentors. Exit evaluations are reviewed and summarized regularly. When immediate action is needed, it is handled at a committee or faculty meeting.

Recent issues regarding the manner in which the Department of Mathematics handles the Calculus sequence, and the introduction of a new course EGR 101, for example, have been handled this way.

We also consulted with the IEEE/CS and ACM student branches leaders and members, and graduating seniors during their exit interviews.

B.2.1.1.2Course evaluations as required by the University

The University conducts the Student Evaluation of Instruction for each section, each quarter. These are used in the evaluation of the faculty teaching.

B.2.1.1.3ABET Course Entry and Course Exit Surveys

These surveys of individual courses are done at the start and the end of the course where students self-assess their achievement of individual course outcomes anonymously.

B.2.1.1.4Design Experience

During the 8 hrs of Design Experience, students work in small teams in a highly interactive manner with a few faculty. This generates considerable amount of feedback on how well the program is serving their needs.

B.2.1.1.5Exit Interview with the Chair

All students about to graduate are encouraged to make an appointment with the Department Chair for an Exit Interview. The interview form is shown in Appendix I.D. The chair takes notes, and the notes are reviewed periodically to evaluate the program.

During that exit interview, the student is asked to expressqualitatively his/her career plans and his/her opinion about the curriculum, faculty, departmental administration, and facilities. That has been done now for several years as part of the University, College, and Departmental assessment plan. Following the process of improving our survey of graduating students, the Graduating Student Exit Interview form has been recently expanded to include the student’s assessment of the BS Computer Engineering Degree Program Objectives and the special programmatic requirements specific to Computer Engineering undergraduates. Not all graduating students visit the Chairman on a face-to-face exit interview for a variety of reasons (quick or early relocation before graduation, time pressures, etc.) but all are encouraged to return the questionnaires by mail if they cannot make the appointment. A form called Graduating Student Evaluation of Program Objectives is sent to each graduating student. This is returned along with the Exit Survey.

Alumni

The College sends out a Graduation Survey and Alumni Surveys at 1 year and 3 years, and Employer Surveys at 1 year and 3 years after the graduation of the student. The Employer Surveys are sent to the alumni who are asked to give them to their employer. The Graduation Survey mentioned above is sent 3 months after graduation, and asks things like how did you like food service, and housing and Career Services.

B.2.1.1.6The Departmental Faculty

There are 18 tenure track, 5 non-tenure track, and a few adjunct faculty in the CSE department. The faculty has a significant input into the development and continuous evaluation of the educational objectives. Faculty, of course, delivers the courses listed in our program.

Chair is a faculty member administratively responsible for the department and its programs. Working with the Chair, the Assistant to the Chair oversees course scheduling and assignment, and matters relating to the undergraduate programs.

The committee system described below is an integral part of the departmental operation and yields excellent results. The committee actions and recommendations are practically all accepted by the Chair. Departmental faculty discusses and votes on matters brought up by them, by the Chair, or by a committee in departmental faculty meetings. Routine actions are not brought up to faculty meetings but any controversial issue is referred to the faculty, in particular curricular matters.

B.2.1.1.7Undergraduate Studies Committee

Until Fall 2003, the Department had a standing committee named Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. After the unionization of the University faculty, the Undergraduate Studies Committee was formed in accordance with the by-laws of the Department.

“Purpose

The Committee has the responsibility for evaluating and making recommendations to the department faculty and to the appropriate College and University committees on issues relating to the undergraduate programs of the department. In particular, the Committee shall

  • Make recommendations on all changes, additions, or deletions of undergraduate courses offered by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
  • Make recommendations on all changes in the requirements for degrees or certificate programs in all undergraduate programs in the department including honors program.
  • Review materials used in courses to insure that course content is consistent with the catalog descriptions and prerequisite material is covered in prerequisite courses and make recommendations as needed.
  • Make policy recommendations on all variations and exceptions to the degree requirements.
  • Review and make recommendations on undergraduate petitions.
  • Make recommendations for undergraduate awards and scholarships awarded by the department.

Composition

The Committee shall be composed of at least five bargaining unit faculty members. The chair of the committee shall be elected by the members at the first meeting of each academic year. The Chair of the Undergraduate Studies committee should be the ex-officio representative of the department to the corresponding College committee.

The Committee, at its discretion, may invite other members of the faculty and staff to participate and contribute to discussions on curricular issues.”

B.2.1.1.8Area Committees

An area committee is a group of faculty specializing in one area and having responsibility for a subset of the department’s courses. Currently, the areas are:

  1. Architecture
  2. Theory/Foundations
  3. Languages/Software
  4. “Applications” (AI, Databases, Bioinformatics, Graphics, …)
  5. Professional Practice
  6. Mathematics
  7. Science
  8. Other Engineering

Based on recommendations from the Undergraduate Studies Committee, the Chair appoints members to Area Committees, and assigns courses to Area Committees. The current list of courses grouped into the above areas is reproduced in Appendix I-D.

The Area Committees are responsible for:

  • Allocation of material to courses in their area.
  • Course Description for all courses in their area (includes syllabi and objectives).
  • Monitoring offerings of courses for which the committee is responsible.
  • Proposing new courses, changes to existing courses, and removal of courses.

The Area Committees produce the documents described below.

  • Course Content Check List: The description of a course via a list of information that is required by ABET.
  • Articulation Matrix: A mapping of course objectives into the Criteria 3a-k program outcomes.
  • Course Folder: A collection of the specific materials (content, projects, assignments, examinations, etc.) documenting a course in accordance with ABET requirements.
  • Course Offering Report: Generated by the instructor offering a course section, the report details the extent to which the instructor a) taught the course topics, and b) assessed student achievement of the course outcomes.
  • Course Outcome Evaluation Form: This form is used by the ACs to review each course to ensure that it is meeting its objectives and outcomes.
  • Instructor Action Report Form: This form is used by the instructor to report actions, if any, taken to address the concerns/recommendations of the Area Committee listed in Course Outcome Evaluation Form.

The Faculty member assigned to teach a course in a given quarter is responsible for offering the course in accordance to the Course Content Check List. The instructor documents student assessment of course outcomes by completing/updating a Course Folder for that specific offering.

B.2.1.1.9The College Faculty

Colleagues in other Departments of the College, and in the College’s ABET Preparation Committee are also a constituency. The College invited experienced lecturers on setting objectives, on processes and assessment procedures for ABET accreditation about the methodologies of setting up objectives, processes, and assessment.

B.2.1.1.10College Curriculum Committee

We reproduce a section of the College of Engineering and Computer Science Bylaws.

(a) Purpose :

The Committee has the responsibility for evaluating and making recommendations on departmental requests for all undergraduate curriculum changes that require consideration by UUCAPC.

A department chair or department curriculum committee chair may appeal a College Undergraduate Curriculum Committee recommendation by notifying the Chair of the College Steering Committee within four working days of their receipt of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee recommendation. Appeals will be presented to the College faculty for discussion and vote at a College faculty meeting.

Undergraduate courses designated as College of Engineering and Computer Science courses because they are multi-disciplinary in nature and deemed not suitable for oversight by a single department may be proposed by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. Approval requires a 2/3 vote of the faculty attending a college faculty meeting to receive a positive recommendation.

(b) Composition

The committee shall be composed of one BUFM from each department and a CECS undergraduate student who is a non-voting member of the committee. The faculty representatives shall serve staggered two-year terms.

In the event that the faculty representative of a department cannot attend a meeting, the department may provide an alternate BUFM representative for the meeting.

The committee will recommend to the Steering Committee each year a continuing member to be the college representative to the University Undergraduate Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee for the following year.

B.2.1.1.11College AdvisoryCommittee

The College Advisory Committee is an external board of advisors from the regional industrial and government community, representing a significant number of employers of our graduates. Special meetings were devoted to establishing the objectives, discussing them in focus groups and in full assembly. The objectives were discussed in at least two formal meetings of this group, and were refined in informal discussions.

B.2.1.2Ongoing Evaluation of the Educational Objectives

The objectives were formulated in 1999 via processes described in the next two paragraphs.

Initial drafts were prepared by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, and presented to the department faculty. The objectives were publicized in several places. The drafts evolved into the objectives as described in section B2.1 because of inputs made by the constituencies.

Students were consulted on the objectives and established correspondence via e-mail. The Chair had a tour of every freshman section in our CS 240, 241 and 242 courses, andconducted a brief "Town Hall" meeting with the students. An entire meeting of the Advisory Board was devoted to a discussion of objectives.

In a number of informal meetings, the department faculty expressed satisfaction with the objectives. Graduating students have also expressed satisfaction.

We are planning to hold a meeting of our constituencies before the end of 2004. We plan to make this an annual meeting. The Chair of the department plans and facilitates these yearly meetings of the constituents.

Among other agenda items, the meeting includes a discussion of the department programs as well as an evaluation of the objectives and the extent to which they have been met. Any suggestions, issues or changes suggested by the constituents at these meetings are presented to the Undergraduate Studies Committee and the appropriate Area Committees.

The inputs from the meetings with the constituencies are reviewed by the ACs and UC for the establishment of the Program Objectives and possible subsequent changes. Recommendations from the ACs go to the UC and then reviewed by the entire faculty for approval and adoption.

B.2.1.3Processes Ensuring the Achievement of the Objectives

This section describes how the program curriculum and our processes ensure achievement of the Program Educational Objectives. For the sake of relating clearly the objectives and the processes, along with the assessment tools, they are all listed together here. We realize that we are listing material that also relates to the next section, but we do so for ease of reference.

Objective 1: To produce graduates recognized by industrial, government, and academic entities as having a sound, current, and comprehensive education by providing a balanced and integrated hardware and software educational experience that is rich in modern laboratory, project, and design experiences, and which emphasizes team participation, problem solving, and communication skills.

Processes Related to Achieve Objective 1 are:

A) Include in the curriculum up-to-date and functioning hands-on laboratories.

B) Include projects with public and peer presentations (as in EGR 335, and CEG 498) and in multiple courses within the curriculum, also involving technical report writing, and team participation

C) Require a summative design experience

D) Provide up-to-date curricula, topics, and language trends (such as coverage of Java, UML, CORBA, programmable logic arrays and devices, etc.)

E) Sample students at exit interviews and after graduation

Assessment for process A: Annual review of status of laboratories. In addition to the regular process of fixing any laboratory equipment malfunctioning or adding updates in hardware or software, an annual request for status report is placed on the faculty in charge of laboratory supervision every year as part of the laboratory technology update plan. We are fortunate to have a position titled Computer Support Scientists in the Department to carry out the various tasks of coordinating the annual updates of the facilities as well as supervising the informal year-round repairs and updates, either doing them by himself or making sure that they are sent out to others and fixed.

Assessment for process B: Collection and review of representative samples of the projects and other presentation materials as part of the course materials turned-in by the instructor. Ms. Jennifer Limoli, Secretary in the Department, supervises the completeness of the Course Folders and sends messages to the faculty when the files and other collectable materials related to the continuous improvement process are not complete. The course folders are evaluated by the Area Committees.