Aligning Engineering Design Education with Accreditation Requirements

Abstract

This paper focuses on aligning engineering design with accreditation requirements in engineering education. To be an accredited curriculum, education programs must incorporate graduate attributes required by program accrediting professional bodies. Graduate attributes are the required benchmarks for students to attain their specific qualities and abilities within a higher education institute. Most higher education institutions identify a list of expected graduate attributes or outcomes that are incorporated in their educational programs to be accredited by an accrediting professional body such as Engineers Australia (EA), Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the United States, and the European Accreditation of Engineering Programs (EUR-ACE) in Europe. This paper evaluates the program educational objectives, student outcomes, assessment methods and evaluation of different undergraduate engineering programs. It assesses how engineering design is practiced and incorporated as an important element of the graduate attributes through project oriented design based learning curriculum aligned with professional accreditation requirements.