CDIO as a Foundation for Program Accreditation/Certification in Portugal

This document describes two initiatives for accreditation/certification of first and second cycle Bologna programs in Portugal. One initiative was started by the National Agency for Program Evaluation and Accreditation and is mandatory for all Bologna programs. The other initiative was launched by the Portuguese Professional Engineering Association and aims to certify, at the European level, Bologna second cycle engineering programs with the EUR-ACE quality seal. Both initiatives are essentially evidence-based and stress the importance of having an operating quality assurance system to support and monitor program execution. The Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) experience with the CDIO and EUR-ACE frameworks is described and strong points highlighted in this article. In the end, the authors propose that combining CDIO and EUR-ACE may bring added value, because CDIO is more oriented to program operation and EUR-ACE more oriented to program management. The authors also propose the CDIO Syllabus as the link between CDIO and EUR-ACE. DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2012040103 24 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 2(2), 23-33, April-June 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Accredited Engineering Program (EUR-ACE) is to develop a framework for the accreditation of engineering degree programs in the European Higher Education Area (EUR-ACE, 2008), as embodied in the EUR-ACE Certification Framework (EUR-ACE, 2009). In 2006, Informatics Engineering was the first ISEP department to adopt the ConceiveDesign-Implement-Operate (CDIO) approach (Crawley et al., 2007) as the teaching and learning framework. As a result, Informatics Engineering reformulated its Bologna first and second cycle study plans based on the CDIO approach and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Curricula Recommendations (2001). In 2008, after the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) formally joined CDIO, the dean decided that the Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO) approach should be the foundation for program accreditation and/or certification. Since then, all departments in ISEP have been adopting, to various extents, the standards and practices of CDIO (http://www.cdio.org). This article’s Context section describes how CDIO is currently put into practice in all engineering cycles of ISEP. The following section explains the frameworks of A3ES accreditation and EUR-ACE certification activities. The next section addresses the benefits and limitations of adopting CDIO as an educational context for engineering education at ISEP and how that may help to get successful accreditation and/ or certification results. The Conclusion section synthesizes what has been achieved and summarizes the most important findings and ideas.