ABET accreditation with IT criteria

ABSTRACT

In recent years the SIGITE community has invested significant effort into developing IT accreditation standards. New draft general and program specific accreditation criteria were recently created. The Brigham Young University IT program is undergoing an accreditation visit in the near future as a pilot program. Although the IT criteria have not yet been approved by ABET they have been used by the Brigham Young University program in preparing for accreditation and will be considered by the accreditation evaluators in the accreditation visit. This paper will describe the experience of preparing for an ABET IT accreditation visit using the draft standards. Issues of continuous improvement, assessment and accreditation documentation will be discussed. Methods for collecting and presenting accreditation data will be presented. The selection of program objectives related to institution objectives is discussed, as is the link between course outcomes and program outcomes and objectives. The linkage between accreditation criteria and the model curriculum is also discussed. This work follows on from previous work that has been reported elsewhere. Thus there is some overlap with previous papers by one or more of the authors, as well as new work.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Accreditation

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Self-assessment; Information systems education; Curriculum

General Terms:
Management, Measurement

Keywords:
ABET, CAC, accreditation, assessment, continuous improvement, evaluation