Institutional Assessment Plans and Rubrics for Establishing Graduate Engineering Programs: A Practical Example

Abstract

Institutional assessment plans are designed to provide a better education experience through investigating activities, abilities, and other indicators to check student’s success and methods validity. However, effective cultural characteristics require good engagement and open communication. Here, we show a practical example of the application of the various assessment techniques to improve the student’s performance and establish new graduate engineering programs in higher institutions. Rubrics must be designed to assess faculty members in the university as well as the program curriculum. Faculty should be qualified for teaching graduate-level with decent technical skills for curriculum development to initiate intended graduate programs. Gathering information about each rubric criterion from the university should be considered via evaluating campus culture, faculty attitudes, funding, and technology infrastructure. These criteria must be assessed from either the university websites, assessment reports, or long-term assessment goals as a guideline. Using the provided ‘VALUE Institute Template’ would greatly help in refining the assessment; critical thinking ability prepares undergraduate students for graduate studies. The proposed assessment plan will cover the following domains: diversity, course satisfaction, admission and advising, academic writing/support, curriculum change, and knowledge availability to understand the students’ motivation towards learning. Moreover, effective teaching, good delivery, syllabus formatting, and classroom interactions are all some of the general aspects that can be evaluated. Data collection can be done through distributed questionnaires and/or face-to-face interviews where program directors shall take the lead in this initiative. Implementing the outcomes assessment in the institution will help in improving the student’s performance and keep the educational programs up to date. The opportunity of having an MS program in the engineering department (to be implemented in the future) would not be possible without maintaining the continuous evaluation and analysis of the assessment tools for the university to become a world-class university.