Resumen de Integral framework to drive engineering education beyond technical skills

Araceli Hernández Bayo, Isabel Ortiz Marcos, Antonio Carretero Díaz, María del Mar de la Fuente García-Soto, Julio Lumbreras Martín, María Luisa Martínez Muneta, Vicente Riveira Rico, Manuel Rodríguez Hernández

• This paper presents the steps followed at the Escuela Te ́cnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales (ETSII) at the UniversidadPolite ́cnica de Madrid (UPM) to progressively implement an outcomes assessment framework. This assessment is understood as theintegral process to guide and guarantee that graduates, when they finish their studies, have acquired the knowledge, abilities andskills established in the program (i.e. outcomes). This is a process linked to the entire program (and not to a single course oractivity) and to the cohort of students (and not to the evaluation of each student individually).At the ETSII, the outcomes assessment process has been designed in accordance with the Accreditation Board for Engineeringand Technology (ABET) criteria which establishes 11 outcomes that must be fulfilled by the students as a necessary step in theaccreditation process and as a preparation to attain the educational program objectives. The implementation of these 11 outcomesis intentionally unspecified by ABET to encourage each engineering program’s faculty to achieve its own specificity considering itsidiosyncrasy. This paper describes the approach followed in the ETSII to develop an integral strategy for the institution and toprogressively evolve to an outcomes assessment culture. From this experience, some quite generalizable learned lessons areextracted that can be useful for other faculties involved in similar processes.