Abstract:

Accreditation is a non-governmental peer review process to assess and enhance educational quality of universities, colleges and programs. Accreditation is carried out at two levels:

1. Institutional Accreditation evaluates overall university education quality for all programs within the university. The US is divided into six regions as Follows:
• North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
• Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
• New England Association of Schools and Colleges
• Northwest Accreditation Commission
• Western Association of Schools and Colleges
• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

2. Specialized accreditation evaluates and accredits specific programs of study. Each field, such as Architecture, Science, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, business and law, has it own accreditation agency. For example, all engineering and applied science programs in the US are reviewed and accredited by Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). ABET is a well-known accreditor for applied science, computing, engineering, and technology worldwide. It Consists of 28 professional/technical societies including: American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Society the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) etc. ABET accredits over 2,800 programs in over 600 colleges and universities in the US. It extends its accreditation and review process worldwide to include 23 countries.

The most important components of ABET are the Program Evaluators (PE) teams who visit and evaluate programs seeking accreditation. There is at least 1500 Program Evaluators (PE) that travel around the world to evaluate programs requesting accreditation.

In this presentation, we define the accreditation and evaluation process, requirements for accreditation, and preparation for the Team visit. Moreover, the presentation will highlight the development of our self-study report and the preparation for the visit at our university.

Keywords:

ABET, Specialized accreditation, Institutional accreditation, Engineering Accreditation