Curriculum Compliance Improvement Model for Addressing Program Outcomes in Engineering Education

Abstract - The teaching-learning methodology in the engineering education system is moving from a teacher-centric model to a student-centric model. The student-centered learning model is a method of learning or teaching that keeps the learner at the center. Outcome-Based Education (OBE) is an education model that focuses on the student-centric model which equips the students with the desired knowledge, skill, attitude, and behavior at the time of graduation. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) is an accrediting body in India and its norms ensure that professional programs adopt OBE, and as an initiative, it has defined twelve Program Outcomes (POs). These POs are to be demonstrated by the graduates upon completion of the program. Professional programs curriculum will play a vital role in the attainment of POs. Therefore, the curriculum has to be designed in such a way that all the POs need to be addressed. The majority of the courses in the curriculum address the first five POs and are called disciplinary outcomes. The rest seven POs i.e PO6 to PO12 are generally named as professional outcomes and to address these POs, the department has to put in additional effort. In this paper, aCurriculum Compliance Improvement Model (CCIM) is proposed that performs the gap analysis of the existing curriculum and aid to enhance the curriculum compliance for PO attainment by suggesting suitable actions. These actions can be implemented by fine-tuning the curriculum design and teaching-learning process which will provide an environment for the students to attain all the graduate attributes (POs), the proposed model is illustrated through a case study. Overall, the model proposed is useful for the Tier-1 institutions that are keen on their students attaining all the graduating attributes, and also, ensures to meet the objectives of the accreditation procedure. Keywords— Accreditation, Course Outcomes, Disciplinary Outcomes, Engineering education, Outcomes-Based Education, Program Outcomes, Gap Analysis, Curriculum Design.