Program: Mechanical Engineering (BS)
Degree: Bachelor's
Date: Wed Nov 27, 2013 - 12:17:06 pm
1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.
Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)
a) An ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering
b) An ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze, and interpret data
c) An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability
d) An ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams
e) An ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems
f) An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility
g) An ability to communicate effectively
h) The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context
i) A recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning
j) A knowledge of Contemporary issues
k) An ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice
The Outcomes have been updated and are effective starting in Fall 2013, due to recent changes in the ABET requirements on Program Outcomes, which are now in compliance with the new ABET Program Outcomes for ME Departments. These new outcomes were verified by the Department Faculty, Industry Advisory Board, and Student Advisory Board.
2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.
Department Website URL: www.me.hawaii.edu
Student Handbook. URL, if available online: Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online: UHM Catalog. Page Number: 2013-2014 - College of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Course Syllabi. URL, if available online: NA Other: Other: 3) Select one option:
- File (03/16/2020)
4) For your program, the percentage of courses that have course SLOs explicitly stated on the syllabus, a website, or other publicly available document is as follows. Please update as needed.
0% 1-50% 51-80% 81-99%
100%5) Did your program engage in any program assessment activities between June 1, 2012 and September 30, 2013? (e.g., establishing/revising outcomes, aligning the curriculum to outcomes, collecting evidence, interpreting evidence, using results, revising the assessment plan, creating surveys or tests, etc.)
Yes No (skip to question 14)6) For the period June 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013: State the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goals. Include the SLOs that were targeted, if applicable.
Outcomes a through k (see response to Question 1) are assessed. The questions are: to what extent (on a scale 0 to 1) the SLO are achieved based on the learning experiences of the students and their performances either while they are at school (i.e., their performances in their course works) or on a job just after the graduation.
Surveys: On a scale of 0-1, to what degree the Outcomes a-k were achieved?
Rubrics: Identify the performance of students in a class, who fall under the following categories (for achieving Outcomes a-k): Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent (on a scale 1-4).
Exit Interviews: Exit interviews of graduating students (Annually).
IAB/SAB Interviews: Once in 2-3 semesters interviews of SAB by IAB
IAB: Industry Advisory Board of the Department comprised of the Mechanical Engineers from the local and mainland companies.
SAB: Student Advisory Board of the Department comprised of the Mechanical Engineering students at Senior & Junior levels, at UH Manoa.
These assessments give us indications to what extend our students achieve our program outcomes and how we should improve our program to better achieve our goals. It also guide us if we need to update the program outcomes (or objectives).
7) State the type(s) of evidence gathered to answer the assessment question and/or meet the assessment goals that were given in Question #6.
The data are continually collected at the end of each semester for every class. In addition, exit interviews of graduating seniors are collected annually. The department’s Industry Advisory Board (IAB) meets once in 2-3 semesters and is given an overview of the department. The IAB also meets with and interviews the Student Advisory Board (SAB) which is a committee composed of the student representatives from the department professional society. Since many of the IAB members employ our graduates, they are able to provide a written assessment on both our program and the quality of our students. The SAB also gives the department feedback on the SLOs through written surveys. In addition, the ASME judges, who are local professional mechanical engineers assess our SLOs through our final capstone senior design courses and provide a written assessment on both our program and the quality of our students. Finally, our program goes through a rigorous national accreditation program by ABET (www.abet.org) at least once every six years. Our last accreditation visit was in November 2009 and we received a full six-year accreditation, the highest possible. Our next visit will be in November 2015. All students enrolled in a class are surveyed. The results of the class surveys provide feedback to the instructors to enable them to institute changes, as needed. Faculty direct assessments of the students through their score cards, performance criteria, and rubrics for the SLOs associated to their required courses are also used as feedback for the faculty to improve on the SLOs implementation to ensure that the students are instilled adequately with and trained properly on the SLOs associated with their courses. The results of the exit interviews enable the chair to assign instructors to classes, modify the required classes, and institute changes in lab policies, etc. Exit interviews cover approximately 50% of all graduating seniors. Each instructor, the chair, and the accreditation committee examine the results for the class responses. The chair collects the data and the assessment committee examines the data to provide feedback for implementing changes. Data are collected in class settings, except for exit interviews where a one-on-one meeting of the graduating seniors and the chair are conducted in the department office.
8) State how many persons submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.
About 240 students, over 10 different companies as employers of our graduates (including, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, HECO, Pearl Harbor, etc.), 10 alumni, 3 ASME Judges, 10 IAB members, 10 SAB members, 40 senior students, 14 faculty, ABET Evaluators, etc. The following explains the sampling techniques used for our Assessments:
I. Internal Assessments:
1. Student Teaching Evaluations (Indirect)
2. Student Assessments on Program Objectives and Outcomes (Indirect)
3. Student Exit Interviews (Direct)
4. Student Advisory Board, SAB, (Indirect)
5. Faculty Score Cards, Performance Criteria, Rubrics (Direct)
6. Course Portfolios (Direct)
II. External Assessments:
1. Industry Advisory Board, IAB, (Direct)
2. Employers of our graduates (Direct)
3. Alumni (Indirect)
4. Capstone Senior Design Evaluation by the ASME Senior Section (Direct)
5. Employers’ Comparative Assessments (Direct)
6. Career Placement (Direct)
7. National Contests (Direct)
8. ABET visit (every 3-6 years, depending on the granted accreditation). We received a 6-year accreditation in 2009, until 2015.
9) Who interpreted or analyzed the evidence that was collected? (Check all that apply.)
Course instructor(s) Faculty committee Ad hoc faculty group Department chairperson Persons or organization outside the university Faculty advisor Advisors (in student support services) Students (graduate or undergraduate) Dean/Director Other: Also, Department ABET (Accreditation) Committee & its Chair [The Mechanical Engineering ABET committee interprets the SLOs evidences for each course through student surveys and the faculty score cards/performance criteria/and rubrics of a- through k listed in 1. In addition, the SLOs are evaluated by Industry Advisory Board (IAB) members through the evaluation of our student performance by Student Advisory Board (SAB) presentations, IAB/SAB meeting, faculty presentations and laboratory tours. Further, the SLOs and a major design experience are assessed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) local senior section. Also, employers of our graduates assess their performance in their organizations and provide performance feedback to the Department. Finally, the Chair of the Department conducts exit interviews covering the SLOs and anything else the students wish to discuss. The results obtained from IAB/SAB/ASME/Employers/Alumni/Exit Interviews/Students/Faculty are also interpreted by the ME ABET committee and the ME faculty are provided feedback for curriculum improvement. The Assessment results are shared with the Department ABET Committee, Faculty, and IAB. The results are also analyzed by the Department ABET Committee and presented to the Faculty and IAB. In joint ABET Committee-Faculty-IAB meetings, the results are further analyzed and evaluated, and then solutions for program improvements are proposed, evaluated, and finalized for implementations.]10) How did they evaluate, analyze, or interpret the evidence? (Check all that apply.)
Used a rubric or scoring guide Scored exams/tests/quizzes Used professional judgment (no rubric or scoring guide used) Compiled survey results Used qualitative methods on interview, focus group, open-ended response data External organization/person analyzed data (e.g., external organization administered and scored the nursing licensing exam) Other: [The faculty use Rubrics for SLOs evaluations. The faculty use their exams as the basis for completing their Rubrics. We also invite Professional Mechanical Engineers at the end of each academic year to judge our students skills in terms of our program SLOs and to determine to what extend our SLOs are achieved by judging the performance of our students in a Capstone Senior Design Course which is the culmination of all ME courses where our students use their skills to develop a real-world working prototype from conceptualization to realization and in projects such as the development of a Single Rider All-Train Vehicle (Mini Baja, which is a small mountain car), Neighborhood Urban Electric Vehicle (Two Seats), Single Rider Racing Vehicle (Formula Car), SuperMileage (Single Rider Fuel Efficient Light Weight Composite Vehicle), Aero Designs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, UAV; and Micro Aerial Vehicle, MAV), Biomedical Devices, Rehabilitation Devices, Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, Wave Energy Device, etc. These competitions include: Professional Technical Presentations of the Design, Hardware Demonstrations & Evaluations, and a Poster Session & Interviews. We also collect and compile surveys from students (every semester) as well as the employers of our alumni, etc. (every year). The Department Chair conducts Exit Interviews of the graduating seniors annually on the design, implementation, and achievements of our Department SLOs. Also, we ask the Senior Section ASME-Hawaii Section to participate in our year-end Capstone Senior Design Competition Judgment and Program Evaluation, as well as their participation in our IAB (Industry Advisory Board) that meets once in 2-3 semesters.]11) For the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goal(s) stated in Question #6:
Summarize the actual results.
Through the evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of the results obtained employing the Assessment Tools explained in Questions 5 through 10, the following Problems were identified:
• PROBLEMS (Identified through Assessments):
• 1) Math 190 that provides Computer Language Fortran does not seem to be adequate (Assessment: Exit, SAB, IAB; & Rubrics).
• 2) The ME Department has sophomore, junior, and senior design courses; however, a freshman design course is missing (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 3) The laboratory condition in the ME Machine Shop are outdated and need renovations (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 4) The machineries and tools in the DME Machine Shop need to be updated for the DME students course projects (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 5) More updated computers & software are needed for DME Courses with Laboratories (Exit, SAB, IAB, Employers).
• 6) More Lab space are needed for the DME Design Projects (Exit, SAB, IAB, Employers)
• 7) There is Faculty Shortage in teaching Hands-on courses as well as sufficient courses (including technical electives) for students to be able to graduate timely (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 8) Due to increase in number of students, more sections of the same course needs to be offered for the students to be able to graduate timely (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 9) More Modern Tools are needed for ME Labs (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 10) More Access to ME Labs are needed (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
• 11) Inadequacy in the knowledge of Math & Phys (Assessment: Rubrics, Faculty Meetings).
• 12) Inadequacy in the knowledge of basic ME Courses (Assessment: Rubrics, Faculty Meetings).
• 13) Pre-reqs issues in ME Courses (Assessment: Exit, SAB & IAB).
12) State how the program used the results or plans to use the results. Please be specific.
The following explains the corrective actions that the DME has taken to resolve the Problems explained in Question 11, and are presented in the following as the Solutions. Each Solution Number in this section (i.e., Question 12) corresponds to the same Problems Number explained in the previous section (i.e., Question 11).
• SOLUTIONS (the numbers here correspond to those in the PROBLEMS one-to-one) (Evaluation and Improvements of the Program):
• 1) The ME Department and the College of Engineering are working together to add a fresh man design course that also include Matlab computer programming.
• 2) The ME Department and the College of Engineering are working together to add a fresh man design course that also include Matlab computer programming.
• 3) The ME Department and the College of Engineering are working together to renovate the ME Machine Shops.
• 4) The ME Chair is utilizing, the Engineering Fees, College Banquet Fundraising Funds, and Department Funds to renovate the machinery and tools in the ME Machine Shop. Two new Lath, two new milling, as well as new drilling and band saw machines have been purchased and installed this year. We are in the process of purchasing additional tools as well.
• 5) We have upgraded our software in our computer labs. First, Solid Works (with COSMOS and COMSOL for FEA Analysis) in ME 213 (Sophomore Design), ME 481 & ME 482 (Senior Design). Second, ANSYS FLUENT (with Computational Fluids Dynamic capabilities for FEA Analysis) in ME 481 & ME 482 (this is in addition to an existing FEA software on solid modeling and structural analysis, i.e., ANSYS). Third, ANSYS DYNA3D (with Structural Dynamic, Crash, and Impact Analysis capabilities for FEA Analysis) in ME 481 & ME 482 (this is in addition to an existing FEA software on solid modeling and structural analysis, i.e., ANSYS). In addition, the computers in Holmes Hall 308 (for ME 342, ME 402, and ME 480) have been updated last year; and we have updated the computers in Holmes Hall 309 (for ME 213, ME 481, and ME 482) this year.
• 6) The Chair has provided more Lab space for students’ projects in Holmes Hall 140 & 348, but more space is needed (we hope to be resolved with the Holmes Hall Renovation).
• 7) The Faculty Shortage in teaching Hands-on courses and sufficient courses for the students’ timely graduation (Assessment: IAB, SAB, Exit Interview, ABET 2009 visit) is partially resolved by hiring two new assistant professors in Fall 2011 and a third one by Spring 2012. The number of Faculty in the Department was 13 at the time of ABET Visit in Nov. 2009 and we pointed out to ABET that the Department should receive 3 more faculty to bring the number of faculty to 16. The number of faculty was reduced to 11, in Fall 2010, due to one faculty resignation and another faculty retirement. The three new assistant professors in the Department raise the number of faculty from 11 in Fall 2010 to 14 by Spring 2012. According to our ABET visit of Nov. 2009, we need two more faculty positions. Although, the Dean’s office is committed to give DME additional two positions; however, due to the economic down-turn, these positions are contingent to the availability of funds. In addition, Dean’s Office provided some funds to the Departments in the College to hire some lecturers and graders to offer more courses and help with more sections of the courses, but the shortage of sufficient faculty in ME still exist; particularly, with recent increase in undergraduate enrollment in ME, from 240 in Spring 2013 to about 330 in Fall 2013, this could pose some problems in the near future.
• 8) Due to increase in number of students, more sections of the same course need to be offered for the students to be able to graduate timely. Therefore, by the hire of new assistant professors, as well as lecturers and graders, we have been able to remedy some of the problems associated with insufficient courses and sections offering for the students to graduate in time; however, the Department is still in need of 2 additional faculty to bring the faculty count to 16, as stated in the 2009 Accreditation (ABET) self-study report and emphasized during the 2009 ABET visit in November 2009; particularly, with recent increase in undergraduate enrollment in ME, from 240 in Spring 2013 to about 330 in Fall 2013, this could pose some problems in the near future.
• 9) We have added the following modern tools to our Labs this year:
• Additive Manufacturing/3D Printer;
• Vibration Set up
• IR Camera
• PIV System
• 2 CFD Software
• Impact & Crashworthiness Software
• 10) The Chair is in the process of hiring Lab Monitors for the Lab to extend the access to the ME Labs.
• 11) We raised the pre-req requirements for Math & Phys from C-- to C.
• 12) We raised the pre-req requirements for basic ME knowledge related courses for the following basic courses: CEE 270, ME 311, ME 322, ME 331, and ME 371.
• 13) We resolved the pre-reqs issues in ME Courses by allowing that bMATH 253 be accepted for MATH 244 requirements..
13) Beyond the results, were there additional conclusions or discoveries?
This can include insights about assessment procedures, teaching and learning, program aspects and so on.
Overall, the Assessment tools have been effective in identifying the existing problems in our department so that the solutions for program improvements can be found with the help of our constituents (i.e., Faculty, IAB, SAB, Students, Employers, and Alumni) employing our assessments, analyses, evaluation, and implementation of the improvements mechanisms to achieve continuous improvement explained in previous sections. In addition, based on our accreditation team (ABET 2009 visit team members and evaluator) recommendations in November 2009, who identified that the Rubrics performed by our faculty to assess the students on the SLOs, were not direct and objective and they required more objective and direct use of Rubrics (such as use of Rubrics as a grading tool for grading homework, exams, projects, etc.), we have modified and been implementing such techniques to remedy this issue.
14) If the program did not engage in assessment activities, please explain.
Or, if the program did engage in assessment activities, please add any other important information here.
Our last Accreditation Visit was in November 2009. The comments were to use more direct and objective ways to implement the Rubric, to ensure that the Department budget is sufficient to operate the Department effectively and hire new needed faculty, and to ensure that there are not disparities and inequities in terms of salaries among the College of Engineering Faculty Salaries.
We have Assessment Tools in place (as explained in this report) and according to the ABET need to perform continuous program assessments, analyses, evaluations, implementations, and program improvements. Therefore, this is an on-going and recurring process and the mentioned issue is resolved. However, the issues on the hire of new needed faculty, and to ensure that there are not disparities and inequities in terms of salaries among the College of Engineering Faculty Salaries, still exist.