An electronic Assessment Information Management System (AIMS) was developed for integrating the information for all academic programs, hence facilitating e-participation; this system includes educational outcomes for each academic program through clear deployment methodology. These outcomes specify the skills, knowledge and attitude expected from each student throughout the courses registered by him/her. Furthermore, the system documents all the experiences including working team experiences in relation with the quality assurance as well as meetings with stakeholders. The system facilitates the transfer of knowledge to the future teams by storing the action plans for the quality assurance committees and documenting the specification of academic courses and programs. The Knowledge Assets, which previously were tacit knowledge, has been now identified and saved for the owner and the stakeholders, such as the faculty members, which includes scientific expertise, research outcomes, administrative and academic. The system has been designed to enable access by all the stakeholders to this information, as well as access from college to college within the University system.
One of the results of this project was the achievement of international accreditation of 10 B.Sc.-level academic programs in two colleges from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The knowledge at the two colleges was documented, and disseminated to all other colleges, with change of management techniques approach and through establishing a comprehensive handbook of quality assurance which satisfied the needs of accrediting agencies. The College of Business Administration programs and the B.Sc. in Law program subsequently obtained Confidence from the national Quality Assurance Authority and Education Training (QAAET). The achievement became possible through continuous improvement by conducting surveys with students at various levels of their academic life, with the alumni, and with the employers providing valuable information feeding back to the improvement of the program. Policy-making decisions is done through two meetings done with the advisory committee that includes all the stakeholders including students, and key employers who run the market.
Through this project, academic programs specified their outcomes and assessed them. This was done with continuous measurement of the satisfaction of employers, alumni, faculty, students and senior students. The project included extensive training of the academic members on how to write the expected learning outcomes and the methodology of course and program assessment, with continuous systematic assessment and identification of improvement actions.
A comprehensive documentation within AIMS web system and update for the academic programs information is regularly conducted. The system facilitates e-participation and allows all stakeholders to access the information through the Internet, which ensures open access, transparency, and ease of sharing. This has introduced multi-disciplinary and ‘horizontal’ approaches to public service delivery and management.
|