The engineering accrediting body (ABEV has identified the skills and competencies in which engineering students are expected to be prepared by their engineering programs (EC2000, Criterion 3, Dk). These competencies include several o f e n characterized as 'sof ' , open-ended, or non-traditional (i.e., comnrunication, teaming, awareness of global and social impact, etc.), which engineering faculty often profess feeling ill prepared to teach. and less prepared to assess, as classroom or programmatic outcomes.Typically, the traditional sources of engineering assessment tools and models (i.e., test suggestions from engineering texts. and examination problems borrowed and adapted from other faculty members) ore poor in resource5 addressing the 'sof' ABETcompetencies. For these reasons a group of engineering educators and assessment and evaluotion professionals from four NSF Engineering Foundation Coalition partner universities. undertook comprehensive. systematic web and print literature searches, and n survey of first hand information about iirstrucrional and assessment materials being used to address the ABET rtk competencies. This paper confines itself 10 describing the methodology used and the results obtained in the systematic web and lirerature searches. The paper discusses (I) the extent to which relevant instructional and assessinenl materials, for each particular ABET ak category, were found to be publicly accessible online and in libraries;(2) the systematically cumulated impressions of invesrignrors abour the utility of rhe ovnilable materials; (3) fhe extent Io which a 4 instructional or assessment malerials could be readily extrapolated from articles and presentation papers addressing ABET assessment: (4) the work undertaken to develop a web-searchable, database OJ categorized and annotated references to refer engineering educorors to uppropriare and available materials: (S) the efforts to select, systematize and inipleme,rt unl/Drm niethods for searching. documenting, classrjying and conipilitrg search information, Index Terms -ABET, EC 2000, assessment, instructional materials, teaching materials, literature search, web search
THED ISCOVERY STUDYThe eleven ABET ECZOOO, Criterion 3, ak processing skills are often characterized as technical or non-technical skills. Engineering faculty often refer to the technical as the 'hard' or 'traditional' skills and the non-technical as the 'soft' or 'non-traditional' skills. In order to have some confidence that their graduates will demonstrate acceptable levels of performance in these areas of competence targeted by the engineering accrediting body, programs must provide instruction and must assess their students in these skills. What instructional and assessment materials are being used in engineering programs to teach and measure competency in a-k processes? How useful and effective are the materials which are being used to teach and to assess a k processes in engineering programs across the country? Can we identify, organize and characterize these materials? ...
