ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION OF A SENIOR DESIGN CAPSTONE COURSE IN AN INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING PROGRAM

Senior design is one of the most important engineering experiences in an undergraduate's journey to professional engineering practice. For the industrial and systems engineering curriculum at Qatar University, a project-based senior design capstone course, Industrial Systems Design (IENG498), bridges the gap between undergraduate engineering design experiences and professional industrial engineering practice. As such, the Industrial Systems Design course plays an important role in modelling and preparing undergraduates for professional industrial engineering practice. In this paper, we discuss the redesign of the Industrial Systems Design course offered in the industrial and systems engineering program. The purpose of the redesign was to meet the requirements of contemporary engineering education as well as meet the needs and requirements of the local industry. Requirements of contemporary engineering education were derived from the current ABET criteria for a standard engineering curriculum. Industry requirements were derived from the results of alumni and local employer surveys. Descriptions of data collection methods for the assessment and evaluation of the Industrial Systems Design course are outlined. Collected data was used to determine whether course learning outcomes were satisfied as well as evaluate existing students' opinions about the effectiveness of the re-designed course. The sample of students who participated in this research were from the 2008-2009 (control group) and 2009-2010 (experimental group) academic years. In this sample, the performance of 10 students (5 for each group) was assessed based on pre-defined key performance indicators. The same sample of students were asked to evaluate the level of achievements of course learning outcomes as well as evaluate their experiences in the various design activities they went through during their final year project. The results show that the redesign of the project-based Industrial Systems Design course added value, enthusiasm and new experiences toward professional engineering practice.