Motion made and seconded at CS Dept mtg 11am Tue 20th Jan 2009

Motion passed.

13 For
 2 Against
 3 Abstain

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Background:

ABET CAC concluded that a weakness in our self-evaluation system was
that, while we were collecting good data, we had no thresholds against
which to measure performance, and any improvements.

Rationale:

This motion establishes some initial thresholds that can be used for
evaluating alumni data. It also allows for the possibility of refining
these thresholds in the future. The performance thresholds that are
"reasonable" and appropriate for our program are very hard to
establish.  We start this use of thresholds with something simple that
we can use to evaluate our progress towards improving our program, as
well as allowing us to evaluate the thresholds themselves and
their use.

Motion:

The WPI Computer Science Department moves to establish an 80% approval
level against which to measure alumni evaluation of the department's
performance, using a yearly survey based on the department's adopted
objectives and educational outcomes.

Comment:

The past surveys used the "old" objectives. These look similar to the
current outcomes, and we hope to still be able to use the past data in
our assessment activity.  We will now survey the alumni using both the
new objectives and the new outcomes.  The web-based survey will be
altered to better suit our purposes.  It should be noted that 80% is
quite high, and that only about 30% of our old objectives reach that
level at present: i.e., we need to improve on about 70%.

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