摘要:
Continuous Improvement (CI) of academic computing programs is a main requirement of accreditation. Academic computing programs must have a well-documented CI plan in order to be granted accreditation. Based on the existing literature, we developed a comprehensive CI (or 360-CI) model consisting of 8 components: course, curriculum, administration, faculty, research, advising, facilities, & support staff. In a perfect 360-CI plan, each component would continually work on improving itself, as well as improving other components. In this dissertation, we examined how an ABET-accredited School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) covered these 8 components in their CI plan by conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with a follow-up online questionnaire. We used a coding scheme to analyze the results from the interview participants, and we found that all 8 CI components were recognized by both the Computer Science (CS) and Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) programs within the School of EECS. However, the degree of data integration between the components varied greatly with some components being highly coupled and others not being integrated at all. In this dissertation, we present the types of data collected and utilized in the School of EECS, and we compare the results with those from the literature. In alignment with the literature, we found that the CI focus in the School of EECS was on curriculum, course, faculty, and, to a lesser extent, administration, while facilities, advising, research, and support staff were barely recognized as part of the CI plan. Thus, we proposed a 360-CI Framework that includes a 360-CI model, 360-CI taxonomy, and a 360-CI scoring scheme. Using the model and taxonomy, we developed a questionnaire tool called the Academic Computing Continuous Improvement Scoring Survey (ACCISS) to evaluate and quantify an academic computing program's CI comprehensiveness. The questionnaire was implemented within the School of EECS, and