Int. J. Engng Ed. Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 97±103, 2000 Printed in Great Britain.

0949-149X/91 $3.00+0.00 # 2000 TEMPUS Publications.

Quality Assurance for Engineering Education in a Changing World*
WINFRED M. PHILLIPS, GEORGE D. PETERSON and KATHRYN B. ABERLE Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, 111 Market Place, Suite 1050, Baltimore MD, 21202, USA. E-mail: kaberle@abet.org
Faster computer chips, corporate mergers, new Internet applications: every day, we are reminded of the sweeping technological change and globalization that appear to be dominant trends of the new millennium. Rapid and multifaceted, these changes can be daunting to engineering educators. Unable to predict so volatile a future, we nonetheless have to make decisions today about what to teach future engineers and how to prepare them for an increasingly international workplace without compromising the hard-won quality of our programs. Fortunately, we have an organization dedicated to ensuring the quality and relevancy of engineering education in the US ± and, increasingly, to helping engineering education programs in other countries strive for goals similar to our own. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, or ABET, is a federation of 28 professional engineering and technical societies that accredits some 1,500 engineering programs, 700 engineering technology programs and 50 programs in engineering-related areas. To receive ABET accreditation, engineering programs must go through a rigorous examination that includes self-study and peer review by a visiting team of engineering academicians and professional engineers. Founded in 1932, ABET significantly boosted the quality and credibility of US engineering programs, but some raised concerns that its rigorous criteria also resulted in too much standardization of engineering programs. In response, ABET has launched a