New civil engineering program criteria: How the sausage is being made

The American Society of Civil Engineers organized the Civil Engineering Program Criteria Task Committee in October 2012 whose charge is to determine if the current ABET Civil Engineering Program Criteria (CEPC) should be changed to reflect one or more of the 24 outcomes of the second edition of the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge published in 2008. After over a year of conference calls and face to face meetings, the committee has drafted and disseminated a proposed CEPC. This paper chronicles the development of the proposed criteria by sharing a review of the literature, the committee’s methodology and process, the key issues that emerged, the resulting proposed criteria, and the future work of the committee

New civil engineering program criteria: The rest of the story

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) organized the Civil Engineering Program Criteria Task Committee in October 2012 whose charge is to determine if the current ABET Civil Engineering Program Criteria (CEPC) should be changed to reflect one or more of the 24 outcomes of the second edition of the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge published in 2008. After two years of work, a proposed CEPC has been approved by the relevant ASCE committees and forwarded to ABET for approval and incorporation into accreditation criteria. A paper chronicling the committee’s efforts through a review of the literature, the committee’s methodology and process, and the key issues that emerged was presented at the 2014 ASEE Annual Conference in Indianapolis. This paper updates that effort by presenting the resulting proposed criteria, the changes generated by constituency feedback, progress on the Commentary, the existing gap between the proposed accreditation criteria and the current body of knowledge, and the future work of the committee

Accreditation insights and the next body of knowledge

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) published the second edition of the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge (BOK2) in 2008 expanding the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of future civil engineers. There were major changes to the BOK2 as the number of expected outcomes increased from 15 to 24 and the cognitive level of attainment was more precisely defined. A major implementation and enforcement mechanism for the BOK is the ABET accreditation criteria which includes both general criteria 3 and 5 and the discipline-specific program criteria. Of those, the program criteria are the easiest to change. In 2013, ASCE created the Civil Engineering Program Criteria Task Committee (CEPCTC) whose charge was to determine if the current CEPC should be changed to reflect an additional one or more of the 24 outcomes of BOK2. After two years of meetings, conference calls, draft criteria, constituency input, and associated revisions, a proposed change to the CEPC was approved by ASCE and submitted to ABET for approval. The CEPC was supplemented with an associated commentary. The proposed CEPC are currently going through the two-year ABET approval process and are expected to go into effect in September 2016. The results of the committee’s work were presented in papers at the 2014 and 2015 ASEE Annual Conferences in Indianapolis and Seattle.1,2 The Body of Knowledge is a living document that will continue to be updated and revised. ASCE has developed an eight year cycle of change that will make future iterations of the BOK and CEPC both systematic and predictable.3 As such, a Body of Knowledge Task Committee (BOKTC) is scheduled to be formed in October 2016. The BOKTC could recommend no revisions, minor revisions, or extensive revisions to BOK2. If substantive changes are recommended to BOK2, the master plan calls for the completion of the third edition of the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century (BOK3) before October 2018. Because the CEPC was created to be compatible with the BOK2 outcomes, the CEPCTC studied the BOK2 in depth. The BOK2 is an aspirational and visionary document which only partially accounts for the real-world constraints faced by engineering programs in terms of mandated maximum units in an undergraduate program and additional requirements imposed by a state government or a university. Conversely, the ABET accreditation criteria (general plus program) define the minimum requirements for a program to receive accreditation. There will naturally be a gap between those two standards. For the cycle of change to be successful, the insights and lessons learned from the development of the CEPC should be communicated with the BOKTC and vice versa. This paper attempts to do that. The paper will define the gap between (1) the BOK2 and (2) EAC/ABET accreditation criteria (general plus proposed CEPC) and make recommendations for closing the gap. During their work, the CEPCTC encountered issues with the BOK2 that suggest potential revisions for the BOK3. This paper is a mechanism for sharing CEPCTC insights, lessons learned, suggestions and recommendations with the rest of the academic and professional community

ExCEEd teaching workshop: Tenth year anniversary

In response to the need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers developed and funded the ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) Teaching Workshop that is today – the summer of 2008 – celebrating its tenth year of existence. For the past decade, nineteen ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at the United States Military Academy, the University of Arkansas, and Northern Arizona University, with two more workshops scheduled for this summer for a total of 21 offerings. ETW has realized 449 graduates from 203 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. This paper summarizes the content of ETW, assesses its effectiveness, highlights changes in the program as a result of the assessment, and outlines future directions. The assessment data were obtained from multiple survey instruments conducted during each workshop, surveys taken six months to a year after the workshop, and a ten year longitudinal survey

Celebrating 20 Years of the ExCEEd Teaching Workshop

In response to the clear need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed and funded Project ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) which is celebrating its twentieth year of existence. For the past two decades, 38 ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at six different universities. The program has 910 graduates from over 267 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. The ExCEEd effort has transformed from one that relied on the grass roots support of its participants to one that is supported and embraced by department heads and deans. This paper summarizes the history of Project ExCEEd, describes the content of the ETW, assesses its effectiveness, highlights changes in the program as a result of the assessment, and outlines the future direction of the program

New Pharmacological Agents to Aid Smoking Cessation and Tobacco Harm Reduction: What has been Investigated and What is in the Pipeline?

A wide range of support is available to help smokers to quit and aid attempts at harm reduction, including three first-line smoking cessation medications: nicotine replacement therapy, varenicline and bupropion. Despite the efficacy of these, there is a continual need to diversify the range of medications so that the needs of tobacco users are met. This paper compares the first-line smoking cessation medications to: 1) two variants of these existing products: new galenic formulations of varenicline and novel nicotine delivery devices; and 2) twenty-four alternative products: cytisine (novel outside of central and eastern Europe), nortriptyline, other tricyclic antidepressants, electronic cigarettes, clonidine (an anxiolytic), other anxiolytics (e.g. buspirone), selective 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) reuptake inhibitors, supplements (e.g. St John’s wort), silver acetate, nicobrevin, modafinil, venlafaxine, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI), opioid antagonist, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) antagonists, glucose tablets, selective cannabinoid type 1 receptor antagonists, nicotine vaccines, drugs that affect gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) transmission, drugs that affect N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDA), dopamine agonists (e.g. levodopa), pioglitazone (Actos; OMS405), noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, and the weight management drug lorcaserin. Six criteria are used: relative efficacy, relative safety, relative cost, relative use (overall impact of effective medication use), relative scope (ability to serve new groups of patients), and relative ease of use (ESCUSE). Many of these products are in the early stages of clinical trials, however, cytisine looks most promising in having established efficacy and safety and being of low cost. Electronic cigarettes have become very popular, appear to be efficacious and are safer than smoking, but issues of continued dependence and possible harms need to be considered