KISMET: An Open Source Process for Faculty Participation in ABET Accreditation

A few ABET-experienced faculty members typically guide the ABET documentation process. Consequently, this becomes an abstract process that is of little concern to remainder of the faculty members. When one considers that ABET accreditation process can indeed provide an impetus for continuous improvement, which in turn, can make the next ABET accreditation cycle relatively smooth, the department’s wider community becomes an indispensable resource to involve and learn from. A typical department has many relevant on-going concurrent activities. Synergistic interactions among these can help address the overall goal of continuous improvement, and in turn secure ABET accreditation. KISMET (Keep It Simple and Measurable for Effective Teaching) takes a holistic approach to make ABET documentation a living document and to empower all faculty and staff members to participate, discuss, improve, and benefit from it. We have benefitted from the use of KISMET. We use OPM (object process methodology) to graphically present this in our paper.