Assessing the Effectiveness of a Mechanical Engineering Computer-Aided Design Course

One ABET requirement is assessment and demonstration of course improvements based on that assessment.An assessment procedure that was developed for a Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) course is presented in this paper.The primary objective of the CAE course is to educate students in engineering design.In the course, the benefits and limitations of computer-aided engineering design and software are emphasized.A popular engineering software package (Pro/Engineer) that integrates solid modeling, simulation/kinematic analysis, and finite element analysis is used as the basis of this course.As a means to education in design, students must first be trained to use the software.Fourteen videos were created for this course, which incorporated audio combined with PowerPoint slides.The video files (avi's) are distributed to students on five CD's.This paper briefly describes the structure of the course and how the videos are integrated.The effectiveness of the software training and design education was assessed using a specific problem assignment that is repeated (although modified) each year.This is often referred to as a "marker problem."In this case, the assignment is an aircraft landing gear design and analysis project.A comparison of outcomes is made of results for semesters in which the videos were used without accompanying lectures with other semesters in traditional lecture format.The changes to the course that were adopted based on the assessment are presented.The assessment procedure is used to improve the quality of the course and to satisfy ABET requirements.It is proposed that this assessment procedure using marker problems can be used in other design courses.