Software Development for Course and Program Outcome Attainment

In today's competitive world, every institute needs to keep their academic standard as high as possible. It becomes mandatory for all most all the institutes to maintain the quality in technical education as well as to produce the skilled graduates. In order to produce the skill graduates, the Institute always rely on different programs which is responsible for producing the high calibre graduate. As of now, there is no such application available which will automate at least the process of reducing the clerical work required for preparing the course file to evaluate the Course Outcome with Program Outcome .NBA has laid down the guidelines for each program through the means of rubrics to undergo this evaluation process which implies the accreditation grade to be given from NBA committee. This application allows the faculty to enter the details about their courses in terms of mapping with PO, PSO and Bloom's Taxonomy. The application calculates the PO attainment which helps the faculty about the existing gap which further can be improved in the next semester.Hence such type of application will assist the faculty to reduce their workload regarding the individual course.


Introduction
The Bachelor of Engineering program has some educational objectives. These educational objectives are the long term goals that program set for students. These programs prepare students to achieve these objectives four to five years after graduation.
The Course outcome (CO) are the statements that describe desired learning that learners have achieved, and can be demonstrate at the end of a course . In other words, course outcomes describe what students should determine upon the completion of a course. [6].All courses in a particular program would have their own course outcomes These course outcomes are designed based on requirement of the program outcomes [6] and program specific outcomes. Each course outcomes are mapped to Program outcomes and program specific outcomes.
The program outcomes(PO) are clear, concise statements that describe how students can demonstrate the skills obtained at the end of their graduation. Program outcomes are based on the twelve Graduate Attributes(GA's) defined by NBA[6].
The program specific outcome(PSO) are the statements that describe the skill attainment of the graduate specific to the program of study. For example ,one of the PSO for Computer Engineering Undergraduate program can be ' Developed software application to solve real life problem'.
There are two assessment methods, Direct and Indirect Assessment Method.
Direct Method display the student's knowledge and skills from their performance in the continuous assessment tests, end semester examination, presentation and classroom assignments etc. These methods provide a sampling of what students know and / or can do and provide strong evidence of student leanring. [6] Indirect Method gives information about graduate's perception of their learning and how this learning is valued by different stakeholders. For example , course exit survey is one of the indirect assessment tool.
The course and program outcome (CO-PO) assessment template includes all data of tests, labs, assignments, course exits and exams imported from an instructor's course file. The application facilitates evaluation process or rubrics for all courses and instructors; additionally, it also assists the instructor to understand the highlights and drawbacks in achievement of course outcomes and program outcomes and to make the necessary changes to improve them.

Litrature Review
HosseinRahemi , Naveen Seth [1] has discussed about the implementation of an assessment process that will measure student-learning outcomes and develop a model for a continuous improvement process that will ensure student success. Suseel K Pallapu[2] has discussed the process of automating outcome-based assessment, where an existing course in BalckBoard is exported into TrueOutcomes.Said Elnaffar, Adnan Harb, EmadEldin Mohamed [3] has introduces iAssess; a system that automates the course assessment process. iAssess serves two purposes. First, it eases the assessment process to make it practical. Second, it provides more accurate and clearer feedback that helps improve the course delivery. This paper focuses on course assessment as an indispensable instrument that is widely used inside any college.
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom [4] headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. This became a taxonomy including three overlapping domains; the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Each of the domains can be utilized through the interaction of media.
Cognitive learning is demonstrated by knowledge recall and the intellectual skills: comprehending information, organizing ideas, analyzing and synthesizing data, applying knowledge, choosing among alternatives in problemsolving and evaluating ideas or actions. This domain on the acquisition and use of knowledge is predominant in the majority of courses. Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple recall or recognition of facts, as the lowest level, through increasingly more complex and abstract mental levels, to the highest order which is classified as evaluation. Verb examples that represent intellectual activity on each level are listed here.
Initially the instructor selects the department and enters the course details with course outcomes. The mapping of each course outcome is done with program outcome along with the attainment levelof PO, PSO and Bloom's Level. Then individual mapping of each course outcome (CO) with internal term tests, laboratories, course exit etc are done. Therubrics are then generated for each PO and PSO. The faculty can then view the pdf document of the course for self-evaluation. The actual working model is described with each step explained in above process as follows: (Fig 2 to 13) .    Fig.12.)

Conclusions
The application allow the instructor to identify the weaker elements of the course outcomes and bring the necessary changes to improve them further. The application can be used as an effective tool for self-assessment of courses. He has published more than 50 papers in various national and international conferences and published twenty papers in international journals like journal of applied physics, IEEE transactions on electron devices, Elsevier microelectronics reliability, IET circuit's devices and systems, ASP journal of low power electronics etc. He is reviewer of IEEE transactions on Electron Devices, Elsevier Microelectronics Journal, Microelectronics Reliability, Academic Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Research, Emrald International Journal of Electronics, Journal of scientific research and review, and several national and international conferences. Three times he received best paper awards. He received outstanding achievement award (2007) by the Energy Society of India from Governor of Pondicherry. He received 'ISTE Best Engineering College Teacher Award for Maharashtra State" in year 2012. He has delivered talks at several engineering colleges on 'outcome based education'.