Computer engineering



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Program Delivery Modes


There is only one mode of delivery, which is a “Day Program”. The students are full time students. They attend full day program in face-to-face mode. The academic year is composed of two 15-week regular semesters in the Fall and Spring semesters and an 8-week condensed Summer. Each graduating student has to successfully complete 131 credits. Each semester credit is one 50-minute lecture a week or 3 hours of lab a week.

The university has expanded in the past ten years in the development of on-line courses. These are used as supplementary material for the class room instruction.


    1. Deficiencies, Weaknesses or Concerns from Previous Evaluation(s) and the Actions taken to Address them


The COE program has undergone several cycles of curriculum and assessment-improvement cycles. Indeed, the assessment methods and procedures themselves have gone through several evolutions including the alignment to ABET EC 2K.

In 2001, the broad objectives of the undergraduate program in Computer Engineering were to instill in its graduates a solid foundation of mathematical, scientific, and engineering knowledge in addition to developing the intellectual skills essential for prosperity and success in their careers. These lead to define a set of three broad program educational objectives and a set of seven program outcomes.

A corrective cycle (1999-2001) was carried out in response to the comments/assessment of the ABET team who visited the department. Although, the program was fully accredited, some concerns were raised by the ABET team. These ABET concerns (C) and the corresponding corrective actions (A) that were taken by the faculty are as follows:


  1. C-1: There was no enough flexibility in the program. Students could not select general electives from arts or other disciplines (other than their major).

A-1: This problem was compounded by the fact that KFUPM is a technical institution; it had no arts college. The issue was taken with the university administration (since it was a common problem for all programs) and many electives were created under the ‘General Studies’ division. Students now have access to, a relatively, wide selection of general interest courses such as Psychology, Industrial Sociology and Production, International Relations, Man and environment in addition to many courses on Arabic literature and Islamic theology. Students also have access to courses in Architecture, Marketing, Accounting, Finance, and Business Administration. The COE program was revised to allow students to take 3 general electives to take advantage of the presence of these courses.


  1. C-2: There was a need to create a process for validating and evaluating the attainment of the established program objectives and outcomes.

A-2: The process has been created as explained in this report under criterion C2, C3, and C4.

  1. C-3: Projects taken by students in COE485 (Senior Design Project Course) and in the COOP course (COE351) were mainly limited to analysis and hence did not provide any design experience for the students. There was a need to strengthen the program’s design component through greater emphasis on economic factors, safety, reliability, aesthetic, ethics, and social impact.

A-3: First, the department had established two Ad-hoc committees (one for COE351 and another for COE485) to look into this issue. These courses were modified accordingly to improve the engineering design component. Some guidelines were developed. Also, in T081 a continuous improvement action for program outcome (c) “an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs” was conducted. The above action resulted in a noticeable improvement in the corresponding rubric (See Criterion 3 and 4 for more details). Second, many new electives were created within the program to expose the students to emerging technologies and contemporary issues related to the disciplines of the COE Program (Networks and Embedded Systems). Third, the university has created a course on Ethics (IAS 211/212 including work ethics) which also addresses the contemporary issues related to technology the large. This course was made compulsory upon all KFUPM students.

The Program Educational Objectives (PEOs) have gone through a new phase of revision in 2008. The feedback of the constituents (Faculty and Industrial Advisory Board) was taken into consideration. The revised set of objectives in the final form were discussed and approved by the department and college councils. The new COE educational objectives were published on the department Web site and can be accessed at: http://www.ccse.kfupm.edu.sa/coe/abet/objectives.html



In its extension of substantial equivalency recognition, dated October 8, 2008, the chair of the International Activities Council, ABET, Inc. provided the following concerns with the corresponding departmental actions:

  1. C1: It is suggested that surveys of supervisors of Cooperative education and intern students is probably better suited to securing indirect information with respect to fulfillment of outcomes, which may, of course, benefit assessment or suggest changes in Program Educational Objectives.

A-1: A new survey was designed for the COOP supervisors. The survey addresses the level of achievement of the program outcomes and provides some space for commenting on the PEOs. Note that we have only a few students selecting the COOP option (only 2 in T082). For this we have very few COOP Supervisor Survey filled.

  1. C-2: The Self-Study needs to better disclose how actual learning by students is judged and how the ratings of that learning using direct measures – student-by-student in a set of covering course for a Program Outcomes – are assembled into a finding of level of achievement of the Program Outcome.

A2: The Self-Study Report (Section 4 on “Continuous Improvement”) has been revised. It describes the rating approach used in some courses which are used to carry out the rubrics assessment. The reported data involves the student-by-student figures as well as overall average figure for each program outcomes. This data is presented as part of the display material. The level of achievement of each outcome results from combining (average score) the achievement of the same outcome from a few different courses whose activities reasonably involve the same outcome (see Table ‎3.6 -28).

  1. C-3: Overall the program Outcomes and associated direct measures based assessment process is reasonable, but requires some refining. Though some redundancy through indirect corroborative measures is generally deemed essential, the degree of indirect, corroborative measures for the Program Outcomes appears excessive and the effort required may not be sustained.

A-3: The Assessment methods for both PEOs and PO have been revised. The PEOs assessment is now based on surveying the Employer and Alumni. The needed refining is now manifested in the Assessment Plan which is described in Criterion 3. The new assessment plan is based on a three years cycle: (1) two years are allocated to carry out continuous improvement (of some outcomes), and (2) collecting the assessment data in the third year. The COE ABET committee and the COE faculty analyze the surveyed data and consult with Advisory Committee. The POs assessment is now based on Direct and indirect assessment tools. Direct assessment includes: (1) the rubrics assessment, (2) average student grades in some supporting courses (MATH, PHYS, ENGL, IAS, STAT), and (3) Exit Exam. Indirect assessment tools include exit survey and COOP supervisor survey.

  1. C-4: Every effort should be made to remove inconsequential but irritating errors in the Self-Study.

A-4: A lots of effort has been made to re-organize the self-study and provide proper cross referencing of tables, figures, and appendices.

  1. C-5: It is noted that physical education is not usually included in the classification of general education. The remaining courses in the listed general education requirements, including those available as electives, are of limited scope across what are usually though of as humanities and those sciences consistent with an engineering education. However, though limited in scope, those courses available to students appear consistent with the cultural context of the institution and the countries in which they are most likely to enter the practice of engineering. Furthermore, they will undoubtedly help the students acquires the “Soft skills” related Program Outcomes.

A-5: The physical education courses are now removed from the general education courses. The University is currently developing a separate general education program with more coverage of humanities and engineering education.

  1. C-6: With respect to the major design experience, the Program needs to more clearly illustrate that is a culminating experience. This could be accomplished by showing a map of the courses displaying their sequence in conformance with semester, pre-requisite, and co-requisite sequencing, overlaid by progressive design sequences leading to the major design experience.

A-6: The courses COE 400 “embedded Systems” and COE 485 “Senior Design Project” represents a learning platform where knowledge and skills acquired across the COE program are culminating in a major design experience. A flow-chart has been designed to show the knowledge and skills learned from various COE course broken down into semesters and showing pre-requisite and co-requite edges.

  1. C-7: As noted for Criterion 7 above, financial support for laboratory resources has been declining somewhat over the past several years. This may be entirely reasonable, but such reasons should be explained in the self-Study.

A-7: Fluctuation in the financial support is due to on many factors like: the need to expand the current educational and research facilities, faculty need for all kind of project, and the availability of consumable components.


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