2. Accreditation

India has become the permanent signatory member of the Washington Accord from 13th June 2014. Implementation of OBE in higher technical education also started in India. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and National Board of Accreditation (NBA) are the autonomous bodies for promoting global quality standards for higher education in India.

3. OBE Implementation

Outcome-Based Education (OBE) is a student-centric learning model that helps teachers to plan the course delivery and assessment. It is implemented as per the following steps:

• Define Vision statements, Mission statements for the Institute and department
• Define Program Educational Objectives
• GA, PO & PSO Statements
• Define Course Objectives
• Map courses with Program outcomes at suitable levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Define Course Outcomes with Bloom’s Taxonomy for each course
• Map topics with Course outcomes
• Prepare lecture-wise Course Lesson Plan
• Define pedagogical tools for course outcomes delivery
• Define rubrics for Tutorial, Practical, seminar, Mini Project, Final year Projects
• Use Learning Management Tool such as Moodle for Assignments, Quizzes, Content beyond syllabus coverage, Tests, course feedback etc.
• Measure the attainment of each CO through Direct/Indirect assessments
• Track students performance
• Identify Gaps in the Curriculum and adopt suitable measures to bridge the Gap
• Compare PO/PSO for last 3 academic years and propose remedial actions
• Assess the attainment of Program Educational Objectives

4. Key Parameters

Course

Course is defined as a theory, practical or theory cum practical subject studied in a semester. For E.g. Mathematics

Programme

Programme is defined as the specialization or discipline of a Degree. It is the interconnected arrangement of courses, co-curricular and extracurricular activities to accomplish predetermined objectives leading to the awarding of a degree. For Example: B.Sc. Computer Science

Assessment

Assessment is one or more processes carried out by the institution that identifies, collect, and prepare data to evaluate the achievement of Programme Educational Objectives and programme outcomes.

Attainment

Attainment is the action or fact of achieving a standard result towards the accomplishment of desired goals. Primarily attainment is the standard of academic attainment as observed by test or examination result.

• Graduate Attributes (GA): The graduate attributes are exemplars of the attributes expected of a graduate from an accredited programme.
• Programme Educational Objectives (PEOs): The Programme Educational Objectives of the statements that describe the expected achievements of graduates in their career, and also in particular, what the graduates are expected to perform and achieve during the first few years after graduation.
• Programme Outcomes (POs): Programme Outcomes are narrower statements that describe what students are expected to be able to do by the time of graduation. POs are expected to be aligned closely with Graduate Attributes.
• Programme Specific Outcomes (PSOs): Programme Specific Outcomes are what the students should be able to do at the time of graduation with reference to a specific discipline. Usually there are two to four PSOs for a programme.
• Course Outcomes (COs): Course outcomes are statements that describe significant and essential learning that learners have achieved, and can be reliably demonstrated at the end of a course. Generally three or more course outcomes may be specified for each course based on its weightage.

5. Process Involved in Outcome Based Education

Outcome Based Education (OBE) starts with a clear statement on Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes that the Graduates will be able to demonstrate . These are stated as Programme Outcomes and Course Outcomes and are related with the Vision, Mission and PEO statements and GA as stated in Washington Accord.

The OBE process involves the following steps:

1. Statement of measurable GAs, PEOs, POs/PSOs, and COs.
2. Designing appropriate Outcome Based Curriculum.
3. Deliberate Planning of Teaching-Learning Process.
4. Continuous Evaluation using suitable assessment methods and tools at apt time.

6. Implementation Strategy

Since OBE focusses on student competency, it concentrates on the outcomes or goals instead of just marks or scores. So the goals which could be a certain number of skills and knowledge that the learner should have at the end of the course. The assessment methods are defined to measure the achievement of these goals. The teachers take the role of being facilitators and mentors. Constructive feedback from the students also helps in reshaping the curriculum.

7. Graduate Attributes

Graduate attributes refer to the skills, knowledge and abilities of the graduating students, beyond disciplinary content knowledge, that are applicable in a range of contexts in their lives. The graduate attributes are essential for employability and hence serve to enhance the development of students’ academic, specialist and technical competencies defining a higher education experience and equipping them with transferrable skills that can be applied in different environments. At the successful completion of two years for PG programmes, the graduates of the University will be able to attain the following Graduate Attributes:

• Domain Expertise
• Technical Competency
• Transferrable Skills
• Interdisciplinary Knowledge
• Personality and Personal Growth
• Communication and Information Management
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Individual and Team Work
• Professional Ethics and Social Values
• Entrepreneurship Qualities
• Environment and Sustainability
• Lifelong Learning
• Awareness of Indian Knowledge System
• Empowerment throught AI

8. Programme Educational Objectives (PEOs)

Programme Educational Objectives (PEOs) are broad statements that describe the career and professional accomplishments that the programme is preparing the graduates to achieve. PEO’s are measured around 4-5 years after graduation. PEO’s can be measured by a PO-PEO matrix. These may be guided by global and local needs, vision of the institution, long term goals, etc.

Guidelines

• PEOs should be consistent with the mission of the Institution
• The number of PEOs should be manageable.
• PEOs should be achievable by the programme.
• PEOs should be specific to the programme and not too broad.
• PEOs should be based on the needs of the constituencies.

Evolving PEOs

• The PEOs should evolve through constant feedback from:
1. Industry, Alumni, Students, Management
2. Professional Bodies, Faculty, Parents
3. Data on trends in the profession
• Views regarding the feedbacks received are summarized and acceptable views are identified.
• The PEOs are formulated based on the Accepted Views.

9. Levels of Outcomes

Outcomes are the learning results that the students demonstrate at the end of their learning experiences. Outcomes reflect what students can actually do with what they know and have learned as part of their programme of study.Outcomes include knowledge, skills and attitudes attained after 4 – 5 years of graduation. In OBE, the outcomes for a higher education programmes are defined at three levels as Programme Outcomes (POs), Programme Specific Outcomes (PSOs) and Course Outcomes (COs).

In alignment with the vision and mission the PEOs are stated as Program Educational Objectives (PEOs)

10. Blooms Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy comprises three learning domains: the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, and assigns to each of these domains a hierarchy that corresponds to different levels of learning.

11. Calculating Attainments: CO-PO