Quality Enhancement  Cell in the Faculty of Engineering & Technology (F.E.T)

Introduction

• Establishment of Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) in the Faculty of Engineering & Technology in close liaison with University’s  Quality Enhancement Cell via Higher Education Commission;

• Nomination of Focal Person and Program teams for QEC in the Departments  to perform day to day activities of  Quality Enhancement in education and image building;

• Systematic implementation of Quality Enhancement procedures/criteria to attain improved levels of international compatibility and competitiveness at institutional and program level.

Functions & Activities Performed

• Provided data of faculty and students to H.E.C as and when required from time to time.

• Compilation of H.E.C’s Quality Enhancement  Performa’s (10) as mentioned below (along with  frequency of requirement  time & the current status
  thereof):

• Preparation of Self Assessment Report (S.A.R) as per the requirement of H.E.C. The report is based on following 08 criteria, each having multiple sub-criteria:

• Program Mission, Objectives & Outcomes
• Curriculum Design & Organization
• Laboratories & Computing facilities
• Student Support & Advising
• Process Control
• Faculty
• Institution Facilities
• Institution Support

The purpose is to use quantitative and qualitative data from diverse sources about education programs in order to improve student learning and evaluating, whether academic and learning standards are being met.  The report based on several inputs from many quarters within the Department and outside and forms the basis of all audit and reviews.

• Current Status: Report completed and sent to Quality enhancement cell of IIU.
• Future activity: Assessment Team will visit soon and give their findings based on S.A.R. The Department will then implement the recommendation/findings made by Assessment team. The progress on Assessment team findings will be review once in a semester to assess the implementation.

• On-line (internet) Learning environment through VLE is being initiated in this Fall Semester 2010 with the collaboration of IT Department of university.  This enables students to adhere to the on line teaching practices and bring novel way of teacher student interaction. On VLE the teacher can make  weekly schedule or contents/topic schedule, put assignments, notes, mid term results, announcement, upload files upto 10 MB of teaching materials for each subject.  The system is not new and is available in most of the modern universities. In addition to above  Students Feedback Performa’s  are being filled through this on line system in this Fall 2010 semester, thus avoiding manual feedback, taken earlier, which requires lot of paper work and cost.

• Current Status: Work completed. Teachers and students can log into the VLE on line system. Student feedback taken on-line before the final exam of semester Fall 2010. Courses are being registered for Spring 2011 semester.

• Creation of Faculty data base to gather data of each faculty member regarding his/her General information, Qualification, Experience, Publication, Conference, Supervision,    R & D Projects, and Awards.  The purpose is to update the activities of faculty member and bring information at a central point and be readily available. The faculty members himself maintains and update his information. A unique login and password has already been issued to faculty members.

• Current Status: All the faculty members are utilizing this facility with log in & password issued to them. Updating of database is a continuous exercise.

Guidance and Counseling System in Faculty of Engineering and Technology

Introduction

Students entering Engineering University find things very different from what they saw at college / school. The university routine, methods of teaching, examination and grading may pose problems for students especially in the first year. The university environment also offers a step change in personal freedom, and some young people may not be able to muster the corresponding sense of responsibility and self control. Senior students may have other difficulties which affect their performance. To alleviate this difficulty, FET has put in place Guidance and Counseling (G&C) system for students starting fall 2009.

Organization

Ideally, the entire UG student population should be divided into nearly equal groups having students from all semesters. Each group is attached to one faculty member (FM) who becomes more or less like a Godfather to the students of his group and is called the Group Counselor (GC). To limit the number of students per FM, in the FET experiment, a start was taken with the students of Fall09. After observing the results for one semester, the scheme was modified. All students of FET were included, but groups are enlarged. Now each section of a batch is supervised a “Section Counselor (SC)” who will do the same function but for the whole section.

Operation

The Counselor tries to know each student of the section intimately, monitors his/ her academic progress, detects any noticeable (negative) trends, tries to investigate/ alleviate the causes; encourages good students into better performance, etc. This is done through regular contact for which, time has been allocated in the weekly academic schedule. Registration of new courses at the start of a semester will be done by the students under the guidance of the Counselor. In cases where the University or a Department is likely to take some adverse action against a student, his counselor will generally be consulted before a decision is taken. The G&C system at FET is continuously under review for improvements and effectiveness.