Abstract
Because the number of educational institutions all over the world is increasing, the competition to achieve excellence in academic quality has become a prerequisite for sustainability and continuous improvement. Certification from reputed international accreditation boards provides means for such institutions to achieve excellence through the complex accreditation processes. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is one of the prestigious international academic accreditation bodies. Out of all the significant ABET criteria for certification, Students Outcomes (SOs) represent the heart of the accreditation process as they cover a wide range of skills and capabilities expected by the industries and labor markets. The aim of this paper is to provide a methodological approach to prioritize SOs using the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) to construct a meticulous study plan. Acase study on the Department of Industrial Engineering at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) is presented to illustrate the proposed approach. The results indicated that SOs can be systematically linked with the curriculum in order to build up a study plan in a systematic manner. The results also revealed that students should be trained to be able to work in teams at the beginning of the study plan. Alternatively, SOs like, 'ability to design and interpret experiments', 'understand the impact of engineering solutions', and 'engage in life-long learning' etc. were proposed to be imparted within the final year of the study plan, in the subsequent phases.