ABET Program Certification
HCI 551 Project 2

download Project Documentation (.pdf)

In the first phase, all participants were naïve to the study, but were briefly introduced into the ABET certification process and the implications for IT majors on higher education campuses. Six students have been recruited while lounging in an academic building on the SUNY Oswego campus and have been invited to participate. After their age and sex have been established, the students completed a consent form and were then lead for participation. An effort was made to counter-balance against age, sex and academic level (freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior, or graduate student).

In phase two, four professors of the SUNY Oswego Computer Science program were selected to evaluate the interface prototype alternatives. The choice of participants was extremely beneficial, as all four participants were identified as stakeholders of the project – these professors will be those using the interfaces to maintain and review the requirements and process for the Software Engineering major to receive ABET certification and therefore will be the ones interacting with the interfaces proposed by this project. The choice of participants was further fortunate in that two of the members are experts in usability and Human Computer Interaction and, more importantly, the Google Web Toolkit (and are therefore aware of benefits and limitations of said technology). Another of the participants is an expert on Database Management Systems and database front-end interfaces, and the last participant is an expert on the ABET Certification Specifications. All participants are male and have considerable knowledge in software implementation and engineering as well as administrative responsibilities and all are considered authorities in their respective fields as both scientists and pedagogues.