Accreditation is the voluntary, peer-review process utilized by higher-education institutions and industry practitioners to evaluate academic degree programs. This process offers quality assurance of engineering programs at universities. IEEE participates in this review process in partnership with ABET. ABET is a certified, nonprofit, non-governmental agency. IEEE reviews programs related to both the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) and the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission (ETAC).

Why does accreditation matter?

The accreditation process is used by universities, colleges, and specific degree programs to clarify instructional goals and objectives, enhance program content, and improve program delivery.   

Institutional and program-accreditation status is also an important assurance of quality to prospective:

  • Students and faculty
  • Employers
  • Governing boards
  • Government agencies
  • Funding sources

Why does IEEE contribute to the accreditation field/process?

IEEE’s mission is to protect the standards of its fields of interest. To do this, an important mechanism is reviewing and creating ongoing criteria in the electrical, computer, and cybersecurity engineering areas, among others.

The way in which criteria is proposed and ultimately implemented to the accredited programs is through ABET. There are over 30 societies within ABET; IEEE is the largest member society of ABET and is therefore responsible for the majority of engineering programs. Having a seat at the table to review and continuously improve the criteria that will be used in evaluating institutions and their engineering programs is of the utmost importance. This allows for IEEE values to be recognized and put into practice in every accredited program around the globe.  

What are the components of accreditation?

To evaluate academic degree programs, the accreditation processes typically consider criteria centered on:

  • Curriculum content
  • Instructional resources
  • Admission and graduation requirements
  • Learning outcomes
  • Other widely accepted factors within the academic community