Program Benchmarks for Department of Communications and Electronics Engineering

 

 1. Introduction
The Engineering Profession is a diverse discipline which has made a major positive impact on society, yet it is rarely defined in a manner which covers all contributing activities. Communication and Electronics Engineering is one of the most significant domain in the faculty of engineering in Philadelphia University. It covers both fundamentals of electronics and wired and wireless communication; therefore, it includes many basic modules of electronics and communication systems, in addition to many advanced modules in the domain.

The communications and electronics engineering includes, mobile phone systems, data communication, digital broadcasting and microelectronics technologies, continues to be one of the fastest growing engineering fields.

All Communications systems require the design of electronic subsystems, so that, the communications and Electronics Engineering program covers aspects of both electronic and Communication systems analysis and design. Such program aims to:

    .   Provide students with a wide range of communication and electronic skills that will enable them to have many carrier opportunities.
    .     Provide students with strong abilities in the fundamentals of communications and electronics engineering.
    .     Give the opportunity to students to apply their knowledge to systematically solve engineering problems using appropriate tools and modern technology.
    .     Provide student with a comprehensive and intensive training in laboratories, in addition to the skills of investigation, planning and handling experimental apparatus, project design and its practical implementation.
    .    Provide student with appropriate training in the communication and electronic fields in different related enterprises and offer the opportunity to develop related skills and knowledge to a high level.
    .     Enable students to understand the structures of communication systems and the design of their electronic subsystems and to adapt the rapidly changing technology.
    .     Provide students with understanding of modern data acquisition and data communication techniques for a variety of engineering applications.
    .     Enable the students to apply the practical skills.  In addition the students will acquire and develop many valuable skills such as the ability to use different engineering tools and equipment in order to analyze, evaluate, and design an innovative System for the purpose of problem solving.

The students will acquire many practical skills through the design and implementation of different communication and electronic projects and providing an acceptable prototype for such a project.  

The knowledge and skills will prepare the student for further study or employment either in communication field, in electronics field or in both of them.

The outcome of the Communication and Electronics Engineering is a product, or perhaps a process or service; it is this that distinguishes it from Science and Mathematics. Learning outcomes describe what student should know and be able to do if he makes full use of the opportunities for learning that the department provides. Thus, the criteria of content of this degree set out as follows in Table 1.

The primary purposes of the Benchmarking Statements are to assist:

    .     Higher education institutions in designing and implementing programs of study;
    .     Academic reviewers and internal examiners in verifying and comparing standards;
    .    Where appropriate, professional bodies during accreditation and review process;
    .     Students and employers who are seeking information about higher education provision.   

2. Assessment
In developing an assessment strategy some key factors should be considered:

    .     There must be sufficient clearly identified opportunities for students to demonstrate student’s ability to meet challenges in all circumstances.
    .     Achievement of threshold standards may, in some cases, be implicit in the learning process (eg. The completion of a project may demonstrate attainment of some general transferable skills);
    .     Achievement of threshold standards should be possible without an individual student being required to pass all units of assessment. For example, a particular unit may include the assessment of only one element of the benchmark. A student may achieve the threshold in this element but not achieve a pass mark in the unit as a whole.
    .     Careful selection from a wide range of assessment methods (annex a) can make the process more efficient and effective;
    .     It is important that the strategy provides sufficient opportunity for the best students to exhibit the level of innovation and creativity associated with excellence.

3.Recommendations

    .     The Benchmark Statements set out in Table 2 and based upon the rationale provided by the Criteria for Content above should be used to guide the academic review of programs in engineering.
    .     Individual disciplines within engineering should use the generic criteria of content in Table 1 to provide an interpretation of content and balance of attainment for their own discipline.
    .    Professional Engineering Institutions when setting criteria for their discipline and for the sections of the Engineering Council Register, for which they hold responsibility, should relate them to the generic criteria and the appropriate discipline-specific interpretation.