Board of Accreditation for Engineering and Technical Education

Training for Program Evaluators

Observer Role in BAETE Accreditation

Module 10
Intended Outcomes

• Describe the roles and responsibilities of an “Observer” in the BAETE’s

accreditation process

• Recognize different sections of the “Observer’s Report”

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Minimum Requirement for becoming an ET Member
(already discussed in Module 1)
Program evaluators from academia will typically have at least:

• Significant teaching and research experience in the university and good standing in their respective disciplines
• Demonstrable expertise in engineering education and/or a specific engineering discipline through publication and/or technology
development
• Good knowledge and skills for conduction program evaluations, obtained through training by BAETE or other accreditation bodies
• A Ph.D. or equivalent as the highest academic degree

Program evaluators from industry will typically have at least:

• Significant industrial experience, generally not less than 10 years of considerable engineering/managerial experience
• Demonstrable expertise in the specific engineering discipline of the program to be evaluated for accreditation
• Good knowledge and skills for conducting program evaluation, obtained through training by BAETE or other accreditation bodies
• A rank equivalent to senior manager or higher, preferably with post-graduate qualifications

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The ladder

This PEV training

covers the bottom two
steps in the ladder

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The Observer role

• The observer(s) in the evaluation team are only to observe the accreditation
procedure. The observer(s) at no circumstances should provide their comments
or suggestions to the evaluation team

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Why does BAETE include observers in the evaluation team?

BAETE includes observers in its evaluation team for one of the two mutually
exclusive reasons:
• For the purpose of familiarising newly trained evaluators with BAETE’s accreditation
procedure, or

• As a part of BAETE’s CQI process, seasoned evaluators are assigned as observers,

to provide feedback on the evaluation teams and/or programs

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So what are the responsibilities of an observer?

SOP E-002: Roles and responsibilities of observers in program evaluation

• Approved by the Board on April 9, 2022 in the 76th Board Meeting of the BAETE

• Purpose of the SOP: “This document should be used by the newly appointed observers to
realise their roles and responsibilities during a program evaluation”

• Scope of the SOP: “This document covers the roles and responsibilities of observers
appointed by the BAETE during their observation to a program evaluation”

• Responsibilities of an Observer: “An observer shall follow the workflow presented in the
section 6 of this document (SOP E-002) during one’s participation in the program
evaluation”

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Step 1: Signing a pledge statement
Printed and signed copies of the pledge will be collected
by the BAETE after successful completion of the training

The Pledge document will be incorporated in the AMS in its next version

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PEV training to Observing an accreditation
• New user accounts (for those who completes the training successfully) are created in the BAETE AMS
by the AMS administrator. “Evaluator” role is assigned to all new accounts.

• The AMS administrator then emails the newly trained evaluator

• All BAETE evaluation teams currently have one or more observers. The Board constitutes the
evaluation team

• The AMS administrator replicates the Boards decision in the AMS. All evaluators and observers are
added to their respective ETs.

• The AMS administrator notifies the program, the evaluators (and observers), and the SC on the ET
constitution

• The program(s) now appears in the “evaluator” dashboard (the page that immediately appears once a
user with evaluator role logs into the AMS) .

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Step 2: COI declaration

The observer shall clear the Conflict of Interest (COI) by clicking the COI link.

If he/she has a COI, the observer will select accordingly and will take no further
part in the evaluation process.

In case of no COI, the observer will be able to access the SAR and other
supporting documents from the dashboard once he/she clears the COI by clicking
“NO” in the COI declaration window.

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Step 3: Reviewing the SAR

• The observer shall go through the SAR prior to attending the first pre-visit
meeting to note down his/her observations.

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Step 4: Pre-visit activities/meetings

• The observer shall attend all pre-visit activities. The observer shall not directly
participate in the pre-visit activities, rather they will observe the process followed
by the evaluation team members to scrutiny the SAR.

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Step 5: Taking a trip to the program along with the ET

• The observer shall travel with the evaluation team to the program to observe the
entire evaluation visit. The travel and subsistence expenses during the visit shall
be met by the program/BAETE.

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Step 6: Observing the evaluation visit

• The observer shall not participate in the activities during the evaluation visit.
Rather, the observer shall keep note of the entire process to get familiarized with
an evaluator’s role and responsibility during the evaluation visit.

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Step 7: Preparation and submission of the report

• After completion of the evaluation process, the observer shall prepare a report
following template E-002-B. The observer shall submit the report to the
Registrar, BAETE to complete his role as an observer.

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The Report
Template

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Step 8: The next step forward

• Successful observers will be assigned as evaluation team members by the

BAETE

• The new evaluators are expected to honour their pledge statement (Step 1) once
approached by the BAETE.

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How the success to be measured?

• The Registrar, BAETE shall forward the observer’s report to the respective chair
of the ET.

• The ET Chair shall evaluate the observer based on his/her observation during
the on-site visit and the report submitted by the observer.

• The BAETE shall collect the ET Chair’s feedback and record the performance of
the observer for future use.

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