iOBE Workshop @ Physics USM

An iOBE workshop titled "Automating PO Calculation & Implementing CQI" was conducted this morning, Thursday 16/3/2023, for all the lecturers at the School of Physics USM. This is the second iOBE workshop conducted there at CS; the first one was in 13 October 2017. This time, the need to have an automated system to compute PO attainments has become more urgent due to the requirement from the accreditation exercise.

This session briefly recapped the essence of OBE assessment from the previous workshop. Afterward, the session focused on presenting and discussing on the techniques of computing and interpreting the output plots produced by iOBE at the course and program levels. The CQI process was briefly discussed near the end of the workshop. A few Physics lecturers were able to download the software and successfully run it with real data from their own courses, which took only a few minutes to prepare the input file and a few seconds to run.

Many thanks to the Dean, Prof. Dr. Abdul Razak, for this invitation, and to the Academic Management Team lead by the Academic Deputy Dean, Associate Professor Dr. Iskandar, for hosting this workshop. Special thanks go to Dr. Husni for successfully running the data for his course in-situ and sharing the outcomes produced by the iOBE software during the workshop. Many thanks also to those who ask questions that provided fruitful and deeper insights into our discussions.

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iOBE Workshop @ CS USM

An iOBE workshop titled "Interpreting iOBE Data & Building CQI Awareness" was conducted this morning, Wednesday 3/3/2023, for all the lecturers at the School of Computer Sciences (CS) USM. This is the second iOBE workshop conducted there at CS; the first one was in 15 March 2021. In between these times, CS lecturers have used the iOBE software to analyze their course data within the past 3-4 semesters.

This session briefly recapped the essence of OBE assessment and the process of computing outcomes data produced by iOBE. The main focus of the workshop was to explain the techniques of interpreting the output plots produced by iOBE. The CQI process was briefly presented afterward. At the end of the workshop, a set of 10 courses was quickly gathered and successfully computed using iOBE to produce group-level data to demonstrate its capabilities of aggregating data from multiple courses to evaluate students performance at the course and program levels.

Many thanks to the Dean of CS, Prof. Dato' Dr. Bahari, for this invitation, and to the Academic Management Team lead by the Academic Deputy Dean, Associate Professor Dr. Nurul Hashimah, for hosting this workshop. Special thanks go to Dr. Anusha for coordinating this workshop and Pn. Fatin for the help in running the iOBE software during the workshop.

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iOBE Workshop @ SoM USM

An iOBE seminar titled "Computing OBE Data & Implementing CQI" was conducted last week on Friday, 3/3/2023, for the Academic Management Team at the School of Management (SoM) USM.

This session explained the processes of computing the attainment of Learning Outcomes for individual students and groups of students at the course and program levels. The iOBE software was then introduced and demonstrated as a solution to automate the computation of these outcomes. The simulations of sample cases took a few seconds to run inside the iOBE software to produce results in terms of data tables, bar charts of Program Outcomes (POs), and spiderwebs of POs for individual students.

Many thanks to the Dean of SoM, Prof. Dr. Noor Hazlina, for this invitation, and to the Academic Management Team lead by the Academic Deputy Dean, Associate Professor Dr. Siti Rohaida, for hosting this seminar.

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Introduction

The Integrated OBE Software, or iOBE, is an award-winning software that provides applications relevant to tertiary academic programs to address the requirements of implementing Outcome-Based Education in Malaysia as well as other countries. The full version of the software is released as a free software for all academic institutions and can be downloaded here.

The OBE Framework has been fully adopted by all engineering programs in Malaysia since 2009 through the Washington Accord, an international agreement that mutually recognizes the quality of engineering graduates from member countries. Compliance with this Accord requires engineering programs in Malaysia, through their accreditation exercises with the national Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC), to assess students' learning outcomes more rigorously.

Non-engineering academic programs in Malaysia are bounded by OBE as well through their accreditation with the Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA). As such, engineering and non-engineering academic programs in Malaysia must develop dedicated systems to manage and automate the processes of computing and integrating assessment data on different outcomes from multiple courses. The iOBE software is designed to meet these needs.

The software is designed to be very easy to use (with single-button clicks), computationally fast (within seconds to a few minutes), flexible in managing data, and robust in its mathematical formulations. It runs as a standalone offline software, eliminating online-related issues such as slow servers and data security breach. The image below shows the one and only windows panel that the user needs to interact with when using iOBE.

Readers can browse through the following links to know more about the iOBE software:

1. Downloadable iOBE software, with a number of major upgrades since its first release in July 2015.
2. Software documentation, consisting of academic articles and software manuals. The documentation describes its mathematical framework, software architecture, and case studies on software implementation.

The software developer can be contacted here for further inquiries and for request to conduct workshops on OBE and the iOBE software.

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iOBE Workshop @ Arts USM

An iOBE workshop "Assessing Student Outcomes Automatically Using iOBE" has recently been conducted online at the School of The Arts USM on 18 May 2022, through the Webex Platform.

Many thanks to Associate Professor Dr Sarena, the Dean of the School, for this invitation for me to conduct the workshop. Many thanks as well to the Academic Team headed by Dr Muhammad Khizal for organizing the workshop, and to the OBE Team headed by Dr. Jasni for the detailed discussions during and after the workshop.

This session explained the rationale and techniques of computing the attainment of Course Learning Outcomes (CLO) for individual students and groups of students at the course and program levels, and introduced the iOBE software as a solution to automate the computation of these outcomes.

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