Input from BS-CSE alumni is obtained via an alumni survey. The survey is conducted approximately every two years, the most recent ones being in 2006, 2008, and 2009-'10; the next one is planned to be in early 2012. The survey is sent to alumni who graduated either two or three years prior to the survey date. Since the survey is conducted every other year, this ensures that all graduates will receive the survey (exactly) once. The approach allows us to gather input from alumni who graduated relatively recently and hence have more or less current knowledge of the program but also have experience in the job market and hence can comment on how well the program prepared them for the profession.
There are five parts to the survey. The most important one concerns the program educational objectives (PEOs). The respondent is asked to rate, on a scale of very unimportant through extremely important, the importance of each of the PEOs. Next, the respondent is asked to rate, on a scale of strongly disagree through strongly agree, the extent to which they agreed with the statement, "the BS-CSE program adequately prepared me to achieve the PEO". If changes in the PEOs are being considered, the respondent is also asked for reactions to the proposed changes.
A second part of the survey asks the respondent for other comments about or suggestions for changes in the program that the respondent may have. (This question appears at the bottom of the first part dealing with the PEOs; but the results, below, are in separate files; the apparent links near the bottom of the PEOs results don't work.)
The third part of the survey asks the respondent about various items of knowledge and skills such as the ability to analyze and interpret data or the ability to apply knowledge of mathematics. The respondent asked to rate the importance of the skill (not important through extremely important) as well as the level of preparation that the program helped the respondent achieve with respect to that skill (not prepared through very well prepared). It should be noted that this part of the survey is common to all engineering programs at Ohio State and is not tailored to CSE.
The fourth part of the survey varies from one survey to the next. It is targeted toward a specific topic such as the importance of ethical issues in engineering. The College of Engineering's Outcomes Committee determines the topic for each survey. The committee identifies a number of different aspects related to the topic and the respondent is asked to rate the importance of each.
The fifth part of the survey asks for such information about the respondent as whether he/she has pursued graduate studies since graduating from the BS-CSE program, whether he/she has attended technical conferences, etc.
The Results: