The IQAP program review process was conducted in concert with the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board’s. The Program Self-Study report, finalized in September 2018, consisted of the CEAB-mandated self-study components plus an IQAP supplement which addressed elements of the IQAP process not covered by the CEAB’s requirements. In combination this included the CEAB graduate attributes and IQAP degree-level expectations for these programs, an analytical assessment of the programs, course outlines, program-related data, survey data from the Office of Quality Assurance and appendices with sample examinations and CVs of faculty members. The CEAB Program Visitor, selected by CEAB and approved by the Dean of Engineering (Ms Emily Cheung, FEC, PEng) acted in the role of external reviewer. She was aided in this by the other members of the CEAB visit team who looked at issues of interest across all of RMC’s undergraduate Engineering programs and whose observations formed part of the CEAB visit report on the program. The internal reviewer (Dr Philippe Constantineau) was selected by the Dean from a list of possible reviewers. The internal reviewer and CEAB team reviewed the self-study documentation and conducted a site visit to RMC on 4–6 November 2018. In the remainder of this document, the CEAB visit team and the internal reviewer are collectively referred to as the External Review Committee (ERC).
The CEAB report and ERC identified a number of strengths of the Bachelor of Civil Engineering program including a wide variety to educational and field experience, diversity of the program and students, good faculty collaboration and leadership, well equipped labs, and several innovative and practical applications courses. The CEAB report and ERC also identified several areas of concern that influence the status and quality of the program including that the process of mark submission is not documented and not universally perceived as transparent, he procedure of course allocation was not universally perceived to be transparent, allocation of courses with significant engineering design components to instructors with Professional Engineering licenses needs to be more systematic, and a lack of French speaking professors which has resulted in dissatisfaction amongst French speaking students.
The External Review Committee, consisting of the CEAB visit team and the internal reviewer, provided a thorough and fair review of the Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering program. Activities are underway to address the ERC report’s recommendations. CEAB-specific recommendations are also being addressed in the context of ongoing CEAB accreditation activities.