R. Hoare, M. Besterfield-Sacre, D. Kusic, J. Beckwith, L. Shuman, D. Ertman, and R. Shields (USA)
Accreditation, outcomes, web-based surveys, Java, JSP,Applets
The new Accreditation Board for Engineering and Tech nology (ABET) [1] accreditation criteria has resulted in engineering schools needing a low-overhead survey sys tem. The On-line Student Survey System (OS3 ) devel oped at the University of Pittsburgh proposes one solution to the dilemma. This system is part of a growing trend to replace conventional paper-and-pencil surveys with web based questionnaires. Engineering schools can utilize surveys created at the University of Pittsburgh, tailored to ABET standards, conserving the time investment to draft, distribute and analyze the many self-assessment surveys required. The current OS3 architecture, designed in 1999-2000, is applet-based. However, in order to deploy the system on a national level, significant performance issues needed to be resolved. Three years' experience has documented that the applets have difficulty running in all browsers. They cannot run without a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or other Java plug-in, and sometimes are blocked entirely by a user's browser security setting. Consequently, a sec ond version of OS3 is being developed that will allow us to migrate to a Java Server Page (JSP) architecture that will deliver a thinner client consisting of only HTML con tent. This paper discusses the design and experience of an applet-based OS3 v1 leading up to the development of a JSP-based OS3 v2.
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