Caveats of Course Coordination

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredits eight engineering departments at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). As a support department, the Mathematical and Computer Sciences Department (MCS) has established an assessment system that relies heavily on coordinated courses. This paper examines the impact of collaboration on student pass rates in the coordinated courses. A comparison is made between the pass rates in the coordinated courses to the pass rates in the non-coordinated courses at the same academic levels. The information gathered from this investigation begins to answer the important question as to whether coordination is an effective mechanism for ensuring quality across multiple course sections. An analysis is also presented on the engineering curriculum at CSM to determine the impact that failure within a given courses has on students' progression toward an engineering degree