The CDIO™ INITIATIVE is an innovative educational framework for producing the next generation of engineers. The framework provides students with an education stressing engineering fundamentals set in the context of Conceiving — Designing — Implementing — Operating (CDIO) real-world systems and products. Throughout the world, CDIO Initiative collaborators have adopted CDIO as the framework of their curricular planning and outcome-based assessment. CDIO collaborators recognize that an engineering education is acquired over a long period and in a variety of institutions, and that educators in all parts of this spectrum can learn from practice elsewhere. The CDIO network therefore welcomes members in a diverse range of institutions ranging from research-led internationally acclaimed universities to local colleges dedicated to providing students with their initial grounding in engineering.
Established in 2008, the mission of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) is to discover and disseminate ways that academic programs and institutions can productively use assessment data internally to inform and strengthen undergraduate education, and externally to communicate with policy makers, families and other stakeholders.
NILOA assists institutions and others in discovering and adopting promising practices in the assessment of college student learning outcomes. Documenting what students learn, know and can do is of growing interest to colleges and universities, accrediting groups, higher education associations, foundations and others beyond campus, including students, their families, employers, and policy makers.