ABET

A non-profit, non-governmental body that accredits US post-secondary programmes in applied and natural science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. ABET’s Computing Accreditation Commission and Engineering Accreditation Commission set the programme outcomes that accredited degrees must cover, and since 2018 the Engineering Accreditation Commission criteria have required that software engineering curricula teach engineering design constraints, with accessibility and ergonomics listed as optional topics. ABET accreditation is a prerequisite for graduates to sit many engineering licensure exams, which gives the accreditation criteria strong indirect influence over curriculum design at US universities. For accessibility educators, the ABET criteria are one of the main levers for embedding accessibility into required coursework.