Analytic Quality Glossary
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Citation reference: Harvey, L., 2004–8, Analytic Quality Glossary, Quality Research International, http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/glossary/
This is a dynamic glossary and the author would welcome any e-mail suggestions for amendments or additions.
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Accreditation
core definition
explanatory context
Accreditation may be of programmes or institutions.
Accreditation is usually for a limited duration at which time re-accreditation procedures come into operation.
analytical review
The Council
for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA, 2001) describes accreditation as:
The process of external quality review used in higher education to
scrutinize colleges, universities, and higher education programs for quality assurance and quality improvement. Success results in an
accredited institution and/or program.
This basic idea has
remained relatively unchanged over the last decade, although Chernay’s (1990) definition is rather more specific:
Accreditation assures the educational community, the general public, and other agencies or organisations that an institutions or programme (a) has clearly defined and educationally appropriate objectives, (b) maintains conditions under which their achievement can reasonably be expected, (c) is in fact accomplishing them substantially, and (d) can be expected to continue to do so.
Fraser (1994, p. 106) commented that ‘It is noteworthy that in this definition of accreditation there no requirement to judge whether the objectives of institution or programme are to meet any specified, or threshold standard’.
However, in elaborating what accreditation involves in the
A collegial process of self-study and external peer review for quality assurance,
accountability, and quality improvement of an academic institution
or program designed to determine whether or not it has met or exceeded the
published standards of its accrediting
association and is achieving its mission and stated purpose. (CHEA, 2001)
Yet, the link
between accreditation and explicit standards is ambiguous. According to one of
the regional accrediting bodies, Middle States Commission on Higher
Education (2003),
Accreditation is a means of self-regulation and peer review adopted by
the educational community. The accrediting process is intended to strengthen
and sustain the quality and integrity of higher education, making it worthy of
public confidence. The extent to which each educational institution accepts and
fulfills the responsibilities inherent in this
process is a measure of its concern for freedom and quality in higher education
and of its commitment to strive for and achieve excellence in its endeavors. (MSCHE, 2003)
Fraser (1994, p.
107) pointed out that:
In some countries, accreditation
would imply that at least a threshold standard was intended and being achieved.
For example, in the
The UNESCO view
reinforces this: it has two definitions of accreditation:
1. The process by which a (non-)governmental or private body evaluates
the quality of a higher education institution as a whole or of a specific
educational programme in order to formally recognize it as having met certain
predetermined minimal criteria or standards. The result of this process is
usually the awarding of a status (a yes/no decision), of recognition, and
sometimes of a license to operate within a time-limited validity. (Vlăsceanu, et al.,
2004, p. 19)
2. The instrument by which one institution, without its own degree
awarding powers or which chooses not to use its awarding powers, gains wide
authority to award, and/or gains recognition of its qualifications from another
competent authority, and to exercise powers and responsibility for academic
provision. This authority might be the State, a government agency, or another
domestic or foreign higher education institution. (Vlăsceanu,
et al., 2004, pp. 19–20)
According to the European Training Foundation (1998)
Accreditation is the award of a status. Accreditation as a process is generally based on the application of predefined standards. It is primarily an outcome of evaluation.
The European University Association [formally CRE] defines accreditation as:
Accreditation is a formal published statement regarding the quality of an institution or programme, following a cycle of evaluation based on agreed standards (CRE, now EUA, 2001).
The Bologna Process website (ENQA, 2003) defines accreditation as follows:
As defined in the Bologna Declaration, the study structure of the European Higher Education Area should essentially be characterised by two cycles – undergraduate and graduate. Accreditation is a central instrument to support the necessary processes of changes in European higher education systems. Like vealuation, accreditation serves to assure quality when implementing new (ex ante steering) degree programmes and also to monitor existing ones (ex post steering). Accreditation, i. e. certification of a degree programme, will take place after review of the minimum standards for content and specialisation, the vocational relevance of the degree to be awarded and the coherence and consistency of the general conception of the degree programme. It will be awarded for a limited period of time within the frame of a transparent, formal and external peer review. Thus, the degree programme has to be reviewed after a certain time. The process of a peer review is steered by agencies which are also reviewed through regular external evaluation. The instrument of accreditation of certificate degree programmes is relatively new in Europe but is increasingly gaining acceptance in the countries involved in the Bologna process.
According to Campbell and Rozsnyai, EUA, considers accreditation as one possible outcome of quality assurance and defines it as:
a formal recognition of the fulfilment of minimum, publicly stated standards referring to the quality of a programme or an institution. (Campbell & Rozsnyai, 2002, p. 165)
Campbell and Rozsnyai suggest that:
while accreditation has different definitions, forms and functions, it generally has the following characteristics: it provides [proof] (or not) that a certain standard is being met in a higher education course, programme or institution. The standard met can either be a minimum standard or a standard of excellence; it involves a benchmarking assessment; judgements are based solely on quality criteria, never on political characteristics and always yes/no; the emphasis is on accountability (Campbell & Rozsnyai, 2002. p.31)
This view is, in
part, based on the INQAAHE (2001, pp. 2–3) approach to explaining
accreditation:
Accreditation is
applicable both for an institution as a whole and for a programme. It is very
difficult to define accreditation, because the concept is changing by the day.
Although the terminology nowadays is imported into
· Accreditation is a formal decision
· Accreditation is based on an overall assessment of the HEI or its core activities
· Accreditation is based on the assessment of at least minimum requirements (threshold quality)
· Accreditation concerns a yes/no/conditional decision
· Accreditation will have consequences, for example
- In the professional field
- Concerning recognition
- Concerning funding
- Concerning student aid
Accreditation might be seen as
providing a formal quality certificate to an HEI or a
program showing that the HEI or the program meets at
least expected minimum requirements.
Fraser (1994, p. 107) noted that accreditation can also mean granting of self- validating power:
The Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) in the
It is not immediately clear how self-validation differs from accreditation, other than it does not appear to be linked to explicit criteria of threshold standards, nor does it require the quality improvement scrutiny referred to in the CHEA (2004) definition.
Some definitions link it professional accreditation. For example, the Association Europeenne des Conservatoires (AEC, 2004)
A
process of evaluating qualifications (or sometimes whole institutions) to
determine whether they meet certain academic or professional criteria. A qualification which is accredited is
recognised as meeting a certain standard and/or providing content which is
required professionally.
a process of certifying the quality and
standards of educational provision carried out by institutions such as the
Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, and judging the suitability of provision in institutions for
conferring professional status on the holders of degree qualifications from
those institutions.
Wojtczak
(2002) defines accreditation in the context of medical education as:
A self-regulatory
process by which governmental, non-governmental, voluntary associations or
other statutory bodies grant formal recognition to educational programs or
institutions that meet stated criteria of educational quality. Educational
programs or institutions are measured against certain standards by a review of
written information, self-studies, site visits to the educational program, and
thoughtful consideration of the findings by a review committee. Whereas
programs or institutions are accredited, individual physicians are licensed or
certified.
A rather more generic view has accreditation
as:
a formal procedure used to determine the competence for performing
certain kinds of measurements by taking into account the set criteria (Tempus,
2001)
Accreditation processes often involve: (i) a self-evaluation
(ii) a study visit or peer review
(iii) a decision by the accrediting body in the form of a report.
Although there tends to be a distinction
between programme and institutional accreditation, some processes combine the
two:
One of the peculiarities in the Hungarian approach to accreditation was its focus on the quality of degree programmes while conducting ‘institutional accreditation’. The declared reason for opting for this approach was the view that the output of education was the degree, which testified to the successful completion of a study programme. Although the unit of accreditation was taken to be the institution, whereby review teams with relevant academic backgrounds were assigned to each faculty, and with a co-ordinating team chair for the institution, the ‘institutional level’ was given only minor scrutiny. Institutions, for the first time in their history, were asked to formulate their mission statements, but the analysis of ‘how the institution’s teaching and research complies with the principles set down in its own mission statement’ (Guidebook 1997, p. 5) rarely made it into the accreditation report. In the institutional self-evaluation report, rectors and college directors were asked to describe their institution from the managerial point of view but this, too, remained a marginal consideration in the review. Nevertheless, these questions, and the entire, very elaborate self-evaluation process, were of considerable significance, since they acquainted Hungarian higher education with ‘quality culture’. Rozsnyai (2004 , p. 130)
associated issues
Characteristics of accreditation
A decade ago, accreditation was seen as a predominantly American
process: ‘This term is most frequently used in the
Accreditation has three characteristics (Harvey 2004).
First, accreditation is a process applied to applicant organisations.
Second, accreditation is the label that institutions or programmes may acquire as a result of accreditation procedures.
Third, accreditation is an ‘abstract notion of a formal authorising power’ (Haakstad, 2001, p. 77), enacted via official decisions about recognition (the accreditation process). It is this underpinning abstraction that gives accreditation its legitimacy. This abstraction, frequently taken-for-granted, is not a traditionally intrinsic aspect of accreditation. As Jones (2002, p. 1) has pointed out, ‘The original audience for accreditation was the academy itself. The process did not arise in response to concerns about quality expressed by external audiences….’
related terms
see also:
sources
Association europeenne
des conservatoires [Academies de musique et musikhochschulen] (AEC), 2004, Glossary
of terms used in relation to the
Campbell, C. & Rozsnyai,
C., 2002, Quality Assurance and the
Development of Course Programmes. Papers on Higher
Chernay, G., 1990, Accreditation and the Role of the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation
(COPA) (
Council For
Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA)
2001, Glossary of Key Terms in
Quality Assurance and Accreditation,
http://www.chea.org/international/inter_glossary01.html,
updated
European Network of Quality Agencies (ENQA), 2003, The Bologna Process, Glossary, Accreditation, http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/en/glossary/glossar_eng.htm, accessed, 3 August, 2008.
European
Training Foundation (ETF), 1998, Quality Assurance in
Higher Education: Manual of Quality
Assurance in Higher Education: Procedures and Practices (
Fraser, M., 1994, ‘Quality in higher education: an international perspective’ in Green, D. (Ed.), 1994, What is Quality in Higher Education? pp. 101–111 (Buckingham, Open University press and Society for Research into Higher Education).
Haakstad, J., 2001, ‘Accreditation: the new
quality assurance formula? Some reflections as
Harris, R.W., 1990, ‘The CNAA accreditation
and quality assurance’, Higher Education
Review, 23(3), pp. 34–53.
Harvey, L., 2004, ‘The power of accreditation: views of academics’, Journal of
Higher Education Policy and Management, 26 (2), pp. 207–223.
Harvey, L. and Mason, S., 1995, The
Role of Professional Bodies in Higher education Quality Monitoring.
Higher Education funding council for
England (HEFCE
), 2003, About us:
Glossary http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/glossary/glossary.htm
Updated
International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education
(INQAAHE), 2001, Annex: Clarification and
Glossary, to a questionnaire
conducted in December, 2001. www.inqaahe.nl/public/docs/definities.doc
[this is no longer the current site of INQAAHE although this document was still
accessible,
Jones, D.P., 2002, Different Perspectives on Information About Educational Quality: Implications for the Role of
Accreditation. Washington, CHEA Occasional Paper, April.
Middle States
Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), 2003, Frequently Asked Questions: What
is accreditation? http://www.msche.org/?Nav1=About&Nav2=FAQ&Nav3=Question01
Rozsnyai , C., 2004, ‘A decade of accreditation in Hungary: lessons learned and future directions’, Quality in Higher Education, 10(4) pp. 129–38. (see http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713630561~db=all~order=page, accessed 3 August 2008).
Sensicle, A.,
1992, ‘The Hong Kong initiative’, in Craft A. (Ed.), 1992, Quality Assurance in Higher Education (
Tempus, 2001, Glossary of the terms related to quality assurance Development of Quality Assurance System in Higher Education (QUASYS) Tempus Joint European Project, UM JEP-16015-2001 http://www.unizg.hr/tempusprojects/glossary.htm, accessed 3 August 2008.
Vlăsceanu, L., Grünberg, L., and Pârlea,
D., 2004, Quality Assurance and
Accreditation: A Glossary of Basic Terms and Definitions (
Westerheijden, D.F.,
2001, ‘Ex oriente
lux?: national and
multiple accreditation in
Wojtczak, A., 2002, Glossary of Medical Education Terms, http://www.iime.org/glossary.htm, December, 2000, Revised February 2002