Transcript Document

Assuring and Improving
Quality: Higher Education
Accreditation in the
United States
Stephen D. Spangehl
Director, Academic Quality improvement Project
The Higher Learning Commission
Chicago, Illinois USA
Academic Quality
Improvement Project
Philosophy
Values
Criteria
Processes
Services
Advantages
Costs
The Higher Learning Commission
of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
Founded 1895; reorganized in 2000.
Membership includes approximately 1000
of 3500 U.S. higher education institutions
Typically conduct 200 site visits each year
Mission: “Serving the common good by
assuring and advancing the quality of
higher learning.”
The North Central Association region
19 States
1000 institutions
Higher Education in the U.S.
Challenges and Changes
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Accountability for resources and results
Information and technology
Competition
Partnerships and collaboration
Agility and shorter response cycles
Success-orientation (preventing failure)
Management and Leadership evolution
Continuous performance improvement
Traditional U.S. Quality Assurance
Process
• Institution conducts 1-2 year “self study” using
accreditation criteria and standards
• Institution creates report of its findings,
documenting it meets standards and
identifying areas of concern for improvement
• Team of “peers” visits institution to verify
accuracy of self-study report
• Team recommends continuing accreditation
and writes report of findings
The Quality Movement
• Total Quality Management, Six Sigma
• ISO (International Standards Association)
9000/2001 and Z1.11, Education and
Training
• American Society for Quality (ASQ)
• Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and
state quality award programs
• National Consortium for Continuous
Improvement (NCCI) & Continuous Quality
Improvement Network (CQIN)
• Academic Quality Improvement Project
Goals of AQIP
• Help our member organizations improve
their performance and maximize their
effectiveness
• Reshape the relationship with members
of our Commission into a partnership
• Provide the public with credible quality
assurance concerning higher education
providers
Process - Focused Thinking
Input Requirements
Suppliers
Providers
Output Requirements
Recipients
INPUTS
Processes
OUTPUTS
Beneficiaries
Customers
AQIP Philosophy
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Offer a voluntary, alternative process
Concentrate on the academic enterprise
Involve more faculty directly
Provide concrete feedback to enable
institutions to raise performance levels
• Reduce intrusiveness, cost, slow
improvement cycles
AQIP Philosophy
• Replace “one-size fits all” approach
• Supply the public with more
understandable, useful information
concerning the quality and value of
accredited colleges and universities
• Recognize and celebrate institutional
distinctiveness and outstanding
achievements
Who can participate?
• Institutions already accredited by NCA that want to
use this process to maintain continued
accreditation
• Institutions not accreditable by NCA that want to
use AQIP to drive institutional improvement and
seek interaction with other continuous improvers
• Quality-focused colleges or schools within large
universities (where the university itself continues
to use traditional process for institutional
accreditation)
Principles of High Performance
Organizations
• Characteristics of high-performing
departments, colleges, & universities
• Guides to behaviors that need to be
encouraged
• Non-prescriptive regarding specific
organizational mission or purposes
• Actionable
• Challenging
Principles of High Performance
Organizations
• Focus on a mission and
vision driven by students'
and other stakeholders'
expectations
• Broad-based faculty, staff,
and administrative
involvement
• Leaders and leadership
systems that support a
quality culture
• A learning-centered
environment
• Respect for and willingness
to invest in people
• Collaboration and a shared
institutional focus
• Agility, flexibility, and
responsiveness to changing
needs and conditions
• Planning for innovation and
improvement
• Fact-based informationgathering and thinking to
support analysis and
decision-making
• Integrity and responsible
institutional citizenship
Academic Quality Improvement
Criteria
• The criteria provide lenses for examining
groups of related processes
• The criteria promote a non-prescriptive
dialogue about how an institution determines
and achieves its goals
• Each criterion inquires into processes
(approach & deployment), results, and
improvement
Overall, the AQIP Criteria ask:
• Are you doing the right things — the things
that are most important in order to achieve
your institution’s goals?
• Are you doing things well — effectively,
efficiently, in ways that truly satisfy the needs
of those you serve?
Each AQIP Criterion asks:
• How stable, well-designed, and robust are your
systems and processes?
• How consistently do you deploy and employ your
systems and processes?
• How satisfying and good are the results your systems
and processes achieve?
• How do you use your performance data to drive
improvement?
Leading and
Communicating
Valuing
People
Understanding
Students’
and other
Stakeholders’
Needs
Building Collaborative
Relationships
Planning Continuous
Improvement
Supporting
Institutional Operations
Measuring Effectiveness
Helping
Students Learn
Accomplishing
Other Distinctive
Objectives
AQIP’s Processes
• Initial Interest Exploration and SelfAssessment
• Four-year cycle, consisting of Strategy Forum
and Systems Appraisal
• Annual Update on Action Projects
• Formal Reaffirmation of Accreditation every
seven years, based on pattern of successful
participation and improvement
Interest Exploration
• Period to explore and understand
continuous quality improvement thinking
• Gathering of information about AQIP’s
expectations, benefits, and liabilities
• Lasts from a few weeks to several years
Vital Focus: Self-Assessment
 Innovative process through which an institution can
identify its greatest opportunities for improving quality
 Alternative to using a state quality award application or
consultant to examine institutional strengths and
improvement opportunities within a systems perspective
 Permits full involvement of the entire institution's faculty,
staff, and administrators, full- and part-time
 Launches an institution-wide dialogue on mission, core
values, and the best strategies for strengthening them
 Completed quickly without disrupting normal activities
Strategy Forum
Interactive
forum for institutions to review each
others’ Action Projects, providing and receiving
feedback on specific goals and strategies
Opportunity
to receive peer review of Action
Projects before they are undertaken
Teams
of institutional leaders craft and shape
Action Projects together
Institutional
teams begin to plan implementation
and measurement to help Projects succeed
Action Projects
Dynamic
improvement projects that drive an
institution’s quality program — and inform AQIP
Selected
by institution to promote learning and
culture change and respond to opportunities for
improvement, problems, or challenges.
Institution
reports to AQIP annually on progress
or completion of projects
Action
Projects shared via AQIP website to
promote collaboration and to enhance selfimproving image of higher education
Annual Update
Short
on-line update, due the first day of autumn,
of institution’s progress on its Action Projects.
Reviewed
by panel of quality experts, who provide
feedback and advice.
Option
for institution to request assistance in
cases where progress is stalled.
Opportunity
for institutions to identify “outstanding
practices” that may deserve Commisison
recognition and widespread publicity.
Systems Portfolio
 100-page public institutional portfolio describing
fundamental institutional systems
 Covers the nine AQIP criteria, describing both
processes and results for each system
 Portfolio created once (after 3 years) and then
maintained with changes in systems and results
 Valuable for other accreditors, state agencies,
building understanding, consensus, and support
Systems Appraisal
 Independent appraisal of an institution’s
Systems Portfolio, typically conducted every
four years for institutions participating in AQIP
 Prompt, consistent appraisals conducted by
heterogeneous panels of trained, experienced
reviewers — including some from outside
higher education — who are knowledgeable
about quality
Systems Appraisal
 Separate independent and consensus review
stages, similar to Baldrige, ensure that appraisers
compare their perceptions and produce feedback
that represents the team’s shared views of
institutional strengths and opportunities for
improvement
• Blind review process, focusing institutional
attention on the feedback itself rather than the
identify of members of the team providing it
Systems Appraisal
• Feedback provided in summary rubrics for public
information, and in confidential, detailed
actionable comments and explanations
• Valuable professional feedback report for
improvement created for each institution
Reaffirmation of Accreditation
 When an institution joins, AQIP sets the date of
its next re-affirmation of accreditation in 7
years.
 Re-affirmation of accreditation every 7 years,
based on pattern of participation that provides
evidence of dedication to continuous
improvement and a pattern of results that
indicates the commitment is paying off.
 No single visit or event precipitates or causes
re-affirmation
AQIP’s Advantages
• Challenging higher education criteria for key
systems with results embedded in each
criterion
• Improvement cycles based on feedback
leading to focused Action Projects that
stimulate improvement and change
• Collaboration and networking with peers in a
non-threatening environment
• Re-accreditation integrated seamlessly with
improvement based on an institution’s own
mission, priorities, and agenda
AQIP Services
Publications
Vital Focus Self-Assessment
Coaching Services
Training for institutional personnel
Collaborative Quality Colloquia
Customized Visits
• There are a variety of opportunities to ask
AQIP to provide trained consultants to work
with an institution on specific improvement
objectives.
• If a consultant visit has not occurred by the
institution’s request, a brief site visit will be
conducted once during the seven year period
to confirm the institution complies with GIRs
and federal requirements.
AQIP’s Processes
• Initial Interest Exploration and SelfAssessment
• Three-year cycle, consisting of Strategy
Forum and Systems Appraisal
• Annual Update on Action Projects
• Formal Reaffirmation of Accreditation every
seven years, based on pattern of successful
participation and improvement
Costs
• Strategy Forum
• Systems Appraisal
• Customized site
visits or coaching
• Systems Portfolio
preparation
• Action Project
Updates
• System costs
• Cost of poor
quality
• Waste
• Opportunity costs
• Competitive
disadvantages
Interest
Exploration
SelfAssessment
(Vital Focus)
Application
to Join AQIP
Systems
Appraisal
Re-affirm
Accreditation
Strategy
Forum
Systems
Portfolio
Annual
Update
Action
Projects
Contacting AQIP
Stephen D. Spangehl, Director
Academic Quality Improvement Project
The Higher Learning Commission
Chicago, Illinois USA
Website: http://www.AQIP.org
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01 800 621-7440 ext. 106
Fax: 01 312 263-7462