Assuring and Improving Quality: Higher Education Accreditation in the United States

1. 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

2. Academic Quality Improvement Project Philosophy Values Criteria Processes Services Advantages Costs

3. The Higher Learning Commissionof 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.”

4. The North Central Association region 19 States 1000 institutions

5. Higher Education in the U.S. Challenges and Changes • 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. Process - Focused Thinking Input Requirements Output Requirements Recipients Beneficiaries Customers Suppliers Providers INPUTS Processes OUTPUTS

10. AQIP Philosophy • 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

11. 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

12. 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)

13. 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

14. 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 information-gathering and thinking to support analysis and decision-making Integrityand responsible institutional citizenship Principles of High Performance Organizations

15. 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

16. 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?

17. 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?

18. Leading and Communicating Valuing People Helping Students Learn Understanding Students’ and other Stakeholders’ Needs Building Collaborative Relationships Accomplishing Other Distinctive Objectives Planning Continuous Improvement Supporting Institutional Operations Measuring Effectiveness

19. AQIP’s Processes • Initial Interest Exploration and Self-Assessment • 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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 self-improving image of higher education

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. Publications Vital Focus Self-Assessment Coaching Services Training for institutional personnel Collaborative Quality Colloquia AQIP Services

32. 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.

33. AQIP’s Processes • Initial Interest Exploration and Self-Assessment • 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

34. 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 Costs

35. Interest Exploration Self- Assessment(Vital Focus) Application to Join AQIP Systems Appraisal Re-affirm Accreditation Strategy Forum Systems Portfolio Annual Update Action Projects

36. Stephen D. Spangehl, Director Academic Quality Improvement Project The Higher Learning Commission Chicago, Illinois USA Website: http://www.AQIP.org Email: sds@hlcommission.org Telephone: 01 800 621-7440 ext. 106 Fax: 01 312 263-7462 Contacting AQIP