F.A. Davis Accreditation

F.A. Davis Accreditation - Preparing for Success | A key process to assure the public the education provided is of high quality

Accreditation P R E PA R I NG F O R S U C C E S S

Susan Sportsman, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN Managing Director Collaborative Momentum Consulting

Accreditation of a school or programwithin a school is a key process to assure the public the education provided is of high quality and prepares students to meet the requirements of the professions for which they are being prepared. All regulations of agencies that accredit post-secondary schools/programs must meet standards set by the U.S. Department of Education. Two types of accreditations are available to health education programs: Institutional, which evaluates the quality of the entire school, and Programmatic, which evaluates specific programs, such as respiratory care or nursing. Because the accreditation status of an institution or a program communicates to the public—and potential students—that the program is of high quality, the pressure to achieve accreditation is great. This paper suggests strategies to help post-secondary faculty charged with preparing for accreditation meet this challenge. Most accrediting bodies require that a school or program be operational for at least 2 years before applying for accreditation. In some cases, programs in which students are enrolled for several years before graduation (e.g., associate degree or baccalaureate degree programs), one or more cohorts must have graduated before an application for accreditation can be submitted. Regardless of the accreditation agency your school or program has chosen, the requirements are similar, because all agencies have the same goal: Assessing the quality of your program.

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The Accreditation Process 1. 1. You must prepare for two main components of the accreditation process. The first, the self- study period, involves writing a report based on the standards of the accrediting agency to illustrate how your school or programmeets (or exceeds) these standards. The second is a site visit, where representatives of the agency visit your school to confirm the claims of quality in the self-study report are accurate. Often these surveyors are faculty and administrators from schools or programs just like yours. 2. The standards of the accrediting agency usually assess the following components: § Mission and Objectives § Administration and Management, including qualifications for positions § Financial capability to support the school/program § Compliance with Government standards, including those regulating representation of school, advertising, and recruitment § Physical Environment, including management of records § Program of Study, including credit/contact hours, course catalogue, use of an advisory board, and documentation of planning through meeting minutes § Curriculum, Competencies and Clinical Experiences • Syllabi • Resources available for teaching • Evidence of teaching processes, including examples of student work § Students, including student services and student record management § Faculty • Management of Programs • Credentials

• Faculty/student ratios • Faculty development

Evaluation

§ §

Retention rate

§ Pass Rate of program licensure or certification rate § Job placement rate § Student and constituent satisfaction § Other criteria the school/program deems important

3. The list of standards above may seem overwhelming, but the accrediting agency has developed specific criteria related to each standard, which are outlined in an accreditation manual. READ and RESPOND to each criterion. 4. Most accrediting bodies provide a workshop (either in person or virtually) to explain the accrediting process and the specific standards and criteria. This is a helpful session because it provides you with an opportunity to ask questions. BE SURE TO ATTEND .

Tips for Writing the Self-Study Report

1. Follow the Standards and related criteria to the letter. 2. Several faculty or administrators are likely to write sections of the report addressing areas of their responsibilities. Emphasize to these writers the importance of including documentation of each criterion. Now is the time to be DETAIL-ORIENTED. 3. Not only must you indicate that the school/program has met each criterion, but you must also briefly give one or more examples of HOW the criteria was met. 4. Unfortunately, there may be criteria for which your program does not have a process or data to report. Certainly, you do not want this lack to be large, but you must also be accurate in the report. Should there be gaps in meeting the requirements, write what the school or program plans to do to meet the criterion and then implement the strategy as soon as possible, certainly before the site visit. 5. Because there will likely be several writers of the self-study, when all portions of the report have been developed, have one writer edit the report so that it “speaks with one voice.” 6. Editing includes formatting the report to make it is consistent with the outline provided by the standards and criteria. Make it easy for the representative of the accrediting body to find documentation of important points. 7. Ask several people, including one person who has not been involved in the writing, to read the report and give you feedback. A fresh eye can pick up errors (including typos) that you might not see.

The Evaluation Section

The Evaluation section, sometimes referred to as Program Effectiveness Plan (PEP) or Total Plan for Evaluation (TPE), is a critical component of the self-study report because it should clearly document continuous quality improvement efforts over time to ensure student success. The Department of Education requires the following evaluation results to be included in the self-study report: § Retention rate § Progression rate § Job placement rate § Pass rates of licensing or credentialing exams § Satisfaction of students/graduates and employers Often the evaluation standards are the ones for which it is most difficult to capture sufficient data. The retention and progression rates come from data collected while students are in their course of study, so developing an internal process for capturing this data each term makes the aggregate results easy to obtain. Results of licensing or credentialing examinations typically are either public information or provided to the programs of graduates taking the exams. On an ongoing basis, students should be assessing their experiences in class, lab, and clinical experiences in writing, so establishing a process for collecting and collating these responses in an aggregate format should be relatively simple. More difficult is capturing satisfaction rates of graduates and employers. Develop a process to ensure you have graduate addresses or emails, so that they can be contacted after graduation.

Even with correct postal or email addresses, return rates of the post-graduation surveys can be low. Thus, encouraging students before they graduate to return these surveys when they receive them will be important. Similarly, getting job placement data may also be difficult. Since students in the health professions are typically in demand, they often have jobs lined up before they graduate. Collecting this information while students are in school will reduce the number of graduates that must be contacted following graduation. Finally, collecting employer satisfaction data can also be challenging. However, most accrediting agencies either require or suggest that the school/programs have advisory councils made up of representatives from employers typically hiring your students. Not only can the members of these committees provide insight into what employers want from new graduates in general, they also can provide you with specific information regarding how graduates from your school or program are doing post-graduation. The Site Visit 4. After staff of the accrediting agency has reviewed the self-study, a site visit will be scheduled. The accrediting agency will select the team who will make the site visit. The site visitors will be qualified by education and experience to evaluate your program. The Evaluation team will usually include a faculty member of a similar (but not competing) school/program and an administrator. If it is a programmatic accreditation visit, a practitioner of the relevant discipline may also be included. Again, the purpose of the site visit is to validate the information provided in the self-study report. If you have additional clarifying information regarding any of the standards, this should be available to the site visitors. In addition, the team will likely want to see (electronically or in published form) at a minimum, the following: § Administrator and faculty vitae § Course catalog § Syllabi for all courses § Examples of student work § Policies and procedures Many schools will designate a “reading room” where the team can work during the visit. This room should include computers for accessing electronic materials as well as paper copies of selected documents. The team will likely want to meet with the following groups: § Board of Directors’ representative § Administration § Financial officer § Faculty teams § Selected students § Advisory committee(s) and representatives of communities of interest They will also want to tour the facilities and visit various classes, labs, and clinical experiences. The accrediting body will give you specific instructions regarding the site visit, but you can see from this list, planning a site visit and ensuring materials and people are available at the appropriate place and time to interact with the team is quite time consuming. Typically, at the end of the visit, the team, will give the school a verbal report of their findings, followed by a written report after they leave. The school/program will likely have an opportunity to respond in writing to the team’s written report to correct any errors of findings. The governing board of the accrediting agency will meet, usually on a quarterly basis to make accreditation decisions for the schools who have recently had a site visit.

Frequency of Reaccreditation

What to Do Between Accreditation Visits 6. The length of time between the initial accreditation and reaccreditation typically varies from 5-10 years, depending on the circumstances of the recommendation and policies of the agency. Usually, when a school/ program is accredited for the first time, a reaccreditation process (which involves the preparation as earlier discussed) is sooner than when the school/program has been reaccredited several times. Also, when some negative recommendations are made, the school/program may be required to submit a follow-up report addressing actions taken to improve the situation. Finally, schools/programs are also expected to notify the agency if they update the program in between accreditation visits. This notification may be a simple report if the change is relatively minor; a full self-study report may be required if the change is substantial. After an accreditation visit, the tendency is for everyone to take a deep breath and focus only on the business of teaching students. While this is understandable, continuing to improve the school/program DURING and AFTER the accreditation process is critical. To that end, maintaining an active evaluation process is mandatory! Good luck as you navigate accreditation. It is a worthwhile journey—for your school, students, and faculty.

About the author Susan Sportsman, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN , is a nationally recognized speaker and consultant with over 10 years of consulting experience, providing program development and other consultation services to nursing and health professions programs throughout the United States and Canada. Previously, she served as Dean of the College of Health Sciences and Human Services at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

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