| Maintaining accreditation status
Programs maintain their accreditation status by keeping their membership in TEAC current. The program must continue to meet TEAC’s eligibility criteria, must continue to meet TEAC’s quality principles and standards, and must submit annual membership dues to TEAC. In addition, the program must submit an annual report, due on the anniversary of its accreditation decision. The annual report is typically no more than ten pages.
Annual
Reports The number of annual reports between Briefs, and the focus of these reports, varies according to the program’s accreditation status:
- Once the program has received initial accreditation status, preaccreditation, or new program accreditation status, the program faculty is required to file four annual reports before a new Inquiry Brief is submitted to TEAC in the fifth year.
|
- Programs that hold continuing accreditation status are required to submit eight annual reports before submitting the next Inquiry Brief in the tenth year. The eighth annual report is a more substantive report that follows the content and format of the Inquiry Brief Proposal.
|
- Programs that have received provisional accreditation, or were accredited with stipulations, submit a report in the second year that targets the areas that were found to be below standard in their Brief and provides evidence to support the claim that the program is no longer below standard and has remedied the deficiency.
|
Attending to weaknesses or stipulations
Programs have five years to satisfactorily address weaknesses and
two years to satisfactorily address stipulations.
Weakness. If the accreditation
decision includes a finding of a weakness in the program’s
compliance, the program must then address the weakness in its
annual reports to TEAC and remedy the weakness before its next Inquiry Brief. Stipulation. If the accreditation
decision is made with a stipulation, the program must address
the stipulation within two years in order to remain fully compliant
with its accreditation status in TEAC.
Stipulations must be removed no later than the
second annual report. In the annual report, the program faculty
makes case that the program is no longer weak in the area stipulated
by the panel and committee. TEAC’s director of audits verifies
that the new evidence in the case is trustworthy. The verification
may require a site visit, but it may also be accomplished from
TEAC’s offices. Once the evidence is verified, the director
of the Accreditation Panel places the case on the agenda of the
next Accreditation Panel meeting
for the panel’s consideration. The panel, following its
regular procedures, makes a recommendation to the Accreditation
Committee that the stipulation be removed. The Accreditation
Committee either accepts or rejects the recommendation.
If at that time the panel does not make a recommendation
for removal of the stipulation, or if the Accreditation Committee
rejects the panel’s recommendation for removal, TEAC will
implement its adverse action policy. Reporting substantive change
TEAC respects institutional autonomy, but requires that programs
communicate with TEAC about substantive change that might require
an alteration in the accreditation status. Because substantive change
can affect the nature of the institution and the quality of its
educational programs, programs holding TEAC accreditation must bring
any significant alterations in their institutions or programs to
the attention of TEAC prior to making those changes. TEAC has the
responsibility to determine what effect, if any, these changes would
have on a program’s accreditation.
Types of substantive change include
|
- The addition of courses or programs that represent a significant departure, in terms of either content or delivery, from those that were offered when TEAC most recently accredited the program;
|
- A change in legal status or form of control of the program;
|
- A contract with other providers for direct instructional services, including any teach- out agreements.
|
Submitting the annual report
The annual report should be submitted online to TEAC, by the anniversary
of the program’s accreditation decision.
 New annual reporting guidelines:
October 24, 2007 email from
TEAC President Frank Murray
Dear Colleagues:
As some of you know, Diana Rigden, TEAC's Vice-President, has been interviewing our accredited members about their experiences to date with TEAC. She learned, among other things, that our current annual report structure (the internal audit) is not that helpful to our members. TEAC is required by federal regulations to monitor accredited and preaccredited programs as follows:
§602.19(b) The agency must monitor institutions or programs throughout their accreditation or preaccreditation period to ensure that they remain in compliance with the agency’s standards. This includes conducting special evaluations or site visits, as necessary.
In addition to these interviews, TEAC ran a workshop in Albany for those members eligible for continuing accreditation and the participants were also doubtful that the re-doing of the internal audit is particularly helpful for TEAC in its monitoring obligations or for the programs' preparation of their next Inquiry Brief.
The TEAC staff and board have considered these findings and have decided that we should amend our annual reporting requirements accordingly. We will offer, during a transition period of two years (until 2009), our accredited members a choice of continuing with the internal audit (Appendix A) annual report format (see below) or a new format and procedure to consist of:
1. An update of the information in Appendix E (the inventory of categories of evidence)
2. An update of the key data tables or findings in the Inquiry Brief (or an update of the spreadsheet database with the current year's findings)
We plan to implement this new procedure online as follows:
Before the anniversary of your accreditation decision, we will send you (by email) your original (or prior) Appendix E, a copy of the key data tables or findings, the text of any cited weaknesses and stipulations associated with your accreditation status. You will be able to make your updates online and submit your annual report in that fashion.
After 2009 we will use the new annual report format.
|
TEAC's original content and focus for the annual report:
an internal audit and audit report
TEAC believes that the most effective way for a program faculty to assure itself and TEAC that the program continues to meet the TEAC quality principles and standards is to conduct an annual internal audit of the program’s quality control system. The annual report is an update of Appendix A of the Brief, the internal audit and internal audit report.
The internal audit enables the faculty to be confident that the evidence in the Brief continues to hold, that improvements have actually been implemented, that changes in capacity are uncovered, and that parity between the program and the institution continues. A series of annual internal audits also provides persuasive evidence for Quality Principle III in the subsequent Inquiry Brief.
The program faculty should organize the internal audit report as it did in its Brief:
Introduction: The introduction to the annual report explains who conducted the audit, how the plan for the audit was approved by faculty, and how the internal audit complemented the evidence presented for Quality Principle III in the Inquiry Brief.
|
Description of the quality control system (QCS): The program faculty provides both a narrative and a schematic of the quality control system.
|
Audit procedures: In this section, the faculty members describe how they conducted the audit, what evidence they collected, what trail they followed, how many elements (students, courses, and faculty members) they audited, and who participated in organizing and interpreting the findings. The faculty should also provide a visual representation.
|
Findings: What did the faculty discover about each part of its QCS? The faculty may organize the findings by either the various elements of the program’s quality control system or the TEAC components 4.1–4.7.
|
Conclusions: What are the internal auditors’ summative judgments? Here the faculty addresses two key questions:
|
Discussion: In this section, the faculty addresses several questions:
- What are the implications of the evidence?
|
- What are the faculty’s conclusions for further action?
|
- What modifications, for example, will the faculty make in its QCS as a result of the findings and conclusions of the internal audit?
|
- What investigations will the faculty undertake to test whether the system is enhancing the quality of the program and the quality of student learning in particular?
|
|
Return to top
|
