PREPARING FOR SPECIALIZED ACCREDITATION IN A

MULTI-CAMPUS UNIVERSITY

Peter E. Maher and Janet L. Kourik

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Webster University

470 E. Lockwood Ave., St. Louis, MO 63119, United States, U.S.A.

Keywords: Accreditation, Assessment, Multi-campus, Knowledge management system.

Abstract: Specialized accreditation provides an external validation of a specific set of programs offered within an

institution of higher learning. Such accreditations have become strongly outcomes-based, which in turn

means that effective methods of assessing student learning must be developed. We describe the major

requirements of a particular business accreditation for a multi-campus, multi-country university including

the accreditation process. Further, we describe our observations resulting from this process, together with

some recommendations for improvement based on our experiences.

1 INTRODUCTION

An increasing focus on strengthening accreditation

requirements in the United States (

U.S. Department of

Education,

2006) provides ever increasing motivation

to improve curriculum and assessment systems. The

benefits of accreditation include formal external

reviews of institutional improvements, encouraging

the use of measurable learning outcomes, and

providing students and employers with reassurance

of program quality. The Association of Collegiate

Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) is a US

accrediting organization that evaluates business

programs throughout the country and internationally

(http://www.acbsp.org

). Webster University applied

for specialized business accreditation with the

ACBSP in 2006.

In this paper we describe the requirements for

ACBSP accreditation, and give an outline of the

application process. Further, we describe the issues

we faced during this process, and make some

recommendations for improvements. It is our hope

that other institutions embarking on a similar

accreditation application will benefit from some of

the pitfalls and positive actions that we have

identified.

2 ACBSP ACCREDITATION

Specialized accreditation is designed to provide an

external review of a specific aspect of a university

curriculum. The ACBSP is one of two accrediting

bodies for business schools recognized by the US

Department of Education and the Council for Higher

Education Accreditation (CHEA). The second

business school accreditation body is the

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of

Business International (AACSB). The AACSB

considers research as a primary goal of institutions

of higher learning. The ACBSP, on the other hand,

places more emphasis on teaching effectiveness.

To be eligible for ACBSP accreditation, a US

institution must already possess institutional

accreditation by one of the six regional accreditation

organizations. Webster University is located in St.

Louis, Missouri, in the US. Hence it falls under the

Higher Learning Commission (HLC), one of the

regional accrediting bodies for the midwest portion

of the US, which is in turn part of the North Central

Association of Colleges and Schools

(http://www.ncahlc.org). If an overseas institution is

applying for ACBSP specialized accreditation, it

must provide government documentation confirming

their right to grant degrees.

The ACBSP accreditation, as with almost all

such accreditations, determines the quality of a

program by considering a variety of inputs into the

educational process, the learning activities that take

347

E. Maher P. and L. Kourik J. (2009).

PREPARING FOR SPECIALIZED ACCREDITATION IN A MULTI-CAMPUS UNIVERSITY.

In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 347-350

DOI: 10.5220/0001971903470350

 SciTePress

place based on these inputs, and the outcomes

produced by the process. ‘Inputs’ refers to anyone

or anything that has a direct impact on the learning

process such as instructors, students, support

services, and organizational structure. Activities

during the process include teaching, advising, and

faculty study and consulting. ‘Outcome’ examples

involve student project scores, employee

evaluations, specialized test scores or other evidence

of student learning. Accreditation is therefore

‘outcomes-based.’ This represents a change of

direction for many specialized accrediting bodies

who previously placed more emphasis on inputs into

the educational process. See (Lubinescu, Ratcliff,

and Gaffney, 2001) for a discussion of the shift in

focus of accrediting organizations.

The process by which a business school may

apply for ACBSP accreditation is outlined in Figure

1. Once the school completes and submits an

application for accreditation it is immediately

considered as a candidate.

The assigned mentor has the task of ensuring that

a school is ready to begin the accreditation

evaluation process. He or she will work with the

school towards identifying any gaps in the school’s

documentation and/or processes that would make

them ineligible for accreditation. The findings of the

mentor are shared with the ACBSP’s Director of

Assessment. If deemed appropriate, the school will

be given approval to complete the preliminary

questionnaire, and hence begin the first major step in

the accreditation process.

The preliminary questionnaire is a structured

report regarding the school’s readiness for

accreditation that will serve as the foundation for

evaluation. If the ACBSP’s Director of Assessment

is satisfied with the preliminary questionnaire, the

school works with the ACBSP to develop a

timetable for the development of a ‘self-study.’ A

self-study, or self-assessment, is a comprehensive

document examining the business school through

guidelines provided by the ACBSP. Developing the

self-study is major aspect of the accreditation

process and requires a significant amount of time to

complete. Some observations gained while

developing Webster’s self-study are provided later

in the paper.

Once the self-study has been submitted, the

ACBSP organizes an evaluation team and schedules

a site visit with the school. This evaluation visit is

typically requires a full week and the school is given

precise guidelines as to how to prepare for the visit.

This is a major aspect of the accreditation process.

Figure 1: The ACBSP accreditation process.

The evaluation team completes a report based on

their observations during the visit, which is filed

within the following two weeks. It is important to

note that while this report contains recommendations

from the team, the ACBSP Board will make the final

determination. Once the Board decides to accredit a

school, this accreditation becomes effective

immediately. The school may then advertise its

programs as being ACBSP accredited. The formal

award for accreditation is made at the next ACBSP

annual conference, normally scheduled for June.

School completes and submits a

plication for

accreditation

Assigned mentor completes preliminary site

visit documen

Preliminary questionnaire prepare

Planning a timetable for the self-study is

starte

Evaluation site team is assigned, and visit

scheduled

Feedback report filed within two weeks of

visi

Report reviewed by institution’s President,

ready for submission to the Board of

Commissioners

Board awards accreditation, if appropriate, at

one of two meetings per year (April and

November). Accreditation is effectively

immediately

Institution formally awarded accreditation at

nex

ACBSP conference

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348

3 INSTITUTION BACKGROUND

The School of Business and Technology (SBT) at

Webster University has over 15,000 enrollments

across a network of over 100 physical campuses

located in 21 US states, Europe and Asia.

International sites include London, Geneva, Leiden,

Vienna, Bangkok and Cha-am Thailand, and

Shanghai, Shen Zhen, and Chengdu China. Some

courses combine distance education and

international travel. Students from around the world

may also participate through distance education with

approximately 4600 enrollments per semester in the

school’s online courses.

The school is composed of three departments: 1)

Business, 2) Management and 3) Mathematics and

Computer Science. The school strives to ensure that

students receive fundamentally the same course

regardless of where the course is taken or how it is

delivered. Key concepts should not change from

location to location or from the physical classroom

to electronic classroom. In addition to the clear

academic reasons for all offerings of a course having

the same learning outcomes, we also want to afford

our students the ability to take courses at any site at

which they are offered, or online; the transition

should be seamless.

Historically, the departments implemented

curriculum processes independently with oversight

by a school-wide curriculum committee. This effort

to develop a consistent curriculum included a

stipulation that all departments use the same core

documents and information systems. This was a

major step toward integrating and unifying the

school’s approach to curriculum.

Another view of the scale and distribution issues

the school faces is apparent when faculty

demographics are considered. The school has

approximately 40 faculty members with full-time

positions primarily on the home campus and over

1,500 practitioner faculty members with part-time

positions distributed throughout the world. The

school strives to establish effective channels of

communication with all faculty, both full-time and

practitioner. The input of all faculty members is

vital to producing current, effective programs

especially given that we have so many practitioner

faculty members with current experience in industry.

However, we also want all faculty members to feel

part of a single, worldwide university. Such

collaboration fosters effective teamwork, and goes a

long way to boosting the morale of the institution.

4 OBSERVATIONS DURING THE

ACCREDITATION PROCESS

If the mentor’s visit is scheduled for the beginning

of a fall semester, in August, then it can be

anticipated that the preliminary questionnaire be

completed by the end of the previous spring

semester.

Typically the entire ACBSP accreditation

process takes two years. It should be anticipated that

the development of the self-study will take at least

one year. Identifying and organizing sufficient

historical documents and data is a potentially

monumental task. Once collected, the data must be

analyzed prior to writing the self-study. The

accrediting agency specifies the order and topic

coverage for chapters of the self-study. In some

cases, specific formats must be used for tables and

charts. Ample time should be allotted for collection,

analysis, writing and formatting activities.

Writing the self-study report was a major

undertaking. Significant thought regarding the

delegation of tasks was considered vital. It was

considered more appropriate to involve faculty in

this process rather than members of the

administration. Faculty members are more involved

in the educational processes of the university and

were therefore considered to be more appropriate.

Each “standard” in the report was assigned to an

individual faculty member.

Upon completion of each standard, the text was

sent to several external reviewers. These reviewers

were selected based on their experience with

ACBSP evaluations or other established academic

accreditation bodies, and would have experienced

such an evaluation. Hence they would be in a good

position to provide useful feedback, and enable us to

include some vital details. The associate dean

compiled the reviewers’ comments into a single

document before forwarding to each chapter author.

This process also afforded the associate dean an

overview of the emerging self-study report and

opportunities to coordinate content across chapters.

Upon completion of the writing process for each

standard, a member of the school administration was

given the task of compiling the document into its

final form. The important task at this stage was to

ensure consistency of both fact and style across

chapters and eliminate duplication of information.

Publishing software was used to create a

sophisticated professional document that was

visually appealing and easy to read.

The work does not end with the publication of

the self-study. Preparation for all constituencies is

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349

very important and included explaining the value of

accreditation, the accrediting standards, process,

potential inquiries, schedule and responsibilities.

5 DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS

The development of the self-study is the most time-

consuming aspect of the accreditation process.

Having a central repository containing well-

organized data for the preparation of such

documentation is critical. In hindsight, we would

have allotted significantly more time and human

resources to the collection process. We also would

have provided better cross-references from the self-

study to the electronic repository.

The self-study consists of six ‘standards.’ Each

standard represents a different aspect of the

institution. The self-study is too large a document

for one individual to write. Furthermore, faculty

members should be the major contributors to this

document; only members of the faculty have the

institutional knowledge necessary to complete

answers to the questions being posed.

Administrators, in general, do not have the required

background.

If each standard is developed by one faculty

member, it is vital to ensure that eventually there is

consistency across standards. This may entail

figures being accurate; it may also involve simply

ensuring a consistent format.

Getting external reviewers for each standard is

important. Such reviewers should be from

institutions that have already received ACBSP

accreditation. They understood the issues involved

in the process and provided valuable insights that

were not explicitly documented in the literature.

Preparations for the evaluators visit should be

done well in advance and the evaluators’

convenience should be kept in mind. A complete

schedule is preferred, with time allotted for the team

to work by themselves.

The self-study is intended to represent an

overview of the information needed by the

evaluators. Detailed documents are provided as

“exhibits.” At Webster we organized the exhibits in

electronic form – we deemed that given our multi-

campus environment, having hard copies of all

exhibits would be overwhelming. Great care and

attention should be devoted to ensuring that they are

easily accessible, and sufficiently detailed.

The school’s physical environment says a lot

about the educational environment and institution to

the visiting accreditors. For example the ACBSP

report noted that "Student focus is clearly a priority

for SBT. Evidence of pride in students is

everywhere, for example large photos of past and

present students in hallways, student artwork

throughout campus, student work/study areas in

multiple places in every building, 24-hour cybercafé,

etc. SBT uses emails, open-houses, advising and

many other methods to gain information from

students and prospective students, as well as develop

on-going relationships."

The ACBSP final report noted that the

knowledge management systems developed at

Webster constituted (Maher and Kourik, 2008) “…

a well-deployed, best-in-class, systematic approach

to ensuring that programs are delivered worldwide

with consistency and quality." Further, the ACBSP

noted that the overall "…Academic Assessment

Project is also a well-deployed, best-in-class,

systematic approach to ensuring that learning

outcomes are achieved worldwide."

We have explained the process of obtaining

specialized business accreditation in a multi-campus

environment, as well as describing some

observations and recommendations. Experience

gained since embarking on this journey has

uncovered many potential pitfalls. However, with

careful planning, and having a solid infrastructure in

place, the passage towards obtaining specialized

business accreditation has been rewarding and has

greatly contributed to the school’s learning

environment.

REFERENCES

Lubinescu, E.S., Ratcliff, J.L., Gaffney, M.A., 2001, Two

continuums collide: Accreditation and assessment,

How Accreditation Influences Assessment, Ratcliff,

Lubinescu & Gaffney, Eds., New Directions for

Higher Education Number 113, Jossey-Bass, San

Francisco. pp 5-21.

Maher, P.E., Kourik, J.L., 2008, A Knowledge

Management System for Disseminating Semi-

Structured Information in a Worldwide University, In

PICMET’08, Cape Town, South Africa.

U.S. Department of Education, 2006, A Test of

Leadership: charting the Future of U.S. Higher

Education, Washington, D.C.

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