Accreditation Criteria

Inspiring Educational Excellence with our
Distinctive Accreditation Blueprint

The core goal of IACOHE is to encourage educational institutions to hold themselves accountable for enhancing instruction and providing best practices through a dedication to strategic management, learner success, and influential thought leadership. This is accomplished through defining standards and criteria, coordinating audit reviews and consultations, and identifying excellent educational institutions that comply with the process and actively participate in it.

To initiate the accreditation procedure, an educational institution must fulfill the prerequisites and show that it can reasonably align with IACOHE accreditation requirements in the allotted maximum period.

Following form submission, the institute formally begins the initial accreditation process, which is led and assisted by the accreditation committee as the institute works toward accreditation. The institute is assessed for compliance with the IACOHE ‘saccreditation standards throughout the initial accreditation process through board review and self-evaluation. The institute is subject to recurring peer assessments following accreditation to determine its long-term quality, perpetual growth, and compliance with the accreditation criteria.

Key Attributes of a Good Accreditation Board

•  Independent
•  Key stakeholders’ representation
•  Good governance
•  Transparent decisions
•  Clear policy and requirements

•  Effective and efficient physical visits
•  Professional decision-making process
•  Benchmark with the highest international standards
•  Certified accreditation criteria
•  Competent, well-trained chapter members

Accreditation Criteria

The accreditation criteria consist of three sections:

1. Creative Leadership and Strategic Management,
2. Academic Progress
3. Intellectual Influence, Participation, and Societal Implications.

Each section contains standards that, when met, lead institutes to make a positive individual impact. The combined impact across all IACOHE Council-accredited institutes moves IACOHE Council toward achieving its vision of transforming education for positive societal impact. IACOHE Council believes that a wide range of missions can be consistent with high quality, positive impact, and innovation. Such success is achieved when institutes are clear about their priorities and when their mission, strategies, and expected outcomes are internally aligned.

Creative Leadership & Strategic Management

Strategic management encompasses the entire range of activities an educational institute engages in to fulfill its mission and informs the institute on resource management. The primary documentation is the strategic plan, which all accredited institutes are expected to have as a principal artifact for the review team to examine. The strategic plan provides a basis for the composition of the institute’s intellectual contribution portfolio, the identification of the audit committee, and the institute’s aspirations. The strategic plan identifies the institute’s mission, strategic initiatives, goals, objectives, tactics, and metrics for success and is created with input from key stakeholders. Ensuring financial vitality from an operational and strategic perspective is also critical to strategic management. Additionally, an essential component of a IACOHE Council-accredited institution is how the institute will contribute meaningfully both to connecting education with practice and to fostering and promoting societal impact consistent with the IACOHE Council’s vision. This section provides standards that guide institutes in the process of meaningful strategic management, including standards around creating and maintaining a strategic plan, managing all resources, and ensuring the overall financial health of the accredited institute or unit.

Standard 1: Strategic Planning

• 1.1 The institute maintains a well-documented strategic plan developed through a robust and collaborative planning process involving key stakeholders’ input that informs the institute on resource allocation priorities. The strategic plan should also articulate the institute’s clear and focused mission.
• 1.2 The institute regularly monitors its progress against its planned strategies and expected outcomes and communicates its progress to key stakeholders. As part of monitoring, the institute conducts formal risk analysis and has plans to mitigate identified significant risks.
• 1.3 As the institute carries out its mission, it embraces innovation as a critical element of continuous improvement.
• 1.4 The institute demonstrates a commitment to positive societal impact as expressed in and supported by its focused mission and specifies how it intends to achieve this impact.

Standard 2: Physical, Virtual, And Financial Resources

Standard 3: Faculty And Professional Staff Resources

Academic Progress

This section of the accreditation standards is designed to ensure learners’ success in the degree programs and other learning experiences the institute provides. The measures in this section address these critical areas of teaching and learning. High-quality educational institutes have processes for ensuring that learners acquire the competencies to achieve successful outcomes in line with the institute’s mission and develop a lifelong learning mindset to ensure continued success. These processes include curriculum and program management informed by a systematic assurance of learning. Educational institutes should have assessment processes in the portfolio of validation of learning tools that will ensure the currency and relevancy of the curriculum. Competency goals should be designed and assessed to maximize the potential for achieving expected outcomes. Teaching should be linked to competency goals, and processes should be in place to ensure faculty deliver a high-quality educational experience. Curricula and extracurricular programs should be innovative and foster engagement among learners, between learners and faculty, and with professional practice.