Abstract:

There is a trend in the world seeking program accreditation to assure achieving high-quality standards and achieving the objectives and goals of the program that were set before offering the program to students. The objective of this proposal is to present an assessment tool to assess the readiness of academic programs to go through academic program accreditation. This assessment tool is generic and can be used by program leaders or a reviewer to assess any academic program in any country. In order to cover different aspects of the program, six standards are considered. These standards are mission and goals, program management quality assurance, teaching and learning, students, teaching staff, learning resources, facilities, and equipment. Each standard is to be assessed according to specific criteria. There is a rubric to clearly determine which category defines the practice. Based on the score of the academic program in each practice in substandard/standard, recommendations are presented to enhance the quality of this standard/substandard. Also, evidence is suggested for program leaders to look for or to develop in order to support the quality enhancement. Finally, relevant KPIs are suggested to monitor the program progress in each standard/substandard.

Keywords:

Accreditation, Quality Assurance, Assessment, Key performance Indicators.