System accreditation
System accreditation belongs to the institutional approaches in external quality assurance of a HEI. It focuses on the internal quality management of a Higher Education Institution (HEI) and especially on its effects on the quality of study and teaching.
A positive system accreditation attests that the quality management of an HEI (in the area of study and teaching) is qualified to ensure certain quality standards for its organisation and degree programmes.
The quality concept of ASIIN e. V. within system accreditation is characterised by two arguments:
- The content-related quality of study and teaching is first established by determining the objectives and expectations of outcomes of the HEI itself. With the definition of the learning outcomes for the degree programmes and the design of the quality management, the HEI expresses its strategic orientation, its profile building and its integration in the social context.
- To this end, the members of the members of an HEI will integrate external demands made from the political, legal and socio-economic context within which they design and implement their course. The content-related quality is therefore not determined randomly, but must correspond to quality standards: in contrast to the market success which sets the standard for the qualitative and quantitative production goals for industry, such quality criteria can only be developed for HEIs in consideration of the social, economic and educational political effects of their activities.
The quality of study and teaching at an HEI is ultimately evident in the outcomes of the degree programmes.
The system accreditation procedure at ASIIN e. V. therefore does not review individual quality assurance activities but their systematic composition and steering. This requires a quality management at an HEI which at least comprises the service processes in the area of study and teaching. Besides the presentation and documentation of the quality management in the area of study and teaching, the HEI is required to provide evidence of its efficacy for the accreditation.
As the various measures and instruments of internal and external quality monitoring – e.g. accreditations and evaluations – sometimes relate to the same parts and tailoring of processes, these approaches can use the same data/information and related monitoring instruments at least partly, even though they pursue different goals and their examination results have different value. This provides the HEIs with the opportunity to take on responsibility for the internal and external quality reviews and their results and include these in a targeted strategic planning.
The QM instruments and processes for a HEI are consciously not predefined, but must rather be selected and implemented by each institution according to the quality objectives defined.
At present ASIIN offers a procedure to obtain the system accreditation seal of the German Accreditation Council for HEIs in Germany.
In addition, requirements and procedural principles for an internationally available ASIIN system seal are currently developed and will be available on this websites soon.
Upon request ASIIN is prepared to implement system or institutional accreditation procedures outside Germany following the respective national rules. In this case ASIIN would co-operate with the responsible national bodies and grant their seals or a certificate about the compliance with specific national criteria, always respecting the legal framwork and the specific quality assurance provisions for HEIs in the individual country.
