AQIP Basics

Slide 1: AQIP and continuous improvement Stephen D. Spangehl, Director Academic Quality Improvement Program The Higher Learning Commission

Slide 2: The North Central Association region 19 States 1000 institutions

Slide 3: Goals of AQIP • Help organizations improve performance and maximize effectiveness while meeting accreditation requirements • Reshape the relationship with members of the Commission into a partnership and network • Provide the public with credible quality assurance information concerning higher education providers

Slide 4: Who can participate? • Institutions already accredited by HLC that want to use this process to maintain continued accreditation • Institutions not accreditable by HLC that want to use AQIP to drive institutional improvement and seek interaction with other continuous improvers • Quality-focused colleges or schools within large universities (where the university itself continues to use traditional process for institutional accreditation)

Slide 6: 1 4 7

Slide 7: Every year

Slide 8: Every 4 years

Slide 9: Every 7 years

Slide 10: Principles of High Performance Organizations •A mission and vision driven •Collaboration and a shared by students' and other institutional focus stakeholders' expectations •Agility, flexibility, and •Broad-based faculty, staff, responsiveness to changing and administrative needs and conditions involvement •Planning for innovation and •Leaders and leadership improvement systems that support a •Fact-based information- quality culture gathering and thinking to •A learning-centered support analysis and decision- environment making •Respect for and willingness •Integrity and responsible to invest in people institutional citizenship

Slide 11: What produces current performance? Input Requirements Output Requirements Recipients Suppliers INPUTS Processes OUTPUTS Beneficiaries Providers Customers

Slide 12: Student Affairs The Silo View Academic Maintenance Affairs Finance Humanities Sciences Envisioning and Preparing for an Unknown Future Services Support Collecting the data needed for decision-making Developing and Capitalizing on People’s Talents

Slide 13: Silo Perspective Systems Perspective

Slide 14: Admission Should be preceded by broad discussion of what quality improvement is and whether it fits the institution’s culture and vision

Slide 15: Institution must present evidence that it • Understands what continuous quality improvement implies • Has begun to look at itself from a process- focused perspective • Has begun to identify potential Action Projects • Meets the five Criteria for Accreditation • Has been responsive to Commission concerns and advice (from its last comprehensive evaluation)

Slide 16: Applying institutions in Higher Learning Commission area must • Be currently accredited and in good standing • Have completed two comprehensive PEAQ evaluations • Be less than seven years from last comprehensive PEAQ review

Slide 17: Strategy Forum

Slide 18: • Interactive forum for institutions to review each others’ Action Projects and strategies, providing and receiving constructive feedback • Opportunity to receive peer review of Action Projects and organizational improvement strategies before they are undertaken • Teams of institutional leaders craft and shape Action Projects and strategies together • Institutional teams begin to plan implementation and measurement to ensure that plans succeed

Slide 19: Action Projects

Slide 20: • Dynamic improvement projects that drive an institution’s quality • program — and inform AQIP • Selected by institution to promote learning and culture change and respond to opportunities for improvement, problems, or challenges • Institution reports to AQIP annually on progress or completion of projects • Action Projects shared via AQIP website to promote collaboration and to enhance self- improving image of higher education • Essentially serve as intense action learning cycles that focus the institution on hands-on, useful work that further drives change in the entire institution’s culture

Slide 21: Plan, Design, Invent, Propose, Create, Devise, Formulate, Originate, Act, Arrange Do, Revise, Execute, Fine Tune, Implement, Redirect, Adjust, PDCA Carry Out, Perform, Modify, Cycle Experiment, Alter, Test, Change, Check, Try Out Improve Study, Evaluate, Verify, Research, Assess, Monitor, Confirm, Review

Slide 22: Systematic Improvement Methods for selecting improvement opportunities and setting targets Action Projects Plan-Do-Check-Act cycles of improvement Trend lines in measures Closing gaps between institutional performance and benchmarks

Slide 23: Improving Processes Documenting and stabilizing processes Simplifying processes Removing “special” causes of variation Improving connections among processes Redesigning an ineffective process Deploying good processes broadly

Slide 24: Annual Updates

Slide 25: • Simple report, due September 21st, describing progress on Action Projects • Reviewed by quality experts, who provide feedback and advice • Option for institution to request assistance in cases where progress is stalled • Opportunity for institutions to identify “outstanding practices” that may deserve Commission recognition and widespread publicity

Slide 26: Systems Portfolio

Slide 27: • 75-100 page public portfolio describing fundamental institutional systems • Covers the nine AQIP categories, describing processes, results, and improvement in each system • Portfolio created once (with the first 3 years after an institution joins AQIP) and then kept up- to-date with changes in systems and results • Valuable for employees, other accreditors, state agencies, and other stakeholders by building shared understanding, consensus, and support for the institution

Slide 28: Academic Quality Improvement Categories  The Categories provide buckets or lenses for examining groups of related processes  The Categories promote a non-prescriptive dialogue about how an institution determines and achieves its goals  Each Category inquires into processes (approach & deployment), results, and improvement

Slide 29: Overall, the AQIP Categories ask: • Are you doing the right things — the things that are most important in order to achieve your institution’s goals? • Are you doing things well — effectively, efficiently, in ways that truly satisfy the needs of those you serve?

Slide 30: Each AQIP Category asks: • How stable, well-designed, and robust are your systems and processes? • How consistently do you deploy and employ your systems and processes? • How satisfying are the results your systems and processes achieve? • How do you use your performance data to drive improvement?

Slide 31: AQIP Categories

Slide 32: Leading and Communicating Valuing Helping People Students Learn Understanding Students’ and other Building Collaborative Stakeholders’ Relationships Accomplishing Needs Other Distinctive Planning Continuous Objectives Improvement Supporting Institutional Operations Measuring Effectiveness

Slide 33: 1P1 How do you determine your common student learning objectives as well as specific program learning objectives? Who is involved in setting these objectives?

Slide 34: 1P4 How do you communicate expectations regarding student preparation and student learning objectives (for programs, courses, and the awarding of specific degrees or credentials) to prospective and current students? How do admissions, student support, and registration services aid in this process?

Slide 35: 1P5 How do you help students select programs of study that match their needs, interests, and abilities? In providing this help, how are discrepancies between the necessary and actual preparation of students and their learning styles detected and addressed?

Slide 36: Systems Appraisal

Slide 37: • When an institution joins, AQIP sets the date of its next re-affirmation of accreditation in 7 years • Re-affirmation of accreditation every 7 years, based on pattern of participation that provides evidence of dedication to continuous improvement and a pattern of results that indicates the commitment is paying off • No single visit or event precipitates or causes re-affirmation • Independent appraisal of an institution’s Systems Portfolio conducted every four years • Valuable professional feedback report for improvement created for each institution

Slide 38: • Prompt, consistent appraisals conducted by heterogeneous panels of trained, experienced reviewers —some from outside higher education — knowledgeable about quality • Separate independent and consensus review stages ensure that appraisers produce feedback that represents the team’s shared views of institutional strengths and opportunities for improvement • Blind review process, focusing institutional attention on the feedback itself rather than the identify of members of the team providing it • Feedback provided in summary rubrics for public information, and in confidential, detailed actionable comments and explanations

Slide 39: Quality Checkup

Slide 40: • Conducted 1-2 years prior to reaffirmation of accreditation, planned collaboratively with institution; minor preparation required • Assures that any accreditation issues raised by the last Systems Appraisal have been addressed, spot-checks veracity of the Systems Portfolio • Affirms institution is broadly committed to continuous improvement • Size and length dependent on agenda - minimum is two peer reviewers for two days

Slide 41: Reaffirmation of Accreditation

Slide 42: • When an institution joins, AQIP sets the date of its next re-affirmation of accreditation in 7 years • Re-affirmation of accreditation every 7 years, based on pattern of participation that provides evidence of dedication to continuous improvement and a pattern of results that indicates the commitment is paying off • No single visit or event precipitates or causes re-affirmation

Slide 43: Action Annual Projects Updates Strategy Forum Systems Systems Portfolio Appraisal Quality Reaffirmation of Checkup Accreditation

Slide 44: Overall how satisfied are you with the value your institution has received from its participation in the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)? 250 219 199 200 150 100 50 17 7 2 0 Extremely Satisfied Neither satisfied Dissatisfied Extremely satisfied nor dissatisfied dissatisfied

Slide 45: Compared with other accrediting programs (regional national and specialized) that you have experienced how would you describe the value your institution gets from participating in AQIP? 250 212 200 180 150 100 45 50 5 2 0 Much more More valuable About the same Less valuable Much less valuable valuable

Slide 46: Would you recommend to other colleges and universities that they participate in AQIP? 250 234 200 175 150 100 50 27 3 3 0 Strongly Recommend Neutral Recommend Strongly recommend participating against recommend against participating participating participating

Slide 47: www.AQIP.org 800-621-7440 x. 106 sspangehl@hlcommission.org