Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 - (Page 51)

AT A GLANCE According to the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, accreditation is intended to assess and enhance the educational quality of either an entire institution or a speciﬁc program of study within an institution. (AT&L) workforce — getting accredited was a natural progression integrating continuous improvement and performance management. Starting with course evaluations, continuing with benchmarking, growing with sector-leadership award programs and going beyond the adoption of best practices, DAU ﬁnally was ready for its corporate university programs and processes to be assessed. DAU leaders felt that this would create and maintain a robust learning environment and institutionalize the organization’s successes. Undergoing an accreditation involves the entire team. Everyone must participate and be on board. The process involves evaluating the whole organization and all of its key processes. At ﬁrst, DAU had to socialize the process and beneﬁts to its faculty and staff, and later to its stakeholders. To accomplish this, the organization put a communications plan together, which helped DAU’s leadership think through its strategy for success. DAU leaders considered ﬁve alternatives they felt would best ﬁt their training mission and would be recognized by the DOE: 1. Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT): ACCSCT reviews private institutions of higher education and states its purpose as establishing and maintaining high educational standards and ethical business practices. 2. Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training (ACCET): This organization — founded in 1974 to improve continuing education and training — is ofﬁcially recognized by the DOE as a “reliable authority” on the quality of education and training. 3. Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS): This institution is primarily responsible for private, post-secondary institutions offering certiﬁcates or diplomas and post-secondary institu- tions offering associate, bachelor’s or master’s degrees in programs designed to educate students for professional, technical or occupational careers. This includes those offering programs via distance education. 4. Council on Occupational Education (COE): Established in 1971, the council is a national agency for the accreditation of non-degree-granting and applied associate degree-granting, post-secondary occupational education institutions. 5. Distance Education Training Council (DETC): This organization is responsible for schools that only offered instruction by distance education. DAU selected COE because it seemed to be the best ﬁt for its training certiﬁcation mission, its technical workforce and its broader view of learning and development. Recommendations from other similar organizations also played a role in this decision. After a year’s work involving a formal self-assessment and a visit by the accreditation team, DAU was accredited in 2003. This accreditation and evaluation process required DAU to meet 11 categories of more than 200 standards, including institutional mission and objectives, educational programs, institutional outcomes, strategic planning, learning resources, physical resources, ﬁnancial resources, human resources, organizational structure, student services and activities, and distance education. As a result of its ﬁrst accreditation review, DAU received the longest approved accreditation period that COE could issue. Accreditation indicates a corporate university meets all elements of COE’s requirements for operations, from mission to continuous improvement. The entire process is comparable to the process an academic college or university undergoes. DAU recently went through its second accreditation review and again passed standards in all 11 areas, as well as being cited with three commendations. CASE STUDY continued on page 56 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • October 2008 • www.clomedia.com 51 http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial How Fast Is Your ‘B’ Team? Hampton Hotels CLO Profile Save the World, Make a Buck: Seven Ideas From the Nonprofit Sector Developing Leaders at Amnesty International Learning Measurements: It’s Time to Align Aligning Measurement to Business Success Training Employees With Special Needs How to Reach Disabled Learners Hands Off: Facilitating Informal Learning Who Owns Informal Learning? Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

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