Overview of the TEAC
audit
One defining feature of the TEAC accreditation process is the academic audit: a team of auditors visits a campus to examine and verify on site the evidence that supports the claims made in the professional education program’s Inquiry Brief or the Inquiry Brief Proposal .
Once the program’s Brief has been accepted as auditable, TEAC staff and the program faculty schedule and plan the audit. (See the TEAC audit schedule)
TEAC will assign a team of auditors. Once selected, the audit team members insure that there are no undeclared conflicts of interest surrounding their participation in the audit. In this initial period of planning for the auditors’ visit, program faculty members have an opportunity to review the resumes of the members of the audit team to identify any potential conflicts of interest that may exist. TEAC staff and program faculty will negotiate claims of conflicts of interests.
The team of two to four TEAC-trained auditors visits the campus for two to four days. In some cases, the visit may be extended and the team enlarged if the audit challenge is especially complex or broad. The visiting team includes a local practitioner in the field of the program, selected by the program faculty, and, in states where TEAC has a formal protocol agreement, state education representatives.
Scope of the audit
The audit process does not address the basic accreditation question of whether or not the evidence is compelling, persuasive, sufficient, or convincing. Instead, the audit, with the exception of the case for institutional commitment, determines only whether the descriptions and characterizations of evidence in the Brief are accurate. The auditors’ question is no more or no less than Are the statements in the Brief accurate?
In designing and conducting the audit, TEAC staff and auditors use as a guide the general instructions laid out in TEAC’s annotated template of principles and standards.
Responsibilities
