The program faculty should produce the Inquiry Brief or Inquiry Brief Proposal together. All faculty members of the programs represented in the Brief should contribute to the process, and they are required to approve the final Inquiry Brief or Inquiry Brief Proposal before it is submitted to TEAC for audit.

TEAC’s members participate in a formative evaluation process by submitting drafts of the Inquiry Brief or Inquiry Brief Proposal for feedback and guidance. TEAC staff works with the Brief’s authors until the Brief is accepted for audit. TEAC also offers workshops on developing the Brief; TEAC recommends that at least two members of a program pursuing TEAC accreditation attend a workshop. (TEAC members receive regular announcements of upcoming workshops; the information is also available on TEAC’s Web site, Meetings.)

The time it takes a program faculty to prepare an Inquiry Brief or Inquiry Brief Proposal varies, depending on local circumstances such as program structure, available documentation, state context, and the institution’s commitment to the process.

Producing the Brief
TEAC recommends that program faculty follow these steps to produce the Brief:

Review. TEAC recommends that the program faculty first take the time to fully understanding the TEAC process of accreditation, the quality principles and standards for capacity, and the required components of the Brief.

Gather information. We urge that program faculty next invest time in examining the program thoroughly. We suggest that the program faculty gather and review all required information about the program, specifically—and in this order, from least to most complex—the information that will eventually appear in the program overview, the program requirements (Appendix D), the faculty qualifications (Appendix C), and the program’s capacity (Appendix B). It would be appropriate to draft these appendices at this time.

Inventory available measures. Continuing the examination of the program, the program faculty should make an inventory of all available evidence to the program (Appendix E and Appendix F), noting what evidence the program relies on, what it does not, and what it might collect in the future. The faculty should also assemble the assessments it uses to gather evidence.

Conduct an internal audit. Next, the program faculty should describe its quality control system, conduct an internal audit, and draft an internal audit report (Appendix A).

Take stock. TEAC suggests that the program faculty meet together to review what they have learned about their program.

Formulate claims. Draft a set of statements to describe how the program meets TEAC's Quality Principle I (graduates know their subject matter, have pedagogical knowledge, and have teaching skills).

Draft the Brief. Assemble a draft Brief. Review the draft, using the checklist for programs and formative evaluators. Submit draft and checklist to TEAC for review.

Taking the time to do this work will yield a comprehensive, detailed picture of the program, its outcomes, and its resources. The program faculty members will then be ready to develop their case that the program meets TEAC's three quality principles and standards for capacity. In the process, they will also have assembled the original documents needed for writing the Brief and for the TEAC audit.

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