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Accreditation:
A process for assessing and enhancing academic and educational quality
through voluntary peer review. The status of public recognition
that TEAC grants to an educational program that has evidence that
it meets TEAC’s standards, quality principles, and requirements.
Accreditation
Committee: A decision-making subcommittee of TEAC’s
board of directors, appointed for the purpose of acting on the accreditation
recommendations of the Accreditation
Panel.
The Accreditation Committee has at least five members
of the board and includes a member of the public, a teacher, and
a higher education faculty member. The Accreditation Committee has
the authority to make the accreditation decision.
Accreditation
Panel: The Accreditation Panel is appointed by the
president of TEAC for the purpose of making a recommendation for
an appropriate accreditation status.
The seven members of the panel are skilled in evaluating
evidence. Selected to represent the field of professional education,
the panel members include teacher educators, higher education faculty,
P-12 educators, the public, education policy makers, education policy
scholars, and the TEAC auditors who visited the program under review.
Accreditation
recommendation: The recommendation that the Accreditation
Panel makes to the Accreditation Committee after giving due consideration
to the Brief, the audit report, any response from the program faculty
to the audit report, reports from consulting reviewers, and a staff
analysis of the program’s case.
The Accreditation Panel makes one of the following recommendations
about a program: (1) it meets the standards for initial or continuing
accreditation; (2) it meets the standards for new program accreditation,
preaccreditation, provisional accreditation; or (3) it should return
to candidate status.
Accreditation
report: A
report from the Accreditation Panel to the TEAC Accreditation
Committee and the program faculty, which includes its evaluation
of the program and its justification for the accreditation recommendation.
It also includes an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses found
in the Brief or identified in the audit report.
Adverse
opinion: An unsatisfactory audit rating, reflecting
the finding that the auditors were not able to confirm at least
75 percent of the targets assigned to an element or component.
Affiliate membership:
A form of membership available to institutions supportive of the
TEAC agenda but that do not wish to undertake candidate membership
status. Affiliate membership is also available to individuals and
professional associations and agencies.
Annual
report: Accredited programs must submit an annual report
to TEAC. Typically no more than 10 pages, the annual report is an
updated Appendix
A of the Brief (the program faculty conducts an internal audit
and writes an internal audit report). In the annual report, the
faculty also addresses any weaknesses or stipulations cited in the
accreditation decision; notes any substantive changes in the program.
| Appeal: A request by the program that TEAC reconsider an action or decision. An appeal is warranted when there may be |
- Evidence of errors or omissions in carrying out prescribed procedures by the auditors, any reviewers, members of the Accreditation Committee, the TEAC staff, or the board of directors.
- Evidence that demonstrable bias, conflict of interest, or prejudice by a member of the TEAC staff or board, an auditor, a reviewer, or member of the Accreditation Committee influenced the board’s accreditation decision.
- Evidence that TEAC’s decision was not supported adequately or was contrary to the facts presented and known at the time of the decision.
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Audit: The on-site examination and verification of the evidence presented
in the program’s Brief. The audit is not concerned with an
evaluation of the success of the program or even with the significance
of the evidence. The audit does not address the quality of the program,
only whether the evidence presented in the Brief is in fact as it
is presented.
| Audit report: A document informing the program faculty about the results of the audit. The TEAC audit report generally includes four major sections: |
- Abstract: the auditors’ overall opinion about the trustworthiness of the Brief and summary of the principal findings of the audit.
- Methods: what the auditors did: with whom they met, what they examined, the schedule of the audit, and so forth.
- Findings: a full report of the findings from the auditors’ probes.
- Judgment: the auditors’ judgments about whether or not the evidence advance by the faculty in support of each element was in fact verified and a determination (if the evidence of institutional commitment is sufficient) to support the claim that the institution is committed to the program.
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Audit
task: One of a series of tasks, each assigned to an
aspect of a Brief that is associated with one of the principles
or standards of the TEAC system. An audit task is composed of a
target and a probe.
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