Accreditation Standards In-Depth
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The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) has a number of documents that are vital to our accreditation efforts. This page provides links to individual documents on the ACCJC site (many of them PDFs).
- Accreditation Standards (June 2012)
- Accreditation Standards Annotated for Continuous Quality Improvement and SLOs (June 2012)
- FAQ on accreditation was put out by WASC (February 2011)
Published Manuals
This section provides access to each of the Commission published manuals. The Accreditation Reference Handbook provides readers with the Eligibility Requirements, the Standards of Accreditation, and all policies of the ACCJC.
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Accreditation Reference Handbook (September 2012). This handbook contains the Eligibility Requirements for initial accreditation and reaffirmation of accreditation, the ACCJC Standards, and current policies of the Commission.
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Eligibility, Candidacy, and Initial Accreditation Manual (August 2009). This manual includes the steps for establishing eligibility, candidacy, and initial accreditation by ACCJC as well as the Eligibility Requirements and Accreditation Standards.
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Guide to Evaluating Distance Education and Correspondence Education (August 2012). This guide is a tool in the ACCJC’s series of resources to be used by institutions preparing their Self Evaluation Report of Educational Quality and Institutional Effectiveness (formerly Self Study Report) and other reports and by teams conducting comprehensive visits and other visits.
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Guide to Evaluating Institutions (August 2012). This guide contains questions that might be asked about institutional quality as each accreditation standard is considered. It also provides suggestions for what might constitute evidence that an institution meets the standard. It is intended for use by institutions as they write their self-study report and by teams when evaluating institutions.
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Institutional Financial Review and Resources: Institutional fiscal data and documents to be used in comprehensive evaluation (2011) and Required Evidentiary documents for financial review (August 8, 2012). These are taken from ACCJC presentations and workshops.
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Rubric for Evaluating Institutional Effectiveness (October 2011). The Rubric for Evaluating Institutional Effectiveness that was developed by the Commission for use by colleges as they do self-assessment, by teams as they examine college adherence to the Standards of Accreditation, and by the Commission as it evaluates institutions.
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Manual for Institutional Self Evaluation (September 2012). This manual contains suggestions for how an institution should organize for self study as well as forms that must be submitted as part of the self-study report. It is intended for use by institutions as they prepare for self-study and the self-study report.
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Substantive Change Manual (August 2012). This manual includes information on changes considered substantive, the process used for obtaining ACCJC approval of substantive changes, the required format and content of a substantive change proposal, and the Substantive Change Policy.
- Team Evaluator Manual (September 2012). This manual is for use by individuals serving on teams. It outlines the responsibilities and activities of team service and contains forms used in reporting.
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This page was last updated: October 5, 2012
Contact for this page: Nick Strobel
