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Master of Science / Department of Anatomy and Physiology / Lisa C. Freeman / Kansas State University uses a variety of animals to fulfill the University’s research and teaching mission. K-State maintains a single Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) to oversee the use of all vertebrate animals used in research and teaching at K-State. K-State’s program is AAALAC accredited. The Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, International (AAALAC) is a non-profit organization with the mission to promote the humane care of animals used in research and teaching. AAALAC is a private member association that evaluates and accredits member organizations by utilizing a peer review process. Accreditation signifies that an animal care and use program goes beyond meeting minimum standards required by law and strives for excellence to better meet the needs of the animals in their care. However, K-State’s accreditation is university-limited, meaning not all colleges that use animals for research and teaching are accredited. The College of Agriculture is not included in the accreditation even though it supports 15 animal facilities within the Department of Animal Science & Industry (AS&I) and 2 facilities located at Agricultural Experiment Stations (AES). Species housed in these facilities include; cattle, horses, swine, sheep, goats, and poultry. AAALAC reports that accreditation of agricultural animal programs lags behind other animal research and teaching programs. This may be due to multiple factors such as; minimal research funding sources require institutions to be accredited, minimal funding to make necessary facility upgrades, and a lack of conviction of how accreditation may benefit an agricultural animal program. This paper begins to discuss the scope of the program, identify common deficiencies, and provide suggestions for program improvement. As public pressure increases to improve care of animals in research and agricultural settings, it would benefit K-State to accredit all the institution’s animal facilities. The IACUC is a key player in this effort but support from K-State institutional leadership and the College of Agriculture is paramount. Those at K-State know the importance of the care we provide the animals in our facilities, but obtaining AAALAC accreditation will show our peers, supporting institutions, and our students that we strive for excellence in care of all our animals.

This companion dissertation reports the findings of applied case study research on four community college organizational units that consistently meet or exceed standard performance measures. In addition, prior ample evidence confirms that performance extended significantly beyond what might be explained by available tangible resources alone. The case study contexts are common in higher education in general: a) an external partnership, (b) an ad hoc team, (c) a traditional, cross-divisional service unit, and (d) a grant-funded student service unit. Emerging positive organizational theory and research shows promise for revealing performance-influencing phenomena and behaviors that are not adequately represented in standard measures. Therefore, this collaborative case study research was designed to explore positive influences on the success of the four community college units. This companion dissertation consists of three manuscripts. Chapter 2, a technical report, contains the collaboratively-written synthesis of findings from the four individual case studies. Key findings across the units suggest the influence on performance of: (a) a people-first culture, (b) authentic, trusting, inclusive leadership, and (c) resource richness beyond constrained tangible resources. In Chapter 3, the researcher presents the key findings of the individual case study that looks at the success of an ad hoc committee formed to guide their institution through the accreditation process. The findings of this study emphasize the important role that leadership plays in the team’s success. In Chapter 4, the researcher shares lessons learned throughout the research process and by walking through her leadership journey from reluctant to authentic leader.

This thesis delves into the question of whether accreditation can assure quality. To answer this, an accreditation scenario of a private international higher education institution is studied in depth. There are four principal objectives to the research question which are: 1. To investigate how quality is conceptualised by various stakeholders 2. To assess the effectiveness of accreditation standards 3. To examine whether the accreditation process is valid, reliable and relevant, and 4. To evaluate if the accreditation agency enacts what it purports to do. Based on current theories and approaches to quality and quality assurance, certain elements are highlighted in the research process such as the use of quality standards, issues of accountability and continuous improvement, and the culture and context surrounding an accreditation event. The methodology used is one of participant observation applied to a case study. The occasion of the decennial reaccreditation of a for-profit Swiss school by an American accreditation agency serves as the field of research. Data were collected firsthand from the various constituents engaged in this reaccreditation. Fundamentally, the process comprised of self-evaluation and an on-site peer review, so there is focused discussion on these two critical audit methods and their interrelationship. The field notes are supplemented by longitudinal data representing the last twelve years of involvement in accreditation of the case study school including two other quality assurance approaches, one Swiss and the other, ISO. After a review of the various school activities which come under the remit of the agency, the accreditation procedures are examined for validity, reliability and relevance. An analytic induction of the findings confirms that accreditation does indeed assure baseline quality, albeit its current orientation towards publicly funded establishments. Thus accreditation of for-profit schools represents an imminent domain of future research.

This study was concerned with characteristics of the process of reaffirmation of accreditation in the Southern region among institutions that completed reaffirmation under the revised _Criteria for Accreditation_ and those that completed reaffirmation under the former _Standards of the College Delegate Assembly._ The institutions that had completed reaffirmation under the new _Criteria_ were identified. A matching group of equivalent institutions which had last completed reaffirmation under the _Standards_ was created. Each group contained 66 institutions. Data were collected using the records of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Four areas were identified in which the implementation of the _Criteria_ might affect the process of reaffirmation of accreditation: (a) institutional organization for the self-study, (b) visiting committee composition, (c) number of recommendations by visiting committees, and (d) substance of recommendations by visiting committees. A series of nine hypotheses were tested to assess these effects. The process of reaffirmation of accreditation does not appear to have been substantially affected by the implementation of the new _Criteria for Accreditation._ Institutional organization for the self-study appears unaffected by the implementation of the Criteria for most institutions. There appears, however, to be evidence that the _Criteria_ have effected change for a minority of institutions. The implementation of the _Criteria for Accreditation_ does not appear to have influenced either the size or the composition of visiting committees of peers. The implementation of the _Criteria for Accreditation_ has not increased the average number of recommendations by visiting committees of peers, but there appears to be evidence that it has created a minimum core of recommendations common to many institutions. The addition of the criterion on institutional effectiveness apparently has created a new and proportionately overrepresented focus for visiting committee recommendations.

D.Phil.

Abstract The structure of higher education system in the Czech Republic has changed over the past ten years. Gradual expansion of private universities was the main cause of this change. The importace of investment in human capital, forms of state regulation in higher education and the dangers that the regulatory authority of the Accreditation Committee faced are described in the theoretical part of Diploma thesis. The analytical parts is focused on the number of applicants and the number of gradutes in accordance with educational programs and their emplacement at the labour market. The fuction of Accreditation Committee, as the main regulator of higher education in the Czech Republic, concludes the analytic part of the thesis. My taskis to find out, how did the structure of higher education system change due to its regulation and wether the further development of educational system is efficient enough.

Higher Education (HE) institutions are constantly facing change. Accountability; the metaphor of student as consumer; a focus on management and leadership; and changing global economic conditions all affect the way institutions function. Recently, there has also been an increase in focus on accreditation procedures and organizational change. Although it can be difficult to measure the impact of quality assurance, this research focuses on exploring change and an accreditation procedure conducted by the Japan University Accreditation Association at a Japanese private university. Higher education institutions are social constructions and largely exist in the mind and as such, during change, some faculty members share values, rules of behaviour, and norms that become stabilized in institutional structures. This is due to the establishment of a common understanding. Conversely, there can be differences between groups in the institution. Thus, research needs to be conducted on how people make sense of change and their institution; the way information is processed and disseminated. By utilizing Ericson’s (2001) conceptual framework of four ideal types of meaning, and using Weick’s (2005) concept of sensemaking as a lens to examine the change, this research explores how faculty members make sense of change and accreditation and asks how far does this instance correspond to or otherwise illuminate Ericson’s (2001) conceptual framework for understanding change? This research contributes to our understanding of change, higher education institutions in Japan and accreditation, acknowledging the importance of effective management and leadership in HE institutions.

In 2004, the Saudi Higher Education Supreme Council (HESC) established the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA). According to the Secretary General of the NCAAA, introducing this system at the national level was essential for economic and social development in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the NCAAA represents the central focus of this thesis, specifically in relation to the NCAAA’s role in improving the educational process in Saudi higher education institutions (HEIs). The overarching objective was to explore and describe the present engagement within Saudi higher education with the recommendations made by the NCAAA directed towards the enhancement of the quality of student learning, with the intention of identifying whether the attributes of the Saudi higher education system were consistent with these recommendations. This overarching objective was further divided into the following three more specific objectives: a) To explore administrators’ (i.e. faculty deans’) perceptions of the extent to which the recommendations made by the NCAAA have been adopted in two public Saudi universities. b) To explore teachers’ perceptions of their practice, considering comparisons between the two institutions. c) To explore the students’ experiences, again considering comparisons between the two institutions. The above objectives drove the data collection process, and these data constituted the empirical base of the study. The research was conducted in two public universities located in two geographically distinct provinces of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from three groups of stakeholders, including senior administrators, teachers and students. This was done by means of individual interviews with 11 senior administrators and the collection of survey data from 78 teachers and 430 students, who were recruited from 11 faculties across the two institutions. Semi-structured interviews with senior administrators focused on their personal views and opinions of the educational process with respect to student learning, in order to identify the extent to which their faculty/unit was engaged with the NCAAA recommendations. The questions in the teacher and student surveys were derived from the recommendations published by the NCAAA with regard to the improvement of the educational process, and focused on their teaching practice and learning experiences respectively. The qualitative analysis of the administrators’ data suggested some differences in terms of how the two institutions engaged with the NCAAA’s recommendations and thus I adopted a comparative approach to the analysis of the teachers’ and students’ responses. A factor analysis was carried out to further clarify the themes present in the surveys from the perspectives of both teachers and students, and descriptive analyses were then used to explore the extent of resonance with the recommendations of the NCAAA. Inferential statistics were applied to investigate any differences between the two institutions against the outlined themes. The administrators’ responses at both institutions indicated that there was room for improvement in adopting the NCAAA’s recommendations. While the perceptions of teachers at both institutions seemed to suggest compliance with these recommendations, the statements of the students were more congruent with those of the administrators. The findings of the study indicate that there is yet some way to go towards the realisation of the aspirations of the NCAAA. They further suggest the desirability of a greater degree of student involvement in the evaluation of the quality of the educational process. Finally, the transformation of a series of recommendations for quality enhancement into a culture of quality within an individual institution is a process that can be expected to take some time. The study, while indicating a degree of commitment to, and espousal of, the recommendations of the NCAAA, suggests that there is some considerable way to go before this will be seen to impact directly and significantly on the student experience.