#AccreditationSoftware

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A cloud-based Accreditation Management System Software that automates and manage Institutional workflow aligned with accredited bodies like NAAC, NBA and NIRF.

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A guide on various aspects of Accreditation and how iCloudEMS automates the groundwork of Accreditation for Higher Education Institutes

India has the largest pool of Universities and Colleges to offer Higher Education but with the increase in the number of Higher Education Institutes, the responsibility also gets increased to maintain quality and standards in education. Globalization has removed the boundaries of learning and innovation; thus, exceptional strategies and efforts are necessary to integrate the Indian education system with world-class regulations such as to explore its true potential. The 21st century education system demands improvement in many horizons of our education system including trained staff, infrastructure, facilities, curriculum, assessment that can develop youth with the competencies such as critical thinking, communication skills, research, problem solving skills etc. Our government has brought many meticulous reforms for the development of a globally competitive

Higher Education System

and encouraged us to make India, the preferred global destination for higher studies.  Accreditation and its need: The modern education system is more focussed on the holistic development of students that can inculcate professional and technological skills to make them capable of entering in the challenging world. The quality of education standards is required to be raised or maintained continuously to meet the academic demands of the 21st century.

Accreditation

is a self-raised process of an educational program or institution that involves a systematic mechanism to ascertain that they meet strict quality operational standards.  While enrolling for a program in an institute, accreditation is the important aspect to look for the reliability of a degree program or institute to check, whether or not the services meet or exceeds minimum quality standards that becomes helpful to student for choosing recognized institution or program. Some Important Accreditation Bodies Include:

UGC (University Grants Commission)

AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education

 AIU (Association of Indian Universities)

 NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council)

 NBA (National Board of Accreditation)

NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework)

AIMA (All India Management Association) 

DCI (Dental Council of India)

 DEC (Distance Education Council)

MCI (Medical Council of India)

 NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education)

PCI (Pharmacy Council of India)

VCI (Veterinary Council of India)

NCHRH (National Council for Human Resource in Health)

The Process of Accreditation is more or less the same for all accreditation bodies. Generally, the whole process includes following phases from registration to results: 📷 Importance of Accreditation: Accreditation plays a significant role due to following reasons: 📷With reference to the above context, one can easily observe the potential of accredited institutes to ensure accountability in the institutes among students and families for their upskilling and advance learning. To achieve the best place in accreditation, institutes are required to undergo rigorous processes for data and reports compilation. We at iCloudEMS are always assisting Higher Education Institutes in upgrading their quality standards with our ingenious products and services. Our

accreditation management system

is a cloud-based software which includes SIS and other modules, and is designed for all types of technical and nontechnical Higher Education Institutes, delivering results in accordance with the Washington Accord, LIMA Accord, and Bologna Process.

Accreditation bodies typically require an analyse data span of several years, but manually organising and formatting such a large amount of data is a laborious process that is prone to redundancy and missing data. Our cloud-based system makes data administration and formatting compliant with rules much easier.

With only a few clicks, our system can generate a variety of self-assessment and analysis reports, such as SER/SAR/AQAR/IQAC/AACSB, that are necessary for your institution.

Today, it is essential to upload data to accreditation portals prior to the visit of a peer team; our unique functions make this process easier, including the ability to use prefilled data on the portal during the multiple-year data collection process.

The information is primarily requested to be entered via responses to a few predetermined questions with respect to different criteria. Our system facilitates the data and results uploading in the same approach.

Examining one’s own abilities is an important step in the accreditation process, and reports communicate results more effectively than words. We help faculty members by automating the generation of the main self-assessment report, as well as various supporting reports, during accreditation assessments and qualification analysis.

Through the compilation and management of data in chronological order, our skilled database verification team examines the standards and criteria to be confirmed.

Institutes can quickly examine the benchmarking standards and acquire a ready reckoner on the present state using our tiered evaluation procedure.

Our user-friendly system helps the governing bodies in fair and thorough audit of well-organized data and reports with a couple of clicks only.

It can be concluded that

iCloudEMS

offers well governed digital space to automate and simplify the tedious and repetitive activities of accreditation. Our comprehensive

Accreditation management system

enables an error-free mapping of learning outcomes with the institute’s mission and vision, for quality monitoring and improvement. Today in the competitive era, it is the best time for Higher Education Institutes to invest in a digital partner like iCloudEMS that can align the workflow with the visionary strategies of the institute to ensure quality assurance and improvement on a regular basis. Source from:

https://www.icloudems.com/a-guide-on-various-aspects-of-accreditation-and-how-icloudems-automates-the-groundwork-of-accreditation-for-higher-education-institutes/

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How accreditation bodies evaluate Higher Education Institutes for Quality assurance

Accreditation is a rigorous process under which Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) are evaluated if they meet pre-established standards of governing bodies. Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the University Grans Commission (UGC) have taken many initiatives time to time for the assessment of quality standards of HEIs. Subsequently, the National Policy on Education (1986) and Programme of Action (1992) recommended to establish an autonomous Accreditation and Assessment body for the maintenance and promotion of standards of Higher Education. In 1994 University Grants Commission (UGC) established an autonomous institution named National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) to evaluate and promote the quality in Higher Education. NAAC strives hard to undertake plans and activities for the accomplishment of its vision and mission to make quality, an Integrated element of Higher Education in India with major concern on prepare youth with high values and global competencies who can contribute to national and global development.

Benefits of Accreditation: Following are the important benefits of getting accredited:

Accreditation pushes the Institution towards its SWOT analysis and its improvement.

Accreditation builds the trust and accountability of Institutes among students, parents and society on quality education offered.

Funding agencies are more interested to invest their financial resources in the progress of accredited institutes,

Accreditation directs the Institutes for Continuous Quality Improvement.

Process of NAAC accreditation

The NAAC follows a combination of self and external quality measures for promotion and sustenance of quality parameters that include:

First the HEIs willing for accreditation get themselves registered on the NAAC website

Then Institutes are required to prepare and submit Institutional Information for Quality Assessment (IIQA) first and Self Study Report (SSR) on acceptance of IIQA

Next step is to proceed to Student Satisfaction Survey (SSS) and Data Validation & Verification (DVV) process for thecalculation of Pre-qualifier Score

Once all the reports and scores are there with NAAC then an on-site visit of peer team is done following the grading of Institute is declared.

Criteria for assessment: Following seven criteria are considered as the basis of assessment procedures:

Curricular Aspects: NAAC Criterion I is all about the evaluation of curriculum features of Higher Education Institutes that comprise the planning, designing and implementation of curriculum of various programme and courses of HEIs. The Curricular Aspects are the backbone of Higher Education System. Though, the curriculum practices are different according to the academic and administrative levels of Institute i.e., whether the task has been performed by university, affiliated institute or autonomous institute. The key concern for evaluation deals with the assessment of curriculum enrichment of various programme and courses to check its relevant of national and global needs in terms of multi-skill development and academic flexibility. Curriculum updating is also judged by assessing the involvement of feedback procedures and stakeholders’ participation

Criterion I is assessed in the following Key areas:

Curriculum design and development,

Curriculum planning and implementation,

Academic flexibility,

Curriculum enrichment,

Feedback system.

Teaching-learning & Evaluation: NAAC Criterion II is to gauge the efforts made by institution towards catering the needs of students belonging to different backgrounds, with its effective teaching-learning practices. The innovative teaching skills that promote students’ engagement with the help of interviews, focused group discussions, debates, projects, presentations, experiments and applications of technology resources are reviewed. As the teaching-learning are key concern hence the proficiency of faculty is analysed with the institutional efforts for their continuous faculty development.

Criterion II is assessed in the following Key areas:

Student Enrolment and Profile

Catering to Student Diversity

Teaching-Learning Process

Teacher Profile and Quality

Evaluation Process and Reforms

Student Performance and Learning Outcomes

Student Satisfaction Survey

Research Consultancy and Extension: NAAC Criterion III pertains the information collected on the policies, practices and outcomes of the institution, with reference to research, innovations and extension. It is concerned with the fostering of research culture by undertaking research projects useful to the society and efforts made by institution for the same.

Criterion III is assessed in the following Key areas:

Promotion of Research and Facilities

Resource Mobilization for Research

Innovation Ecosystem

Research Publications and Awards

Consultancy

Extension Activities

Infrastructure and Learning resources: NAAC Criterion IV focusses on the resources available in an Institution and how are these deployed for quality sustenance in the academic programmes. I also seek information on the benefits students, teachers and other staff using these available facilities in the campus. Criterion IV is assessed in the following Key areas:

Physical Facilities

Library as a Learning Resource

IT Infrastructure

Maintenance of Campus Infrastructure

Student Support and Progression: NAAC Criterion V reviews the efforts made by an institution towards the holistic development of students to make them well capable to enter into the challenging world.  either to pursue Higher Education or to get rewarding profession after they leave the campus.

Criterion V is assessed in the following Key areas:

Student Support

Student Progression

Student Participation and Activities

Alumni Engagement

Governance Leadership and Engagement: NAAC Criterion VI pertains the operational policies and practices in the institution with respect to recruitment, training, performance appraisal of human resources and the effective financial management and overall leadership role.

Criterion VI is assessed in the following Key areas:

Institutional Vision and Leadership

Strategy Development and Deployment

Faculty Empowerment Strategies

Financial Management and Resource Mobilization

Internal Quality Assurance System (IQAS)

Institutional Values and Best Practices: NAAC Criterion VII An educational institute has its social responsibility to be solution giver for the emerging national and global challenges with its variety of programmes. Every institute is expected to implement unique practices towards the major domains such as gender equity, environmental consciousness and sustainability, inclusiveness and professional ethics. These academic and administrative practices to be impactful in these pressing issues are considered as best practices of the institute and these unique ways are reviewed during the accreditation process for the evaluation.

Criterion VII is assessed in the following Key areas:

Institutional Values and Social Responsibilities

Best Practices

Institutional Distinctiveness

Following table represents the weightage given to the various Criteria.

Source: NAAC Website

(U) – applicable only for Universities and Autonomous Colleges (A) – applicable only forthe Affiliated / Constituent Colleges

Grading System of NAAC Accreditation:

                    Source: NAAC Grading

“A grade qualifier is kept for the institution on qualify for valid accreditation. In order to qualify for any Grade (C to A++) Institution needs to score at least 1.51 CGPA aggregated score (quantitative and qualitative) in each criterion”.  [from NAAC grading system].  Once the grade qualifier is finalized, accordingly the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of an institution is calculated by collating scores of the total, the scores obtained during Peer Team through on site visit and the scores computed using the Student Satisfaction Survey, on a five-point scale.

Accreditation Management System: iCloudEMS offers a a cloud-based accreditation management system designed to cater the groundwork needs of higher education institutions and helps them to generate, collect, organize and administrate all required data and reports in the predefined formats given by regulatory bodies such NAAC, NBA, ABET, NIRF etc. The academic leaders can get the following advantages with our Accreditation Management System that helps to save their time and efforts in performing tedious and repeated tasks with a couple of clicks only:

We offer a centralized platform to enter and govern data on a with respect to criterion wise predefined Question set.

There is also a provision for kind perusal of data by concerned authorities to track the progress in real-time that helps to identify gaps compliance to pre-established standards.

Our system supports Powerful reporting tools with standard formula set to generate analysis reports such as SER/SAR/AQAR/IQAC/ AACSB and many supporting reports in the course of accreditation assessments and qualification analysis.

Our system is equipped with different templates that ease the bulk data uploading process of several years.

The system also includes facility to use the prefilled data on portal during the process of the multiple years data collection.

We empower Outcome based Education model in HEIs and centralizes the outcome-based data and reports of programmes and courses such as PO-CO mapping results, survey reports, rubrics data for calculation of direct and indirect attainment levels.

We have an Expert Database Verification team for close analysis of the standards and the criteria to be validated upon.

You can rapidly check the benchmarking standards and get a ready reckoner on the current status.

iCloudEMS supports Colleges and Universities to streamline the planning, assessing and analysing the several years of data and reports. We bring the organization under one roof to channelize the collective efforts of all stakeholders towards the achievement of their goals in the journey of accreditation. Source from: https://www.icloudems.com/how-accreditation-bodies-evaluate-higher-education-institutes-for-quality-assurance/