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Categories Improvement Project 2008

Page history last edited by Answer Blip 14 years, 5 months ago

Here is the final report of  AQIP's Categories Improvement Project.

 

Everyone was invited to vote on whether and when to adopt these revisions and to offer comments on further improvements, and you can see a summary of how everyone is voted by clicking voting results, or you can download a pdf file, Category Improvement Voting Results.pdf, containing all voting results and comments.

 

The final 2008 version incorporates these improvements over the previous (1999-2000) version:

 

  • The Overview questions and Context (C) items have been combined into an introduction and 9 Overview areas, one corresponding to each Category. The goal is to reduce the space devoted to presenting background context in a Systems Portfolio, and make clear the boundary between context and Process (P), Results (R), and Improvement (I) items.

 

  • To avoid further confusion over length requirements of Systems Portfolios and recognizing that many are created electronically, length limitations are now given in word totals. The Overview should be under 5000 words and the complete Systems Portfolio, including the Overview, should be under 50,000 words (This is roughly 100 double-spaced printed pages).

     

  • Category 2 has been reworded to make clear that it refers to the description of key processes and their results other than instructional programs that serve the needs of an organization’s external constituents. Category 1 covers instructional programs (credit and non-credit), and Categories 3 - 9 covers the array of internal processes that enable an organization to operate those programs (in Categories 1 and 2) that directly serve its students and other external stakeholders.

     

  • Category 7 has been reworked to make clear that it refers to “organizational knowledge management” — an institution’s overall processes for collecting, distributing, and maintaining data. Interpretation and analysis of data for a specific process belongs in the Result section relating to the Category under which the process belongs.

     

  • Complex P and R items that previously combined two or more separate issues have been made separate items and given numbers of their own, enabling an organization to respond to either (or both) items in depth if it so chooses. Organizations creating Systems Portfolios will find that the increase in the number of P and R items (but not in the underlying questions) gives them more flexibility, and Systems Appraisers should find fewer instances in which an organization addresses only part of a numbered P or R item.

     

  • In square brackets following each item appears the number used for that item in the 1999-2000 edition of the AQIP Categories. This number may appear more than once because complex items were separated. These references should simplify the task of converting an older Portfolio to the revised Category items.

     

  • Improvement (I) items have been replaced with a two items for each Category, one (I1) that invites the organization to describe its recent successful Action Projects and to explain the rationale behind its choosing the P and R questions it has answered in depth. The I2 item in each Category invites an organization to explain the degree to which it is practicing continuous quality improvement in the specific key systems and processes that fall under that Category. Answering either (or both) of these Improvement items will enable the Systems Appraisal team to provide more focused feedback on how the organization might improve its culture and infrastructure and encourage further improvement for that Category.

     

  • Overly complicated or wordy items and questions posed in the passive voice have been eliminated or improved. The questions are easier to read, comprehend, and answer.

     

  • AQIP has simplified the rules for addressing items “in depth.” In each Category, an organization must address at least 1/3 of the total P, R, and I items in depth; it must address at least one P, one R, and one I item in depth in every Category.

     

  • The previous Notes (and explanatory phrases embedded in the questions themselves) have been removed, and will be placed in an AQIP web-based Notes and Support for Systems Portfolios “wiki,” where they can be improved and expanded collaboratively and openly by the community of higher educators pioneering the use of quality improvement though AQIP participation. AQIP’s goal is to make Notes and Support as valuable as possible for those actually creating and reviewing Systems Portfolios. AQIP will separate the wiki into “official” (AQIP approved) and “advisory” (community collaboration) sections, and make a compilation of the “official” sections available as a downloadable document on its website.

     

  • AQIP will study the items in individual Categories in depth each year to identify further improvements, perhaps more far-reaching ones. Category 1 will be the subject of this more intensive review during 2008-09.

 

 

 

Download a PDF document version of the new 2008 version of the AQIP Categories:         AQIP Categories (2008).pdf  

 

Examine the interim draft of proposed changes, now replaced by the new 2008 version:         The 2008 Category Revision.doc

 

Examine the original 2000 version of the AQIP Categories:       The AQIP Principles and Categories (2000).pdf

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