Accreditation in Higher Education Today.
Accreditation in the United States and in many other countries today meets our criteria for an expertise-oriented, formal review system. The systems make use of an existing structure (generally an inde- pendent regional or national accreditation organization in the United States or governmental agencies in other countries), standards published by the organiza- tion responsible for accreditation, a specified schedule (for example, reviews of institutions every 2, 5, or 10 years), and opinions of multiple experts, and the status of the institution, department, college, or school is affected by the results. Accreditation is an excellent example of expertise-oriented evaluation because it uses people with expertise in the subject matter of the program or institution to form a judgment regarding the quality of the entity to be evaluated. The accredi- tation of an institution or program provides consumers and other stakeholders with some indication of the quality of the institution, as judged by experts in the field, and may facilitate summative decisions. For example, many students use an institution’s or program’s accreditation status to aid their decisions about whether to apply to or attend an institution or program. Further, the feedback the accred- itation process provides to the institution can be used for program and institutional improvement and decision making. Thus, the accreditation process serves a formative purpose as well.