Pro-rector: Why New Institutional Accreditation is Important for AAU
: 08.03.2023
This week, AAU is submitting an application to be institutionally accredited. Major internal work then begins to get the university through the accreditation smoothly. But why is this so important to AAU? And how can you contribute? Pro-rector Anne Marie Kanstrup provides answers here.
By Lena Højlund Larsen, Study Service and Lea Laursen Pasgaard, AAU Communication. Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication
- An institutional accreditation generally involves an external accreditation panel assessing our quality work and giving us a seal of approval on our quality system.
This is according to Anne Marie Kanstrup, Pro-rector of AAU, who is in charge of the extensive work that officially kicks off this week when the university sends its application for institutional accreditation to the Danish Accreditation Institution. All educational institutions must do this every six years.
The decision on the accreditation will come in March 2024, and at AAU the work is now beginning in earnest. In April and September, the external accreditation panel visits to interview representatives among students, teaching staff and various levels of management. The accreditation panel makes its decision based on these interviews.
If you are designated to take part in an interview, it is important that you prioritise it, states the pro-rector.
- It’s incredibly important for AAU to get a positive institutional accreditation; otherwise we will be required to go through re-accreditation. This is time-consuming, and in the worst case, it can limit our ability to get new degree programmes approved, the pro-rector says.
It is mainly the Danish Accreditation Institution and the panel that designate which people they want to talk to at AAU. They interview the participants about their work on developing the quality and relevance of the degree programmes. What they ask about can really vary, ranging from, for example, the work of doing annual quality follow-ups and programme evaluations to implementing student evaluations.
- The quality work on the degree programmes takes place in the individual study boards where the students also contribute. Therefore, the work of the study boards is part of the first visit where both teaching staff and students are designated as representatives of the study boards, the pro-rector says.
Anne Marie Kanstrup has full confidence in the quality system that will now be assessed.
- At AAU, we have worked hard to develop the quality system since the last accreditation in 2018. We have made it more structured and transparent, and many people from the departments have been involved in this. I especially like that it follows the student's journey from recruitment to transition to the labour market with PBL as the core. We are proud of our quality system and we look forward to having it assessed by the panel, she says.
Next steps
The Danish Accreditation Institution that in practice does the accreditation has appointed an external panel of five people to carry out the assessment. The panel consists of representatives from universities in Sweden and Norway, a representative from the labour market in Denmark and a student from a Danish university. The chairman of the panel is Mette Sandoff, Pro-rector, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
AAU has received the programme for the visit in April, and the participants have been contacted and booked for the various interviews. The visit lasts two days and takes place at Frederik Bajers Vej 7K. Representatives of the University Board, the rector and pro-rector, pro-deans for education, heads of department, deputy heads of department/heads of studies, study board chairs and students from councils and study boards will be interviewed.
The visit in September will be based on three audit trails that the panel selects after the visit in April. Audit trails are the specific areas of quality work that the panel wishes to assess in more detail across selected degree programmes. AAU will be notified of these in mid-May and will then have one month to compile documentation for the quality work for the individual audit trails and degree programmes. The departments concerned will be involved in compiling the documentation. At the same time, calendar reservations will be issued in May for potential participants from the selected degree programmes regarding taking part in the accreditation panel's second visit.
Learn more about institutional accreditation here (In Danish)