Explore Accreditation

How Accreditation Works

Accreditation of an academic unit by an accrediting body is an evaluation process. It leads to a public statement by the accrediting body about the extent to which the academic unit (often a program toward a degree) meets expected educational quality standards.

Through the accreditation process, the faculty, the facilities, the student body, budgets, recruiting practices, admissions procedures, course content, degree completion requirements, and other pertinent issues come under a thorough review. Successful completion of the review provides the reviewed educational institution or a program with a credential. The credential is most often a public statement that the academic unit satisfies a set of quality criteria established by the accrediting body. 

There are separate accrediting bodies and procedures for accrediting institutions and for accredited academic programs. In this portal we focus on accreditation of academic programs in engineering, engineering technology and computing.   

The accreditation standards, which are established by experts in the field, cover elements such as the quality and size of the faculty, faculty support, student recruiting and retention, student services, student advising, facilities, budgets, admissions procedures, course content, and the degree to which the unit reviews its operations periodically and uses feedback from constituencies to improve operations.

Main Constituencies

The main constituencies of the accreditation process are:

  • Students and prospective students
  • The general public
  • Employers of graduating students and the related industries
  • Academic institutions and their faculty and staff
  • Governmental bodies, especially in Infrastructure management, R&D and standardization 
  • Professional licensing bodies