What is Accreditation?
Accreditation is a formal, periodic review in which an external body evaluates a school against a set of published standards and confirms it meets them.
A full cycle runs anywhere from about five to ten years depending on the body, usually with a lighter review around the midpoint. The school evaluates itself in a self-study, then a team of peer reviewers visits to test that assessment against what they actually see. Done well, it does two jobs at once: it tells families and authorities the school clears a real bar, and it gives the school a reason to keep improving between visits.
Related: Self-study · Accreditation standard · WASC
What is Accreditation evidence?
Accreditation evidence is the documentation a school gathers to demonstrate it meets each standard in its accreditation framework.
It can be a policy, a curriculum map, survey results, a set of meeting minutes — almost any record of how the school runs. Volume isn't the point. What counts is whether each piece clearly maps to the standard it's meant to satisfy.
Related: Accreditation evidence management · Evidence mapping
What is Accreditation evidence management?
Accreditation evidence management is the practice of collecting, organizing, and mapping a school's evidence to the standards it is accountable to, so readiness is visible at any time rather than assembled in a scramble before a visit.
Done well, it turns accreditation from a pre-visit paperwork scramble into a view of quality you can check any day of the year. Novana is built for exactly this: it ingests the evidence a school already produces and maps it to any framework automatically.
Related: How Novana works · Self-study
What is Self-study?
A self-study is a school's own structured evaluation of itself against its accreditation standards, produced ahead of an accreditation visit.
Traditionally a self-study is a once-a-cycle effort that runs a year or more and consumes enormous staff time. A continuous approach keeps the self-study narrative current all year, so the document reflects the school as it actually is on any given day.
Related: Accreditation · Focus on Learning
What is Accreditation standard?
An accreditation standard is a published statement of expected quality that a school is evaluated against, usually broken into more specific indicators or criteria.
Standards are grouped into domains that together describe a whole school — its organization, curriculum, instruction, assessment, and culture. A school demonstrates each standard with evidence.
Related: Accreditation framework · Accreditation evidence
What is Accreditation framework?
An accreditation framework is the full set of domains, standards, and indicators an accreditor uses to evaluate a school.
Different bodies publish different frameworks — WASC's Focus on Learning, CIS's accreditation standards, the IB's programme standards, and more. Novana reads any structured framework and maps a school's evidence against one or several at the same time.
Related: Accreditation standard · WASC
What is WASC?
WASC, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is one of the world's major school accreditation bodies, accrediting thousands of schools across the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific.
Its schools accreditation runs through the ACS WASC "Focus on Learning" process. Novana is a strategic partner of WASC and provides first-party support for its framework.
Related: Focus on Learning · Trust & partnerships
What is Focus on Learning?
Focus on Learning is ACS WASC's framework for accrediting schools, built around one question — how well a school supports student learning — examined across its organization, its teaching, and its school culture.
The school answers that question through a self-study that gathers evidence area by area, which a visiting committee then tests on site. It's designed as a continuous-improvement process, not a one-off audit.
Related: WASC · Self-study
What is Continuous school improvement?
Continuous school improvement is the practice of using evidence and goals to improve a school year-round, rather than only during an accreditation cycle.
Here accreditation stops being a deadline and becomes a byproduct of good practice. When a school can see where it stands against its standards at any time, improvement turns into a habit rather than a rush before the next visit.
Related: School quality · Self-study
What is Visiting committee?
A visiting committee, or peer review team, is the group of external educators who visit a school during accreditation to validate its self-study and observe the school firsthand.
The committee tests the school's self-assessment against what it sees on the ground, then reports findings and recommendations that shape the school's next improvement cycle.
Related: Accreditation · Self-study
What is Schoolwide learner outcomes?
Schoolwide learner outcomes (sometimes called a graduate profile) are the school-defined competencies every student is expected to demonstrate by the time they graduate.
They express what a school believes its students should become, and give accreditation a throughline: curriculum, instruction, and assessment are all evaluated by how well they advance these outcomes.
Related: Focus on Learning · Accreditation standard
What is School quality?
School quality is a measure of how well a school serves student learning across its organization, curriculum, instruction, assessment, and culture.
It is the thing accreditation frameworks try to capture. Novana's aim is to make school quality visible in real time, so leaders can see what is working and where the gaps are without waiting for a self-study year.
Related: Continuous school improvement · How Novana works
What is Evidence mapping?
Evidence mapping is the process of linking each piece of a school's evidence to the specific standards it satisfies, across one or more frameworks.
Done by hand it is slow and error-prone; a file might satisfy standards in three different frameworks at once. Novana's AI maps uploaded evidence to the relevant standards automatically, so coverage stays current as the school works.
Related: Accreditation evidence management · Accreditation framework