What is AACSB?
AACSB (‘Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business’) is an American organization that grants accreditations to schools of business and schools of accounting. 900+ schools across the globe are accredited; the majority have a business accreditation and some have both a business and accounting accreditation. In the Netherlands all other universities with a business faculty have an AACSB business accreditation.
To further realize its international ambitions, SBE decided to start the AACSB accreditation process in late 2014. Since we have a strong portfolio of accounting programs it was decided to pursue both business and accounting accreditation. The vast majority of universities with a double business and accounting accreditation are located in the United States; in Europe only Northumbria University in Newcastle has a double business and accounting accreditation. Meaning that SBE would the second business school in Europe to receive this prestigious double accreditation.
Why are we pursuing AACSB accreditation?
Accreditation by AACSB represents an international seal of approval for business and accounting programs that ensures the educational needs of students are met through high quality and excellence in education. According to the AACSB, many of the top global corporations will recruit only from business schools that hold its accreditation. Next to this, being part of the top 5% schools worldwide that are AACSB-accredited means valuable networking opportunities for both SBE and the School of Accounting. Furthermore, international university partners increasingly ask for AACSB accreditation when entering into co-operations.
The steps taken to achieve the accreditation have also given us valuable insights into the way we carry out our teaching and research. AACSB’s focus on vision and mission have encouraged us to look at the way ‘Science with Purpose’ guides our operations. This process has helped us in further determining our unique profile and has also inspired us to carry out new activities to further strengthen our focus on our mission and vision.
What are the AACSB accreditation standards?
SBE has to adhere to the accreditation standards as set out by AACSB. In our reports we offer a standard by standard analysis and describe our efforts in these areas. Below the standards are displayed:
Standard 1: Mission, Impact, Innovation
Standard 2: Intellectual Contributions, Impact, and Alignment with Mission
Standard 3: Financial Strategies and Allocation of Resources
Standard 4: Student Admissions, Progression, and Career Development
Standard 5: Faculty Sufficiency and Deployment
Standard 6: Faculty Management and Support
Standard 7: Professional Staff Sufficiency and Deployment
Standard 8: Curricula Management and Assurance of Learning
Standard 9: Curriculum Content
Standard 10: Student-Faculty Interactions
Standard 11: Degree Program Educational Level, Structure, and Equivalence
Standard 12: Teaching Effectiveness
Standard 13: Student Academic and Professional Engagement
Standard 14: Executive Education
Standard 15: Faculty Qualifications and Engagement
What is Assurance of Learning?
Standard 8 concerns the so-called Assurance of Learning (AoL) system. AoL measures to what extent the program learning objectives are achieved by students. An example of learning objectives specified for a Bachelor’s program are displayed below.
- ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH SKILLS: Can conduct a basic research project from start to finish
- BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE - knowledge: Demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the three core areas of econometrics; econometrics, operations research and mathematics economics
- BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE - application: Can model business and economics problems using analytic methods from mathematics and statistics
- SOCIAL PROFESSIONAL SKILLS: Can professionally present (orally and in writing) for a (non-) expert audience
- BROADENING YOUR HORIZON: Can reflect on the ethical and social implications of the outcome of their analysis
- SELF-AWARENESS: Can evaluate own learning, knowledge and practice
The aim is for continuous improvement at the program level, rather than at the individual student level. Basically, the AoL can be seen as revolving around three fundamental questions:
1. What do we want our students to learn?
2. How will we know if the students have learned this?
3. How and what do we change in the program if the students have not learned this?
Measurements
For one individual AoL measurement, one course is used to measure a specific learning objective, such as ‘Academic and Research Skills’. For this objective the average of student scores for the following five items of the thesis assessment are often used:
- Research question
- Positioning in literature
- Research design
- Description and analysis of results
- Conclusion and discussion
The resulting average grade is then qualified as ‘Does not meet expectations’, ‘Meets expectations’ or ‘Exceeds expectations’.
Each learning objective for each degree program is measured twice in a five-year period. The time between the first and second measurement is used to implement improvement measures in the course or curriculum, where necessary. The second measurement can then confirm whether or not these measures have been successful.
AACSB expects that by the time of the initial accreditation visit one complete cycle (two measurements, with evaluations in between and at the end) is completed for all learning objectives of all degree programs.
What will the visit look like?
From the 15 to 19th of November two teams (one for Business, one for Accounting) will visit SBE. During these days the teams will talk with delegations of SBE employees to discuss key issues (related to the accreditation standards mentioned before). At the end of the visit we will receive a preliminary report from the two teams that contains the advice (accreditation, denial of accreditation or a deferred visit) they will forward to the Initial Accreditation Committee. After a few months we will then receive final confirmation.