Quality Assurance, Continuous Improvement and Accreditation
The cycle
Quality assurance in OBE runs on a plan-do-check-act (or plan-do-study-act) cycle: set outcomes and standards, deliver, gather evidence of attainment, interpret it, act, and re-measure. Internal QA is the institution's own review machinery; external QA is accreditation or regulatory review against published standards. Accreditation typically requires a self-study report, evidence of outcome attainment, and a site visit, and it expects continuous quality improvement (CQI) rather than a snapshot of compliance.
What counts as evidence
Direct evidence (assessment results mapped to outcomes, capstone performances, portfolios, licensure results) is stronger than indirect evidence (satisfaction surveys, employer perception). PEOs are typically reviewed with alumni and employer surveys some years after graduation; PLO attainment is evidenced by direct assessment at graduation. Stakeholder input - alumni, employers, industry advisory boards, students - closes the relevance loop.
The phrase that decides many questions: closing the loop
Collecting data is not improvement. Closing the loop means showing the interpretation, the specific change made (to curriculum, delivery, assessment or support), and the follow-up measurement demonstrating effect. A report full of charts with no documented action has not closed the loop.
Traps
- Treating accreditation as a one-off event rather than a recurring cycle.
- Equating compliance documentation with improvement.
- Using indirect survey data alone to claim PLO attainment.
- Reviewing PEOs with current students' course evaluations, which measure something else entirely.
Rule of thumb
For every outcome ask three questions in sequence: what is the evidence, what did we change because of it, and did the change work?