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Whether an entire academic institution is going through accreditation, or only selected programs (like business, engineering, medicine, or nursing), all accrediting bodies focus heavily on faculty. Typically, your institution must demonstrate a sufficient, diverse, qualified, and productive faculty.
Beyond the critical task of producing necessary reports for a successful accreditation decision, more and more academic institutions are shifting to see successful accreditation as an outcome of well-supported faculty. The Interfolio Faculty Information System is built to do just that.
In addition to maintaining accurate data and producing built-in accreditation reports (see #4 below), Interfolio intentionally addresses the fundamental shared governance and management practices that yield healthy academic institutions and programs. Accreditation is a natural byproduct of a well-supported faculty.
Establishing sound processes for faculty recruitment and hiring naturally supports accreditation by ensuring your institution maintains a sufficient, qualified, productive, and diverse faculty. We know that hiring faculty is different from other hiring processes within an institution. That’s why major universities like the University of Florida—going through an unprecedented hiring expansion of 500 new faculty members—run recruitment through the Interfolio Faculty Search module.
“Interfolio’s recruitment module has helped us manage a very complex recruitment process. It made the application process simpler for the candidates and the interview/selection process more efficient for the search committee.”
Pearlie T. Batingan, Academic Human Resources, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine
Mentoring and reviewing your faculty are crucial components to generate the growth and contributions that the accreditation process examines.
The Interfolio Review, Promotion, and Tenure module streamlines all academic review processes—saving time, improving transparency and equity, and empowering you to steer formative mentoring and summative reviews. And the rich set of tools included for faculty members to manage their own information and pursuits, along with Interfolio’s highly flexible workflow engine, gives you a way to align your management processes with the goals of all accrediting bodies.
“We’ve found that for many years the whole process for going up for tenure and promotion has been shaped by the bureaucratic demands of putting together the physical repository of your career achievements. We’re excited about moving towards a more digital, accessible solution that allow us to focus on more substantive conversations.”
Joanna Brooks, Ph.D., Associate Vice President of Faculty Advancement, San Diego State University
Easily collecting and reporting data about faculty credentials, activities, and accomplishments is central to successful accreditation review—not just once, but every time.
The Interfolio Faculty180 module for faculty activity reporting allows schools to collect fielded data (and metadata) in a central data hub, giving structure to data collection and making access efficient. We can handle:
Central to the way that Interfolio supports accreditation is the concept of data validation: year-round features for the institution to make data maintenance as easy and quick as possible for faculty and staff.
“This validation process wouldn’t have been possible without making the information available to faculty through our Faculty180 system.”
Jana Moore, Senior Project Support Coordinator, University of Missouri System
Once data is collected, it can be infinitely sorted, integrated, recycled, and repurposed into ad hoc reports, custom reports, and standardized or discretionary accreditation reports. These reports can be built and modified at a moment’s notice within the Faculty180 module to support decision making and accreditation strategies.
Examples of professional and regional accrediting bodies for which Interfolio commonly produces reports include:
Regional accreditors
Professional accreditors
“Specialized accreditations have become an increased priority for our undergraduate school and graduate schools due to the demand for specialized learning in higher education. Interfolio’s accreditation compliance support was a critical factor in garnering university-wide buy-in.”
Lisa Bortman, Associate Provost for the University’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Pepperdine University