Purpose To summarize the state of evidence related to undergraduate medical education (UME) accreditation internationally, describe from whom and where the evidence has come, and identify opportunities for further investigation. Method The authors searched Embase, ERIC, PubMed, and Scopus from inception through January 31, 2018, without language restrictions, to identify peer-reviewed articles on UME accreditation. Articles were classified as scholarship if all Glassick's criteria were met and as nonscholarship if not all were met. Author, accrediting agency, and study characteristics were analyzed. Results Database searching identified 1,379 nonduplicate citations, resulting in 203 unique, accessible articles for full-text review. Of these and with articles from hand searching added, 36 articles were classified as scholarship (30 as research) and 85 as nonscholarship. Of the 36 scholarship and 85 nonscholarship articles, respectively, 21 (58%) and 44 (52%) had an author from the United States or Canada, 8 (22%) and 11 (13%) had an author from a low- or middle-income country, and 16 (44%) and 43 (51%) had an author affiliated with a regulatory authority. Agencies from high-income countries were featured most often (scholarship: 28/60 [47%]; nonscholarship: 70/101 [69%]). Six (17%) scholarship articles reported receiving funding. All 30 research studies were cross-sectional or retrospective, 12 (40%) reported only analysis of accreditation documents, and 5 (17%) attempted to link accreditation with educational outcomes. Conclusions Limited evidence exists to support current UME accreditation practices or guide accreditation system creation or enhancement. More research is required to optimize UME accreditation systems' value for students, programs, and society.

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Describing the Evidence Base for Accreditation in Undergraduate Medical Education Internationally: A Scoping Review.

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https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5782&context=theses

Understanding the change processes resulting from accreditation of colleges in Saudi Arabia

Quality of engineering education is a core principle that can never be sacrificed. To ensure quality, engineering programs/schools seek national and/or international accreditation from relevant accreditation agencies. As higher education in Saudi Arabia is evolving rapidly and to ensure high education quality standards, the Ministry of Higher Education is requesting all the institutions of higher education to be accredited by the National Commission for Academic Accreditation & Assessment (NCAAA). The accreditation process is not very much liked by most of the faculty members as they have the misconception that it is an exhausting time consuming, not to say complex and unnecessary, process. Most faculty members are not enthusiastic about going through the preparation process and its requirements from data collection, documents and forms preparation, data aggregation, data analysis, collecting evidences, and developing corrective action and future plans as needed. This paper describes requirements for programs accreditation, the preparation process, and the challenges faced during the accreditation process. Few papers were published discussing different issues related to the accreditation process in Saudi Universities. Despite the importance of the accreditation related issues discussed in those papers, the authors believe that the challenges associated with the accreditation process and their causes are not fully reported and are very important to be presented. Programs, colleges, and faculty members need to realize those challenges to try to avoid them and make the accreditation process easier and smoother. Knowledge and information gained via observation, unstructured interviews with faculty members, discussions with colleagues from different Saudi universities, and extensive involvement of the authors in the accreditation process in a private university and a public university is utilized to state challenges and barriers experienced throughout different stages of the accreditation journey. The private university was preparing for NCAAA and the public university was preparing for ABET. Although the study is based more on the national accreditation experience, it was found that similar challenges were faced and same recommendations apply for both national and international accreditation. This means that type of accreditation and differences between programs/universities was not the problem and proves that the readiness of the program and the institution is the most important catalyst of the accreditation process. The main challenges faced by different programs were added workload, understaffing, inadequate training, inability to properly prepare required forms and documents, lack of faculty commitment to the accreditation process, high faculty turn over, and lack of proper support from higher administration. The paper discusses the main causes of the problems faced during the process and presents some recommendations that might help making the accreditation process easier and smoother. The study concludes with the fact that faculty and staff commitment and belief in the importance of quality and the benefits of accreditation to the programs and institution is the key success factor in attaining accreditation. Administration cannot force faculty and staff to go quality but can convince them that quality is the perfect life style for the institution.

Accreditation process for engineering programs in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and lessons learned

Background: The objective of this qualitative study was to explore the value of virtual IPE competition that involved a COVID-19 case among healthcare students and the lessons that can be learned to improve this experience in the future Methods: The 27 senior students from the colleges of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and paramedics were invited to two focus groups that followed the IPE competition and lasted 60 minutes each A semi-structured focus group discussion guide was used in the focus group discussion to explore the benefits and limitations of the virtual IPE experience Verbatim transcription of the two video-recorded sessions was conducted, and inductive thematic analysis was performed to uncover different emerging themes Results: The number of students who consented to participate was 16 (59 26%) The IPE virtual competition was perceived favorably by all students;however, multiple organization and communication barriers were reported Although the participants liked the IPE virtual competition, they clearly stated their preference for an in-person IPE competition over the virtual one Managing a COVID-19 case was not perceived favorably by some participants due to the absence of evidence-based clinical guidelines supporting certain treatment proto- cols over others Thus, some participants preferred a non-COVID-19 case where clear and evidence-based guidelines exist Conclusion: The use of different IPE strategies to enhance healthcare students’ collabora- tion and understanding of their roles in the multidisciplinary healthcare team, especially during pandemic times, such as COVID-19, is possible Future studies should examine new and innovative IPE strategies that address the identified limitations of virtual IPE

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Interprofessional Education Competition During the COVID-19 Pandemic at King Saud University: Benefits and Challenges

Accreditation systems in medical education aim to assure various stakeholders that graduates are ready to further their training or begin practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current state of medical education accreditation around the world and describe the incidence and variability of these accreditation agencies worldwide. This paper explores trends in agency age, organization, and scope according to both World Bank region and income group. To find information on accreditation agencies, we searched multiple online accreditation and quality assurance databases as well as the University of Michigan Online Library and the Google search engine. All included agencies were recorded on a spreadsheet along with date of formation or first accreditation activity, name changes, scope, level of government independence, accessibility and type of accreditation standards, and status of WFME recognition. Comparisons by country region and income classification were made based on the World Bank’s lists for fiscal year 2021. As of August 2020, there were 3,323 operating medical schools located in 186 countries or territories listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools. Ninety-two (49%) of these countries currently have access to undergraduate accreditation that uses medical-specific standards. Sixty-four percent (n = 38) of high-income countries have medical-specific accreditation available to their medical schools, compared to only 20% (n = 6) of low-income countries. The majority of World Bank regions experienced the greatest increase in medical education accreditation agency establishment since the year 2000. Most smaller countries in Europe, South America, and the Pacific only have access to general undergraduate accreditation, and many countries in Africa have no accreditation available. In countries where medical education accreditation exists, the scope and organization of the agencies varies considerably. Regional cooperation and international agencies seem to be a growing trend. The data described in our study can serve as an important resource for further investigations on the effectiveness of accreditation activities worldwide. Our research also highlights regions and countries that may need focused accreditation development support.

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Global trends in medical education accreditation.

Objective: This study aims to describe  effects of the accreditation process of the National Commission for Academic Assessment and Accreditation (NCAAA) and its impact on the quality of medical education in one medical college in Saudi Arabia, and determines the extent to which the tools used for this purpose (the NCAAA Standards) are applicable to medical colleges. Methodology: We conducted a semi-qualitative study in Qassim University College of Medicine, where an accreditation exercise led by NCAAA was recently completed. Data pertaining to applicability and impact of the accreditation process were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus-group discussions and structured questionnaires. Data were aggregated and analyzed and compared with information prior to accreditation, where available. Results: The accreditation process lasted about two years, culminating in the preparation of a self-evaluation report and a visit of external reviewers. The process itself brought significant changes in the educational processes and administration and implementation of the curriculum. Our analysis also indicated significant improvements in the quality of medical education in the College. However, there were questions about the applicability of the NCAAA accreditation process on medical education. The process can be modified to suit the special requirements of medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. Conclusions: NCAAA accreditation process was successful in improving the quality of medical education, without imposing radical changes in curriculum philosophy or orientation. Better measurement of students learning outcomes, regular review and updating of the quality standards and continuous quality improvement are anticipated to deliver better medical education in the college.

Mohamed Nour-El-Din Saleh

Papers

Academic Accreditation Process: Experience of a Medical College in Saudi Arabia