Accreditation

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All bachelor's and master's degree programs must be accredited due to legal requirements. The accreditation process ensures that a program meets the statutory criteria for designing study programs (in accordance with the Studienakkreditierungsverordnung StudakVO). A successful accreditation is documented by the award of the seal of the Accreditation Council. For this quality assurance procedure, there are generally two different possibilities: internal accreditation and external program accreditation.

At the University of Münster, internal accreditation has been conducted as a rule since the introduction of the Quality Management System (QMS). The basis for this is the prescribed processes of the QMS at the University of Münster. With the Rectorate's decision on accreditation, study programs receive the seal of the Accreditation Council as well as confirmation of compliance with the requirements of the Quality Management System (according to the QM Regulation).

For a few study programs, external program accreditation still needs to be carried out due to legal requirements (e.g., for the Catholic theological full-time program or some international cooperative study programs).

  • Internal accreditation

    The process of internal accreditation of a study program at the University of Münster consists of the following elements:

    At an agreed-upon time before the expiration of the current accreditation period, the responsible faculty applies for reaccreditation of its study program to the office of the Internal Accreditation Commission (IAK). The most important basis for the decision on internal accreditation is the result of the quality assurance meeting.

    The figure shows the steps involved in the internal accreditation process: Application - Referral to the IAC - Decision by the Rectorate
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    Treatment in IAK and Rectorate

    The IAK formulates a recommendation for a decision based on the submitted documents, including the expert opinion from the quality assurance meeting, possibly a statement, and other documents related to the study program. Based on this recommendation, the Rectorate makes its accreditation decision. The new accreditation period then begins immediately after the previous one.

    An accreditation can be linked to conditions, which the responsible faculty usually has twelve months to implement.

    If a faculty does not agree with an accreditation decision made by the Rectorate, it has the option to file an objection with the Mediation Council for internal accreditation. In this case, the Mediation Council becomes active with the goal of establishing a consensus. If mediation is not successful, an external program accreditation is carried out.

    The result of the accreditation procedure is published at the Accreditation Council.

    The graphic shows the process variants for internal accreditation following the accreditation decision by the Rectorate.
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  • External program accreditation

    In a few exceptional cases, due to statutory regulations, accreditation must be carried out in the form of an external program accreditation. Program accreditation means that an external accreditation agency is commissioned to establish a group of experts and conduct an evaluation procedure. The entire process is coordinated and accompanied by department 1.4. It consists of the following steps:

    Department 1.4 provides the faculties with a guide and a template for creating a self-report, which must contain essential information about the concept of the study program. The self-report on the study program serves as the basis for the evaluation, which is carried out by the external accreditation agency.

    The outcome of this procedure is an accreditation report, with which the University of Münster applies for accreditation to the Accreditation Council (AR). If the group of experts identifies deficiencies (so-called "monita"), there are various ways the faculty can respond: either the deficiencies can be rectified directly after the evaluation (quality improvement loop), or the department waits for the Accreditation Council's decision and remedies the deficiencies within the framework of fulfilling conditions. The exact procedure is agreed upon between the department and department 1.4.

    Decision by the Accreditation Council

    Once the final accreditation report is available, department 1.4 applies for accreditation to the AR, and the facultyt is informed of the decision through department 1.4. If the accreditation decision includes conditions, these must be implemented within one year.

    After completing an accreditation, it is recommended to evaluate the results of this process internally within the faculty. Additionally, it may be helpful to develop solutions for conditions within the framework of a study program conference. Possibly, recommendations have also been formulated by the group of experts, which should be discussed in this context.

    The result of the accreditation procedure is published at the Accreditation Council.