[Aer-university-standards] AER URC Update
Annette Skellenger
annette.skellenger at wmich.edu
Fri Oct 19 22:25:39 EDT 2007
Hi Janet
this is Annette Skellenger replying. I am the chair of the university
review committee (URC) so I am jumping in here. Thanks for your
interest in university review
The URC does not make the decision of who to review, rather it is the
individual university programs that decide if they want to be reviewed.
University review is basically a voluntary process and the university
programs choose to be reviewed if they want to be able to say that they
have met the AER standards as evidence of the quality of their program.
At this point the URC has already been established for the 2006-2008
period. The committee is made up of a representative from each division
that has been conducting university review up to now, an AER board
member as liasion, and myself as the chair . Our charge is to come up
with a new process for doing university review and submit it to the AER
board for approval. It may be that once the new procedures are
approved that we will need a considerable number of volunteers to serve
on the committee. I would recommend that anyone interested in serving
on the committe in the future contact the AER president after the July
international conference or the AER national office.
I hope this answers your questions. Thanks again for your interest in
the URC.
take care
a
janetbern at aim.com wrote:
> Hi Sara,
> I am a CLCT and a VI teacher in Louisiana. How do you decide which
> university programs to review? How does one become part of the
> university review committee?
> Thank you,
> Janet Bernhardt
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sara Sellers <sara at aerbvi.org>
> To: aer-university-standards at lists.aerbvi.org.
> Sent: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:15 am
> Subject: [Aer-university-standards] AER URC Update
>
> The 2006-2008 University Review Committees (06/08URC) was charged with
> collecting information to make a recommendation to the AER Board
> whether to continue to conduct the university review process within
> AER (“in-house”) or to move to an outside agency to handle the review
> process (“outsource”). After considerable research and contact with
> existing certification agencies other than AER, the 06/08 URC
> recommended to the board that AER continue to conduct in-house
> reviews. This recommendation was approved April 13, 2007.
>
> The 06/08 URC began the process of putting together a *proposal for
> eventual recommendation* to the Board for a new in-house review
> process. The following decisions have been made regarding the
> recommended proposal:
>
> The new review process will no longer be conducted by the individual
> divisions. A standardized review process will be developed that will
> be conducted by an AER University Review Committee that is comprised
> of members from all AER divisions.
>
> The 06/08 URC will take the role of developing a proposal for
> recommendation to the Board regarding what we have labeled
> “administrative standards” or standards regarding the process of
> review. The determination of “curricular standards” will be left to
> each respective division. The proposal for recommendation regarding
> the new review process then will contain a combination of standards
> developed by the 06/08 URC and the respective divisions.
>
> The 06/08 URC then spent approximately 3 months reviewing the
> literature and contacting other professional agencies that conduct
> in-house university review processes. The information obtained, as
> well as data regarding the current AER O&M, VRT, and TVI review
> processes was compiled into a 52-page document. In August, the 06/08
> URC began making initial decisions regarding the proposed process to
> be recommended to the Board.
>
> The following are decisions the 06/08 URC has made regarding a new
> University Review Process to be *recommended* to the AER Board at the
> April 2008 Board meeting. These decisions will be revisited as
> necessary as the total proposal is being developed.
>
> *Initial and continuing review*
> The total university review process will consist of two different
> types of review:
> initial, interim/yearly follow-up, and continuing.
>
> * *Initial review* – The initial review will be a “standards
> review” that will consist of evaluating whether the program is
> providing an acceptable level of training in the standards for
> the profession.
> o The 06/08 URC decided to focus on developing
> administrative standards for only the initial review
> process. It is probable that the 08/10 committee will
> need to develop procedures for the continuing review process.
> o All existing and new university programs will be required
> to go through the new initial review process once it has
> been developed and approved by the Board.
> o All currently approved programs will be granted extensions
> of their approval to allow for development and phasing in
> of the new review process.
> * *Interim/Yearly follow-up* – A yearly checklist will be
> completed by approved programs to provide yes/no answers
> regarding whether any of the components approved in the initial
> review had changed. The URC will decide if an interim review
> will be needed depending on the amount and depth of change made
> by the program. The committee will also decide the appropriate
> process to follow for the interim review.
> * *Continuing review* – The school under review will conduct a
> self-study of the progress made on goals determined in the
> initial or previous continuing review. The continuing review
> will consist of an evaluation of that report.
>
>
> *AER** University** Review Committee structure*
>
> * *Composition* – A committee of 30 members will provide a pool of
> reviewers for the individual reviews as they come up.
>
> o The committee will be comprised of 16 O&M, 8 TVI, 6 VRT
> division members. This reflects the proportion of programs in each
> division needing to be reviewed.
> o 18 members will be university faculty, 12 practitioners.
> § Every attempt will be made to have 1/3 of the members with
> prior experience serving on the AER URC Committee.
> · *Qualifications* –
> o All members must be active members of their appropriate AER
> division.
> o All members must have at least 3 years work experience in
> visual impairments.
> o Practitioner members must be certified by ACVREP or hold state
> teacher certification in visual impairments.
> o University faculty must hold a permanent position and at least
> 3 years experience at the university level.
>
> * *Length of term *– 4 years, with staggered terms. Members can
> serve multiple terms with approval of chair of the committee.
> * *Training *– Members will be required to attend one afternoon of
> training at each biennial conference (with one off cycle
> training to get started). Training will pertain to committee,
> panel, and site visit responsibilities.
> * *Compensation* – Members financially compensated.
> o NOTE: decisions regarding all financial matters will be
> referred to the AER Board and Finance Committee. The
> Finance Committee and/or executive director will put
> together a financial proposal that will be considered by
> the current URC before the final recommendations will be
> agreed upon. The current URC may need to change the
> proposed recommendations to balance for a reasonable cost
> to the universities.
> * *Specific review panel* – Each review panel will be comprised of
> 5 members of the committee
> o 3 from area being review – 2 others divisions
> o 3 university faculty
> + NOTE: It was decided that all university programs
> will need to be initially reviewed under the new
> procedures and standards. This will mean that
> initial reviews will need to be staggered so they do
> not need to be conducted at the same time.
> * *Site visit team* – It was decided that a site visit would be
> required for initial approval.
> o 2 members from the review panel will make up a site visit
> team.
> o At least 1 should be university faculty and at least 1 of
> the members should be from the division(s) being
> reviewed. The same person could fulfill both of these
> requirements.
> + NOTE: Since there are many divisions that include
> TVIs, URC members for reviewing TVI programs could
> include members from TVI educational service
> divisions as well as Division 17 members.
> o The university being reviewed can challenge the inclusion
> of any member on the site visit (procedures and allowable
> reasons for doing this will be specified once the current
> URC starts making decisions about overall procedures).
>
>
> *Types of approval*
>
> * *Levels* – Programs will be either approved or not approved (no
> probationary or provisional approval)
> o If a program reapplies within 18 months there will be some
> financial “discount” (to be determined by AER
> administration) for re-application.
> o Each re-application starts with a clean slate and a new
> review panel.
> * *University accreditation required* – U.S. or regional higher
> education accreditation. Universities outside the United States
> can request that their local accreditation system be accepted.
> * *Level of training offered by programs* – Programs must offer a
> degree or university recognized certification.
>
>
>
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