As noted in the SACS/COC's "Principles of Accreditation: Foundations for Quality Enhancement," there is a decided focus on improving the quality of the institution, its programs, and the services that support those programs. This is to be accomplished by an institution through continuing improvement and effectively accomplishing its mission. A more in-depth analsis of the SACS/COC criteria in the document "The Role of Institutional Mission and Institutional Effectiveness in SACS/COC's Reaffirmation of Accreditation (pdf)."

Institutional effectiveness is the term used to describe how well an institution is effectively accomplishing its mission and the criteria that refer to institutional effectiveness are focused largely on Comprehensive Standard 3.3.1 that states: The institution identifies expected outcomes for its educational programs and its administrative and education support services; assesses whether it achieves thses outcomes; and provides evidence of improvement based on analysis of those results. Thus, the outcomes-based approach is to be used for evaluating both educational programs as well as administrative and educational support services. In both cases, outcomes (or goals) are to be established for each program or each support service and then assessments used to show whether those outcomes are being achieved at the desired levels. Changes in these programs are assessed to determine if improvements have resulted.

Information provided here describes how this is accomplished in educational programs as well as in administrative and educational support service units.

Educational Programs
Refers to undergraduate and graduate degree programs

Administrative and Educational Support Service Units
Refers to a broad array of units across campus