Accreditation Self-Study Tool (With Templates)
Flexible tools to document effectiveness and support continuous improvement
A truly collaborative self-study process
- Use pre-built templates aligned with regional and programmatic accreditors or create your own
- Collaborate with colleagues to craft your narrative in a system that supports reflection and rich formatting
- Easily integrate a range of evidence, including results from assessment plans and program review processes
Simplify the complex, time-consuming work of preparing your self-study for regional or programmatic accreditation. Our uniquely integrated system makes it easy to pull in reports and data directly from your assessment plans within Planning & Self-Study by Watermark. Collaborative tools streamline the process of drafting your narrative, incorporating evidence from a variety of sources, and organizing your report within accreditor-aligned templates.
Capabilities
Capabilities
Templates for any accreditor
Prepare self-studies for any accreditor or reporting agency using flexible templates, including pre-built options for all major US regional accreditors and many specialized accreditors including AACSB, ACBSP, AMBA, EQUIS, and IACBE for business programs; CAEP and AAQEP for education programs; CACREP for counseling; ABET for engineering; ACEN and CCNE for nursing; and CSWE for social work. These templates enable you to easily align evidence and narratives to accreditor standards in a structured, systematic format.
Alternatively, use our do-it-yourself template builder to create your own report. Add, remove, and reorder sections, change the title and description of sections and standards, and include or omit narratives. Once you’re done drafting your narrative, easily share your self-study with your accreditor in their preferred format, whether by publishing your report to a protected website or exporting a set of fully functional offline files.
Prepare self-studies for any accreditor or reporting agency using flexible templates, including pre-built options for all major US regional accreditors and many specialized accreditors including AACSB, ACBSP, AMBA, EQUIS, and IACBE for business programs; CAEP and AAQEP for education programs; CACREP for counseling; ABET for engineering; ACEN and CCNE for nursing; and CSWE for social work. These templates enable you to easily align evidence and narratives to accreditor standards in a structured, systematic format.
Alternatively, use our do-it-yourself template builder to create your own report. Add, remove, and reorder sections, change the title and description of sections and standards, and include or omit narratives. Once you’re done drafting your narrative, easily share your self-study with your accreditor in their preferred format, whether by publishing your report to a protected website or exporting a set of fully functional offline files.
The self-study narrative serves as the crux of your argument for accreditation or reaffirmation, providing an opportunity to demonstrate your unique institutional or programmatic mission, values, and voice. It usually requires contributions from a number of subject matter experts and administrative leaders, all working in parallel.
Our narrative-writing tools make it easy for multiple contributors to participate in a truly collaborative process without worrying about duplicating efforts or maintaining version control. By working in a structured, centralized template, you can easily review draft copy and build upon others’ contributions. This approach enables you to focus on supporting reflection to build the strongest case possible, rather than wasting time tracking down sections and trying to piece them together. The result? A more collaborative narrative-writing process and a more cohesive final report.
Evidence is one of the most important elements of your Self-Study, providing essential proof points in support of your narrative. It’s critical that your evidence is not only comprehensive, accurate, and replicable, but also easily accessible and well-organized for reviewers.
Our integrated system makes it easy to pull in and organize evidence from anywhere, including Watermark solutions, other campus systems, and external sources. Automatically reference and refresh reports from your annual assessment planning process managed within Watermark Planning & Self-Study, including results from Via by Watermark, Aqua by Watermark, Canvas, Blackboard, and D2L, for additional reflection during regional or programmatic self-study. Or, include links to external websites or PDFs and use them as many times as needed in your narrative.
Bring it all together using our robust rich text editor, which enables you to format graphics, tables, attachments and more in a clean, professional report you’ll be proud of.
Your ultimate goal: continuous improvement to support your institutional mission and long-term strategic goals. Go far beyond crafting a self-study narrative for each reaffirmation cycle and get a truly longitudinal view of student learning and institutional effectiveness.
Start by creating and reusing templates to maintain a systematic process over time. Then, generate robust reports, including annual assessment reports that present outcomes, measures, results, and actions in an aligned format that can be easily tied to institutional priorities and analyzed across cycles. Pull in evidence from other sources to round out your self-study narrative. By following this approach, you’ll be able to easily demonstrate how your institution is engaging in effective planning, capturing comprehensive data, and using it to strategically allocate resources and continually improve programs.
