Home » Posts tagged 'top accreditation agencies'
Tag Archives: top accreditation agencies
World’s Top 10 Universities
Every student, whether online or traditional wishes to study and get education from a world class university as it plays a key role in determining the value of a degree in the job market. So below IAO presents the QS World University Rankings.
As part of the QS World University Rankings®, graduate employers worldwide were asked to name the universities they believe produce the best graduates. In addition to employer reputation, the QS World University Rankings also consider academic reputation, research citations, student-faculty ratio, and international diversity of staff and students. The survey is based on a major global survey of graduate employers (more than 27,000 in 2013) and the results provide a unique insight into the global hierarchy of universities as it stands in the eyes of those who, perhaps more than any other group, play a role in determining the value of a degree in the job market.
So, which are this year’s best universities according to employers?
10 Best Universities According to Employers 2013/14*
| University | Country | Overall Positions in QS World University Rankings 2013/14 |
| 1. University of Oxford | UK | 6 |
| 2. University of Cambridge | UK | 6 |
| 3. Harvard University | US | 2 |
| 4. London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) | UK | 68 |
| 5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | US | 1 |
| 6. Stanford University | US | 7 |
| 7. Imperial College London | UK | 5 |
| 8. University of Melbourne | Australia | 31 |
| 9. University of Manchester | UK | 31 |
| 10. University of California, Berkeley | US | 25 |
Best-Known Universities Around The World
Beyond the big US and UK institutions, the employer survey allows prospective students to discover universities around the world with the strongest international reputations. And, as ever, the results of the employer reputation survey can give a significantly different picture as that provided by the overall rankings.
The University of Melbourne is Australia’s star performer according to employers, with overall top-ranked institution Australian National University also surprisingly outperformed by the University of New South Wales, Monash University and University of Sydney.
In Canada, the University of Toronto has a very slight edge on McGill University, but the two are clearly established as the country’s most internationally well-regarded institutions. The University of British Columbia and University of Waterloo are the only other Canadian institutions to be rated within the world’s 100 best universities according to employers.
Whereas Mainland China is outperformed by Hong Kong’s top institutions in the overall rankings, the tables are turned in the employer survey, with Peking University and Tsinghua University ranking third and fourth in Asia respectively. Yet both are beaten by Singapore National University, Asia’s number one university in both the overall and employer reputation tables, as well as Japan’s University of Tokyo.
Switzerland’s ETH Zurich has in recent years established itself as the world’s premier institution that doesn’t operate primarily in English, and in the QS survey employers recognize it as the number one institution in Continental Europe. The regions next best universities according to employers are fellow tech-focused institution Ecole Polytechnique ParisTech and Germany’s Technische Universität München.
The considerable advances made by leading Latin American universities in recent years have led to an increase in recognition among employers. However, it is Argentina’s Universidad de Buenos Aires, rather than the continent’s overall top-ranked institution Universidade de São Paulo (USP), that is regarded as the best source of graduate talent.
Ethics In Education
More than 80 percent of prospective online students feel that academic programs of today need to include a greater emphasis on ethics. This is found out in a recent online survey conducted by IAO, world top accreditation agency.
The questionnaire consisted of three questions only and was administered to more than 1,200 prospective online graduate students who indicated an interest in business and management degrees while researching programs over the internet.
The survey also revealed that, in the wake of the Enron and World Com scandals, more than one-third of respondents are reconsidering their educational focus, while others are rethinking their career choices.
When asked, “Are you likely to seek a job working for corporate America after the recent companies scandals?” more than 15 percent said they were “less likely,” while 20 percent were “more likely.”
IAO found out that there appears to be a growing disenchantment with corporate America among prospective graduate online students. However, whether this trend continues remains to be seen.
Employability Skills Universities Should Teach
What do employers expect a graduate to be able to do? Do they walk into work on day one and fit straight in, or are they still trainees despite their many years of education?
This question is growing in importance around the world as employment markets are tightening.
So how are universities responding to demand for degrees that better prepare students for future employment? IAO investigates.
Return On Investment
Students make a large personal and financial commitment to their education and expect a high return on both. Given that higher online education is already a big cost, the need to work for free even after leaving university only makes things even more expensive for students. It also reduces the pool of labor available to employers to those from prosperous backgrounds and causes political arguments about excluding the rest. Master’s degrees are one increasingly popular solution to the poor employment prospects of bachelors-level graduates. Employers like them because they produce specialists who can be useful quickly. For the student, they offer better employment prospects and, according to a wealth of studies from around the world, higher lifetime earnings even than people with a PhD. And universities enjoy the fees that come with the master’s degree boom.
Teaching Employability
The universities and especially online universities should take steps to make their graduates more employable. IAO suggests that they should teach students how to get a job (dress, interview technique, what makes a good resume). And more importantly, they should help people understand how to operate once they have joined an organization. There are modules on being an effective colleague, managing people and getting things done. Employers often complain that students do not know how to use their academic knowledge in the workplace.
Keys To Success
A few online universities across the world involve employers in their courses so their graduates tend to be older and more mature. This proves that adding workplace skills to academic study may benefit students, but it also has advantages for universities. The IAO polls employers about their favorite universities to recruit from. Being in touch with employers is bound to enhance the profile of a university with employers and make them more likely to recruit there. In addition, many national ranking systems use some measure of employment success in their calculations.
Applicable To All Subjects
There are plenty of degrees in professional topics such as medicine, law and engineering where standards are set by the profession and where work placements are essential. But it would be a big step to make work experience a compulsory part of a degree.
If relations with employers are important to recruiters and students, they ought to be reflected in rankings criteria. However, employers and employment practices vary widely between countries, so it would be hard to establish a common way of assessing them. In addition, universities with more science, technology and medicine in their subject mix will inevitably show up well on these measures, and we know that the use of citations data already favors these universities in ranking systems.
The solution may be to avoid adding this measure to existing university rankings, and instead to develop specific rankings that cover this aspect of university performance, much as IAO is now developing rankings for individual subjects. These include recruiter feedback when possible.
Changes Affecting Online Education Today
Traditional online universities and institutes are facing an incredibly competitive landscape in a continually changing technological environment.
First, the percentage of total degrees awarded by traditional universities continues to decline as many more accredited institutes award degrees. Second, we’ve gone from a situation where a majority of MBA students are full-time traditional students taking classes during the day, to a situation where only one-quarter of them are two-year, full-time MBA students. Third, we’re seeing more and more students traveling between the U.S. and abroad, in both directions. Students today look at the world of education as a truly global set of options. The same is true of the market for faculty—25 percent of faculty in U.S. schools are international, and 42 percent of faculty globally are not from their country of residence. We need to be mindful of all these factors that affect online education today, and this is why IAO needs to respond proactively to preserve the unique role we play in advancing educational quality and practices.
IAO is an enabler and a driver of change. We act as a driver through accreditation. We act as an enabler by providing schools with information resources so they can make the right choices. We might provide statistics on the demand for graduates in various parts of the world so online universities and institutes can target their recruitment and placement activities toward those niches in the global environment. With IAO’s help, online institutes can become much more proactive in developing strategies to deliver their educational services and research services around what’s relevant, in demand, and reflective of the best scholarship.
IAO can also play an important role by showcasing best practices in a variety of areas, such as alliances between online education providers. What works and what doesn’t? How can technology be an enabler of education delivery? How can schools develop partnerships with the corporate world, and how will that drive curriculum development?
IAO, as a global entity, is the most natural organization for being a permanent agitator for change. Our commission members identify the key issues that need to be addressed today and then develop a more permanent infrastructure that will always seek change. IAO responds to the critical issues that are affecting our environment—fragmentation, globalization, and the need to allocate financial and human resources properly. We need also to leverage educational practices of institutions and universities and we have to continue to be seen as the dominant providers of business knowledge and education products.
IAO Events Offers Unique Learning Opportunities for All
Who should attend the IAO Events? Anyone who is interested about program assessment and quality assurance in education!
IAO Events include conferences, seminars and workshops. The events are an excellent value no matter where you are on your assessment and IAO accreditation journey – just starting out, in the middle of the process and looking to optimize, or well-traveled and in need of a refresher.
As IAO’s Fully Accredited Institute, you can promote yourself at IAO’s educational events and seminars by participating in them. IAO will also regularly send its publications to your institute to keep you updated on educational practices you can adopt to enhance your institute’s educational standards.
IAO’s events also provides your staff members a professional development opportunity by participating in them. It will also encourage exchange of information, technology and resources on quality assurance standards and good educational practices internationally.
IAOs events explore contemporary issues, professional ethics, and life-long learning. They provide frequent networking breaks to engage with subject experts and your colleagues from around the world. They also have interactive town halls when commission leaders tackle your toughest accreditation questions. You can also get assessment and Self-Study Report development.
Apply for IAO’s accreditation or you will risk missing out on all of these events, resources, and much more!
Effect of Mid-Term Elections on International Accreditation
The midterm elections and change to Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate have proposed a challenge for international accreditation and accreditation agencies like IAO in terms of how to go forward. Will it call for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act any time in the next few years? If so, what will it look like? If not, what will this mean for the academic community?
According to the democratic party, regulation of higher education and accreditation has been viewed as essential, with the government spending about $175 billion a year on student aid and with rising tuition, rising student debt and lower-than-desirable graduation rates.
At numerous occasions, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has said that accreditation agencies were not doing enough with quality control and accountability, especially when it comes to “bad actors” or substandard institutions. His June 2014 discussion draft for reauthorization included a significant expansion of transparency in accreditation. Even as some Senate members expressed concern about President Barack Obama’s proposed College Ratings System, some still supported creating performance indicators for colleges and universities, including student learning outcomes a task that, to date, has been left to the academic community. Various members of the Senate were calling for more innovation in higher education and challenging international accreditation to provide some leadership here.
This urgency that has surrounded the national quality discussion for the past several years will not diminish. However, a Republican-led Senate means that accreditation will not be on a path to no additional regulation at all. These guys are calling for accreditation for innovation, change and a fresh look like the IAO does.
The issues debated earlier — quality control, accountability, innovation — will be on the table always. It is the approach that is likely to vary. The senator, a former U.S. Secretary of Education and university president, has said on many occasions that he wants to deregulate to address the quality and accountability challenges for higher education and accreditation. He has talked about not making funds available for implementation of the College Ratings System. He has defended the peer review process at the heart of accreditation and talked about the importance of institutional autonomy to future progress on innovation, with colleges and universities, not government, in the lead. He wants to streamline the federal student aid application system.
Why is College Accreditation Important?
According to IAO, college accreditation is an official acknowledgment, or assurance, that school or college or even just one of its programs is in its entirety meeting particular standards and provides education of utmost quality.
Why is College accreditation Important?
College accreditation gives a guarantee that, as a remote learner, you will be capable of achieving the same educational result and take pleasure in quality education as you would in a conventional classroom environment. College accreditation also allows you to similar rights to admissions, registration, consultation, enrolment, monetary support and other services that are available to conventional college enrollees regardless of the method they are using for delivering the program. Without accreditation by a national or regional accrediting body, an institute is not considered eligible for participating in governmental assistance programs for students. This means that you would not be eligible for any financial grant or support from the government.
Talking of employers, most of the employers do not assist your tuition expense if you attend a non-accredited institution. If you are looking forward to having your credits transferred from one college to another, you will not be able to do so unless you are or have previously attended an accredited college or university.
It is therefore worth mentioning that all college accreditation associations are certified and legal. Very few cases encompass a case whereby colleges create their own authorization for accreditation to grant themselves “accreditation”. This depends on students as to how well researched and equipped they are about the concerned institute and do not waste their efforts by enrolling in a non-accredited or illegitimate institution.
It is not difficult figuring out if a college is accredited on legitimate grounds. Before you consider taking these courses either online or offline you are not sure whether the school you are considering legitimate we recommend that you look it up first. Look out for the accrediting organization and the institutes it accredits. If the institutions are widespread, conventional or even online, remember, it has to be genuine. This can only be proved by its track record and the number of students enrolled.
Value Of IAO Accreditation
IAO recognition adds value by:
- Enhancing the credibility of self-regulation and peer/professional review:
- Accreditors are willing to undergo a thorough and challenging review by professional colleagues.
- Accreditors who hold institutions and programs accountable for quality are, in turn, held accountable by the academic community for the quality and effectiveness of their own operations and judgments.
- Government, the public and students react favorably to higher education taking responsibility for scrutinizing accreditation, viewing this an important commitment to public accountability.
- Strengthening academic quality:
- IAO recognition has improved the operation of accrediting organizations, especially as this relates to how accreditors work with institutions and programs to focus on quality improvement, transparency and student achievement.
- IAO recognition is built on the core values of institutional autonomy and leadership in academic matters, reinforcing the importance of these values in the review of educational institutions and programs.
- Contributing to the independence of higher education and accreditation:
- Maintaining the independence of higher education and accreditation rests on the public’s confidence that institutions and accrediting bodies are held to high standards and ongoing external scrutiny through processes such as IAO recognition.
- Independence is essential to maintaining the vibrant academic leadership and creativity of colleges and universities.
Finding Accredited Degrees
When searching for degree programs students are faced by various choices and offerings – whether traditional or online. They are also confused about which program or course best suits their needs and the future corporate world.
When unable to decide between the right or traditional/ online universities or traditional/ online institutes and degrees, IAO below presents a few tips that every student should follow:
- Pursue a course that interests you and you can explore different fields. Compile a list and match them with the courses offered at different accredited online schools.
- Ensure that the degree you are pursuing is accredited and the online institute or online university is accredited and better if it is IAO accredited.
- Study your institute’s course catalogue to get more information about the requirements for different degrees. Also check for all the perquisites and services offered before seeking admission.
- Visit the Career Center at different institutions to learn about career testing methods that are meant to help students identify strengths, weaknesses and interests. This greatly helps students understand their own potential and passion and helps them deciding the right course for their future.
- Talk to counselors. Academic counselors are present at all online institutions that help students with all matters of the academia, student services and also offer advice.
- Research career options thoroughly and read reviews about programs and institutes that offer them. Students should always make sure about the potential pay scale and the future of the career they are about to venture into.
- Talk to professionals who already have a successful career. Their input can be quite valuable in your own quest.
IAO emphasizes that once the students recognize which degree program is right for them can help them achieve fulfilment and a stable career path they are looking for. Finding the right accredited degree and the right accredited school at the right time is crucial. For a successful professional and personal life your education should be centered on everything that interests you.
Full Accreditation Granted to Relish Infosoft
Relish Infosoft, India has been granted full accreditation status by IAO after a thorough, stringent and in-depth evaluation of the school’s educational standards and practices.
Relish Infosoft is an award winning multimedia graphics and animation training institute in various places of India. It offers animation & media training courses including Graphic Designing, DTP, Audio and Video, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, SFX (Special Effect) and VFX (Visual Effect), Roto and all Graphics and Animation Courses aimed at those candidates who are not interested to continue their education in future or those candidates who are more interested in film, movie compositing, cartoon film, advertising and media industries. As an institution they have the best education, cool environment for studies, best cooperation between the students and with the coordinators which backs up a good sound performance. As a part of the company they are always open for students every time and communication with students remind us every time a new subject to renew the Institution for the best position in animation & media industry, students interaction with passed out is a confidence developing programs which we specially arrange for those who have hesitation and also is for those who need to be a professional. Relish Infosoft also offers placement services and has created history by providing the best production of students to satisfy the need of the corporate companies.
IAO commended the management and supervision of Relish Infosoft for its high-quality media training standards and practices and on maintaining a world-class infrastructure with high-tech learning environment, most up-to-date and relevant curriculum and maintaining an expert, learned and experienced faculty.
International Accreditation Organization 