Supplemental Assurance Filing Guide for the Accelerated Process for Initial Accreditation

Institutions and peer reviewers conduct their work for reviews that center on the Criteria for Accreditation using HLC’s Canopy system. Institutions participating in HLC’s Accelerated Process for Initial Accreditation use the system in ways that are both the same as and different from institutions not participating in the Accelerated Process.

In particular, institutions in the Accelerated Process use the system in the same way as other institutions to create an Assurance Filing for the comprehensive evaluation for initial accreditation. However, one important step prior to the comprehensive evaluation is the preliminary peer review, for which institutions create an abbreviated Assurance Filing.

This guide focuses on the institution’s responsibilities in preparation for and following the preliminary peer review.

Preliminary Peer Review

The preliminary peer review is a streamlined approach to ascertain readiness for the institution to proceed in the Accelerated Process for Initial Accreditation. As part of the review, institutions create an abbreviated Assurance Filing in Canopy demonstrating that the institution has provided sufficient information regarding each of HLC’s Criteria for Accreditation to proceed, as well as submit the following additional review components:

• Institutional Data Form
• Compliance With Eligibility Requirements Form
• Compliance With Assumed Practices Form

In this step, the institution provides narrative at the Criterion level in the Assurance Filing’s four Criterion Summary sections rather than writing to the detailed level of each Criterion’s Core Components. The narrative should include links to specific evidentiary materials, which the institution will upload to the Evidence File section of the Assurance Filing. The word limit for the narrative portion of the preliminary peer review is approximately 1,500 words or fewer per section.

For additional guidance, see HLC’s instructions for the Assurance Argument and Evidence File.

In consultation with the institution, HLC will set a lock date for the institution’s abbreviated Assurance Filing. The institution must provide its narrative and upload the required additional review components prior to that date. When the abbreviated filing locks, the institution’s materials will be shared with the peer review panel for their evaluation. The institution will retain read-only access to the abbreviated filing, but will not be able to add, edit or delete content. The peer review panel takes approximately four weeks to conduct its review, and the institution is notified of their decision by HLC shortly thereafter.

Comprehensive Evaluation for Initial Accreditation

When the institution’s comprehensive evaluation for initial accreditation is scheduled by HLC, the institution will receive access to a new Assurance Filing in Canopy. The institution’s Primary Filing Coordinator must complete steps in Canopy to create the new Assurance Filing. See Creating a New Assurance Filing for instructions.

The institution then resumes its preparation for the comprehensive evaluation for initial accreditation by shifting its focus from the abbreviated nature of the preliminary peer review to a more detailed focus at the Core Component level.

If the institution completed the abbreviated Assurance Filing for its preliminary peer review in Canopy and chose to clone the abbreviated filing to use as the starting point for its new filing, it will need to revise the narrative in the four Criterion summary sections. It is likely that much of that narrative can be relocated to the Core Component sections and supplemented by additional detail and links to uploaded evidentiary documents, as appropriate. In preparation for the comprehensive evaluation for initial accreditation and in contrast to the preliminary peer review, the expectation now is that the Criterion summary sections are quite brief, typically a paragraph or two summarizing information from the constituent Core Component sections.