Glossary

Glossary

• Accreditation

  A process of external quality review used in higher education to scrutinize colleges, universities and higher education programmes for quality assurance and quality improvement.

• Award

  Any degree, diploma, certificate or other evidence of competence or achievement.

• Awarding Body

  An organisation or consortium which develops content and standards for educational programmes that lead to the award of qualifications in its name. Awarding bodies are not directly involved in the delivery of the programme.

• Candidacy

  Candidacy refers to a stage in an evaluation process where an institution or programme has demonstrated that it meets the eligibility requirements for the GNAB status and is actively
  preparing and being support by GNAB towards achieving the status. The Candidacy designation is normally limited to a fixed period of time as determined by GNAB

• Continuous improvement

  Sometimes called continual improvement. The ongoing improvement of products, services or processes through incremental and breakthrough interventions.

• Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

  A philosophy and attitude for analysing capabilities and processes and improving them repeatedly to achieve customer satisfaction.

• Course

  A defined body of knowledge, skills and aptitudes acquired over a specified period and to which one or more credits may be awarded.

• Criteria

  Distinct and discrete statements that identify or define in verifiable terms the attributes of institutions to be registered by GNAB.

• Criterion Statement

  An overall description of the requirements of the criterion.

• Cross Border Higher Education

  The movement of people, programmes, providers, curricula, projects, research and services in tertiary (higher) education, across national jurisdictional borders.

• Curriculum

  The planned interaction of students with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives.

• Eligibility

  The state of meeting the required criteria/prerequisites of the accrediting agency for registration, recognition or accreditation.

• Equivalence

  The determination of the comparable academic value of a foreign qualification in Grenada.

• Examples of Evidence

  Include examples of verifiable documents, records, statistics, and other empirical evidence that an institution may provide to prove that the standards have been achieved.

• Executive Head

  A person who has executive authority over an institution for provision of educational services or the person who officially directs and controls the institution/provision at the executive level.

• Evidence

  Information that supports the existence of quality practices expressed in the institution’s or awarding body’s narrative. Meaningful data that are helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment as to whether the particular standard has been met

• Foreign institution

  A foreign institution has its origin and main campus/establishment in an overseas territory (outside of Grenada).

• Institutional Registration

  An external evaluation process which leads to a judgement of whether an institution has met GNAB criteria to deliver postsecondary or tertiary education and training in Grenada. It is conducted by an external team or peer reviewers and experts that assesses the extent to which the institution has the legal authority, governance and organisational structures, resources, teaching and learning processes, and internal quality assurance system, within the context of its mission, to offer programmes to the public.

• Narrative

  An evaluative account that shows how the evidence provided satisfies the requirements of the respective standard.

• Partner Institution

  A post-secondary or tertiary education institution that collaborates with an awarding institution in offering programmes that lead to either an award in the name of the Awarding institution or joint awards in the names of both the Partner and the Awarding institutions.

• Provisional Registration

  The status granted to an institution that satisfies most of the standards for Institutional Registration, and in the judgement of GNAB is able to satisfy the additional standards within a short period of time (generally within one (1) year).

• Programme

  A curriculum composed of a series of courses leading to an award such as a certificate, diploma, associate degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or doctoral degree.

• Programme approval (External)

  An external evaluation process that GNAB may conducted at the request of an institutions seeking external validation of the quality of their programmes. Generally institutions are supported to develop their own internal process as part of their QMS.

• Programme approval (Internal)

  Refers to the internal quality assurance process through which an institution is satisfied that academic programmes are properly designed, structured and resourced, are consistent with the institution’s mission and have learning outcomes that are set at an appropriate level.

• Programme Monitoring

  A process of continuously evaluating a programme to ensure it remains effective, and that improvements are made.

• Programme Review

  A comprehensive evaluation of a programme, towards the end of its period of approval. It is similar to initial approval in many respects but, because it is concerned with a programme that is already in operation, it may take into account actual student performance, as well as feedback from students, from staff teaching the programme, and from employers who have recruited graduates from the programme. Self-assessment is central to the programme review process.

• Programme specification

  A comprehensive description of the intended learning outcomes from a tertiary level programme and of the means by which these outcomes are achieved and demonstrated.

• Quality Management System (QMS)

  A formalised system to direct, control and improve the institution’s quality of teaching, services and other offerings.

• Quality Plan

  Any document setting out specific quality practices, resources and the sequence of activities to ensure the effectiveness of a particular service, course or programme.

• Quality Policy

  Refers to the institution’s overall educational philosophy, purpose, goals and objectives regarding quality as formally expressed by top management. It typically contains a commitment to satisfy stakeholders’ needs while, continually improving the effectiveness and efficiency of programmes and services. It also communicates how the organisation defines quality and excellence and indicates how quality and excellence will be achieved and measured.

• Recognised Institution

  An institution which is duly recognised by GNAB to have been quality assured in another jurisdiction and also satisfies GNAB standards to have their programmes accepted for appropriate educational or employment opportunities in Grenada.

• Registered Institution

  An institution that is successfully evaluated for Institutional Registration and is issued a Certificate of Registration and placed on the list of Registered Institutions.

• Review (management)

  A comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the programmes and operations of the institution. It involves analysis and evaluation of the policies, internal quality audits or evaluations, documented systems, results and improvement programmes (including those based on customer feedback) and any other focal areas that are critical to the institution’s mission and stated purposes. It should establish corrective and preventive actions for identified or potential problems.

• Standard

  Statements that identify the conditions that are necessary for an objective evaluation of the extent to which an institution meets each criterion.

• Supporting documents

  Include copies of policies, procedures, processes and records which show evidence of the information given in the narrative.

• Teaching-Learning process

  Refers to all activities that an institution undertakes to ensure that learning takes place. These include, but are not limited to, different stages of instructional design, development, delivery, evaluation as well as support services, resource allocation and programme review.

• Transnational institution

  A transnational institution has its origin and main campus/ establishment in an overseas territory and is operating a site in Grenada.

• Transnational Education

  All types and modes of delivery of higher education study programmes or sets of courses of study, or educational services (including those of distance education) in which the learners are located in a country different from the one where the awarding body is based.