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To further its strategic goal of developing and implementing standards to improve the quality of education abroad programs, the Forum on Education Abroad provides its institutional members with the opportunity to participate in its Quality Improvement Program (QUIP) for Education Abroad.
The goal of QUIP is to promote high standards of practice throughout the field of education abroad.
QUIP consists of a guided self-study and peer review process, resulting in a comprehensive report and recommendations in the areas of program design, evaluation and assessment, marketing and promotion, student advising, and resources and operations.
Unlike accreditation, QUIP supports an institution’s own quality assurance initiatives and can be easily adapted to organizations with different philosophies and infrastructures.
QUIP is based on the Forum’s Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad, which were developed in consultation with many colleges and universities and third party providers. Hundreds of education abroad professionals have contributed to the Standards.
Those institutions and organizations participating in QUIP will benefit from its rigorous, systematic, and objective self-study and peer review process to improve the quality of education abroad programs. This is an ideal program for Forum member organizations that are in the process of re-accreditation or simply seeking to evaluate and improve their operations.
To assess the value of QUIP, it is helpful to consider the per student cost for a review amortized over the 8 years for which a review is valid. For example, imagine that your organization’s total price for QUIP is $5,000, including the costs associated with hosting peer reviewers. If your organization has 500 students a year participating in study abroad, the total number of students over 8 years, assuming steady enrollments, would be 4,000 students. This would make the per student cost of the QUIP review $1.25.
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