Standards Development: 6th Edition of the Standards of Good Practice
The Forum on Education Abroad is recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission as the Standards Development Organization (SDO) for the field of education abroad. As such, it is The Forum’s responsibility to monitor changes in our field of professional practice and maintain, update, and promulgate the Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad according to the needs of our field.
Our process for developing and updating standards prioritizes the core principles of due process for standards development as identified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI): Openness, Lack of Dominance, Balance, Coordination and Harmonization, Consideration of View and Objections, Consensus Vote and Appeals. Persons directly or materially affected by the Standards have the opportunity to have their voices heard in this important process.
Standards Development Policy Consensus Body Submit Comments on the Standards
Notification of Standards Development
Beginning October 14, 2021, The Forum on Education Abroad announces that it will be undertaking a minor revision to the Normative References section of the 6th Edition to the Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad. A full draft of the proposed changes, followed by a 30-day public comment period, will be forthcoming. Check back on this webpage for further updates.
Inquiries related to the Standards or The Forum’s Standards Development Policy and procedures can be directed to the Standards Manager, standards@forumea.org.
Updates and Record Keeping
The 6th edition of the Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad and the accompanying resource Meeting the Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad: Prompts for Self-Assessment were published on April 21, 2020. Since then, the following changes have been made:
- Following a 30-day appeals period and a proposed amendment to strike references to “U.S. post-secondary” throughout the document, that change was adopted on June 15, 2020. This amendment is reflected it the most recent digital publication available here and will be corrected in subsequent print runs.
- In October 2020, a member of the Standards Update Working Group realized that a prompt had been inadvertently left out of the original publication of Meeting the Standards (Under 6.1.13: How do you make students and other stakeholders aware of all program costs and financial policies?). That prompt has been added to the most recent digital publication available here and will be corrected in subsequent print runs.
The Forum on Education Abroad maintains a record of all standards development activity from the revision that resulted in the 6th edition of the Standards. Those records are available upon request.