Accreditation standards

NCCA accreditation

National Commission for Certifying Agencies, the accrediting body of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE). Applies to: Professional and personnel certification programs.

NCCA accredits a certification program, not the whole organization, against the NCCA Standards for the Accreditation of Certification Programs. The standards cover the governance and autonomy of the certifying body, the job analysis that the examination is built on, the psychometric quality of the examination (validity, reliability, and a defensible passing score), eligibility, recertification, examination security, and what the program publishes about itself.

NCCA accreditation is widely recognized in the United States as the mark of a certification program that has been built and run properly. Accreditation is granted for a fixed term with annual reporting, and the program reapplies at the end of the term.

ANSI/ISO/IEC 17024

ISO/IEC 17024, Conformity assessment: general requirements for bodies operating certification of persons. Applies to: Certification bodies, including programs that need international recognition.

ISO/IEC 17024 is the international standard for organizations that certify people. Where NCCA looks at a program, 17024 looks at the certifying body as a whole: its impartiality and the structure that protects it, its management system, how each certification scheme is developed from a job or practice analysis, how examinations are shown to be valid and reliable, how recertification works, and how appeals and complaints are handled.

In the United States, accreditation to 17024 is granted by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). Because the standard is international, it is the usual choice for a program that will certify people in several countries, or that needs recognition by governments and employers outside its home market.

ANSI/ICE 1100

ANSI/ICE 1100, Standard for Assessment-Based Certificate Programs. Applies to: Certificate programs that teach a defined body of content and then assess it.

A certificate program is not a certification, and it is held to a different standard. ANSI/ICE 1100 sets requirements for assessment based certificate programs: the learning outcomes, the instruction that delivers them, the assessment that confirms them, and the program’s governance and policies. It was first published as ANSI/ICE 1100:2010(E) and has since been revised.

Accreditation to the standard is available through ANAB. It is the right path for an organization that wants its certificate to carry independent assurance without the scope, and the restrictions, of a certification program.

ANSI Essential Requirements

ANSI Essential Requirements: due process requirements for American National Standards. Applies to: Organizations that develop consensus standards and want them recognized as American National Standards.

Some credentialing organizations also develop the standards their field is measured against. To have a standard recognized as an American National Standard, the developer must be accredited by ANSI and follow its Essential Requirements, which set out openness, balance of interests, consensus, and due process in how a standard is written, approved and revised.

This is a different kind of accreditation from the three above: it concerns how documents are developed, not how people are certified, and it matters to a credentialing body whose credential is tied to a standard it publishes.

CAE Approved Provider

The Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential, administered by ASAE. Applies to: Education offered to association professionals.

CAE is the credential for association executives. ASAE recognizes education providers whose programs qualify for CAE credit, and an Approved Provider states the number of credits a program grants for full participation and keeps records in accordance with CAE policies. Metacred is a CAE Approved Provider, which is why its qualifying programs carry a credit statement.

What sits underneath all of them

Every one of these standards rests on the same foundation: the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, published jointly by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education. When a credential is challenged, in court or by an accreditor, it is the testing standards that are applied to the examination. A program that is designed to them from the start is the one that holds up.