Institutional Review Process

The NEOMED faculty bylaws require each academic unit be reviewed at least every seven years. The process is outlined in Appendix F. Academic and administrative units of the University are reviewed in a similar manner on a predetermined schedule*. The reviews are coordinated by the Office of Institutional Research. Review committee members are representative of all University constituencies. General criteria for both academic and administrative reviews follow. In addition to the unit’s self-study, the reviewers may use a variety of methods, including staff and/or constituency interviews, focus groups, surveys and internal or external benchmarks.

Criteria for Reviews of Academic and Administrative Areas

1. The documentation prepared by a department/program/office (hereafter referred to as a unit), which is made available to the reviewers, is crucial in terms of the reviewers gaining an initial overview of the department and in planning the agenda for the review. It is important that there is a balance between description and evaluation. The units of the University vary considerably in size and scope, and it is appropriate that any documentation should accurately reflect the nature of the unit under review.

2. The documentation should center on a self-study document, which may be prepared drawing upon a range of sources including departmental plans, annual reports, faculty and staff development reports, evaluation research reports, committee minutes and reports from other central University units. The following might assist units to construct the self-study document.

Mission, vision, history, development and expectations
Size, scope and productivity
Stakeholders’ satisfaction
Revenue and other resources generated
Costs and other associated expenses
SWOT analysis
Plan to implement decisions for improvement

3. Units will provide any supplementary descriptive material requested by the Review Committee to assist members in the analysis. Supplementary material might be made available with the self-study document to be sent to the Committee in advance, or it might be available for reference at the time of the review.

4. The University may determine in advance of a review that a particular aspect of a unit’s activity requires special attention. Such topics might become known, for example, as a result of annual monitoring. In such cases, the unit may be asked to prepare additional documentation to cover the identified topic and will be notified of the requirement in advance.

5. Once drafted and approved by the leadership of the department under review, the self-study document should be forwarded to the Office of Institutional Research, which will then forward the materials to the Review Committee.