Developing skills to communicate findings and recommendations to the institution and decision-making bodies.

Questions to ask your accreditation agency:

• Who is assigned to write the evaluation team report?
• Who will read the final report and for what reasons?
• What are the content, format and style guidelines for writing reports?
• What is the timeframe for completing the report?
• What happens if the institution disagrees with the report?

The evaluation team report formally documents the information presented during the verbal exit interviews. Following the team's departure, the team leader or an agency staff member prepares the report and transmits a draft to the other team members for comment. A draft is subsequently sent to the institution to review it for accuracy and further comment. In cases where the team and the institution disagree on the content of the report, the institution may attach information supporting their position, however, the report itself is usually not modified. Once the report is finalized by all parties, the finished version is sent to the institution and to the accreditation agency for action at the designated meeting of its decision making body.

The report is designed for several audiences which include the accrediting-agency's decision making body and university and academic-program administrators; nevertheless, it must objectively address key points of the agency's standards based on evidence provided by the school and gathered by the site team. "The report should be written in a manner that provides analytical, evaluative, and constructive information about the program's compliance with the standards. It should lead the reader to draw conclusions about the strengths, limitations, and challenges of the program. The report should be balanced in order to help improve the quality and effectiveness of the program and the school."^† Some agencies only give teams the authority to determine and document the facts of the visit, others give teams some flexibility to formulate recommendations and suggestions for improvement based on accreditation standards, while yet others allow teams to make actual accreditation decisions. The final accreditation actions of any agency, however, must be narrowly constructed along the lines of accreditation standards and guidelines.

When writing the report, keep the following points in mind:

• Consider the purpose of the report and the needs of the audience(s) that will read it.
• Follow the content, format and style guidelines suggested by your accreditation agency.
• Always provide information on strengths of the institution or program under review, not just the weaknesses.
• Criticize constructively when needed.
• Define discipline-specific jargon if the general meaning cannot be inferred from context.
• Define terms that are key to understanding the report or the accreditation actions.
• Support statements with evidence. Avoid citing personal opinions without documentation.
• Be logical, concise and grammatical.
• Write in a direct style, avoiding passive sentence constructions where possible.
• If the evaluation team is authorized to make accreditation decisions, then all decisions must be based on agency standards and guidelines.

^†American Library Association Committee on Accreditation, Accreditation Process Policies & Procedures, 2nd ed. (2006) III.7.