ANSI Chooses Participants for Pilot Certificate Accreditation Program
August 24, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS
Eleven organizations were chosen for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) pilot Certificate Accreditation Program (ANSI-CAP).
The program provides third-party accreditation that a given certificate program meets ASTM International's (ASTM) E2659-09 - Standard Practice for Certificate Programs.
ASTM E2659-09 was selected by the ANSI-CAP Accreditation Committee, a group of volunteer leaders who were chosen for their expertise in the field.
By demonstrating compliance to this standard, certificate programs will help with the development of a well-educated and qualified workforce, according to ANSI. The accreditation program is also billed as providing quality benchmarks for the design of future certificate programs.
With these evaluations and benchmarks in place, workers and employers will be better able to determine the value and meaning of training and educational certificates, ANSI experts said.
The following organizations, which issue education and/or training certificates to U.S. workers, were accepted to participate in the pilot program:
- EdTrek Inc.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation Behavioral Science Unit.
- Federal Employee Benefits Specialist Inc.
- Food and Drug Administration Office of Regulatory Affairs, Division of Human Resource Development.
- HVACReducation.net.
- National Apartment Association Education Institute.
- National Association of State Boating Law Administrators.
- National Graduate School & University of Quality Systems Management.
- SCIPP International.
- Sullivan University.
- U.S. Army Combat Readiness/Safety Center.
ANSI-CAP will follow the accreditation process outlined in the standard ISO/IEC 17011 - General Requirements for Accreditation Bodies Accrediting Conformity Assessment Bodies.
This process includes using assessors to review documents submitted by applicants against defined requirements, conduct onsite assessments and make recommendations to the ANSI-CAP Accreditation Committee that is responsible for making the accreditation decisions.
The first round of ANSI-CAP accreditation decisions are expected to be made in early 2010.
ANSI will host a follow-up meeting in January 2010 to further validate the standard and determine areas of improvement for the accreditation process.
Source: American National Standards Institute (ANSI).