Site Visit Itinerary
Travel and lodging arrangements for the external review team are coordinated by AAL staff. Arrangements for individual meetings during the site visit are coordinated by the unit with assistance from AAL for meetings involving members of the Provost’s office or college deans. Sample itineraries are provided which units can use as a guide to assist with planning meetings.
Review Materials
AAL creates a secure web-based file sharing space for all review materials at least four weeks prior to the site visit, with access provided to internal and external reviewers, the Provost’s Office, and other university stakeholders. Materials include the executive summary, self-study with appendices, review data, site visit itinerary, report guide, CVs of reviewers and other related information.
Site Visit
The site visit typically extends over a three-day period. Day one begins with an opening dinner that evening which includes the College Dean, the Senior Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate College, the Associate Provost of Institutional Effectiveness and the review team. Day two is filled with scheduled meetings and work time. Day three has meetings scheduled for the morning, with a final exit meeting immediately following lunch. If a review is being conducted remotely due to a program being entirely online or extenuating circumstances, the opening dinner is replaced with a virtual social/Q&A hour and meeting times are adjusted to accommodate for differences in time zones among the reviewers. The College that houses the unit under review will be charged for costs associated with the review process including travel, lodging and meals for on-site visits and honoraria for external reviewers. AAL processes payments and other reimbursements and then charges them back to the College. At that point, the College determines how to distribute the costs internally.
Review Team Report
The external review team generates a report within four weeks of the site visit. To facilitate this process, AAL provides an optional report guide to external reviewers with writing prompts.
Fact-Check
The review unit administrator and the faculty within the unit will conduct a fact-check of the Review Team’s report. The Review Unit Administrator collects any comments and compiles them into a report response using the provided template. If corrections to factual errors are relatively minor, the response is added as an appendix to the final report and is accepted. If corrections to factual errors are significant, the unit's comments are shared with the reviewers and they are asked to amend the report prior to final acceptance. The finalized report is then shared with key stakeholders (e.g., Provost, Senior Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate College, AAL staff, College Dean, Review Unit Administrator).