Draft Report I Accreditation Standards and Criteria for Software Professionals’ Education

The report introduces a Quality Assurance scheme for the learning programmes in selected software-related areas such as, but not limited to, Software Development, Software Design, and DevOps. The proposed accreditation scheme aims to provide the procedural principles and learning outcome definitions needed to assess whether the study programmes fulfil the requirements of levels 4/5 to 7 of the European Qualification Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF).

Two accreditation documents available as Booklets encompass both the general and subject-specific framework standards as well as the procedural guidelines to be applied in the accreditation process of selected ESSA programmes.

Download all related documents:

• Accreditation Standards and Criteria for Software Professionals’ Education
  • Booklet 1: General Criteria and Procedural Guidelines for the Accreditation of Learning Programmes for Software Professionals
  • Booklet 2: Subject-Specific Criteria for the Accreditation of Learning Programmes for Software Professionals

Main results

The report outlines ESSA’s accreditation standards and criteria. It describes — in general terms — their structure as well as the process of how they were defined and formulated as well as the actors who participated in the process. The document summarises how these standards and criteria are to be used in practice and how the actual accreditation process will look like. In this regard, it also focuses on how the accreditation procedure can be carried out as time- and cost-effectively as possible for all project partners.

Conclusions

In line with the expectations of this Work Package, the proposed accreditation scheme for learning programmes educating future software professionals in selected professional roles will ensure the adequate qualification level of these programmes. For this purpose, it is based on two sets of general and subject-specific standards.

Use of this report

The documents form the basis for a considerable number of piloting accreditation procedures in the framework of the project and anticipate the implementation of EQA procedures for similar learning programmes beyond the scope of the ESSA project.

The execution of the pilot accreditation procedures will provide important insights into whether the two sets of criteria fully satisfy the expectations in ensuring the quality of the learning programmes and whether the procedural rules are adequate for the reviews.

Photo by Shahadat Rahman on Unsplash