# Accreditation Support

AtlasOA supports evidence collection workflows for all six U.S. regional accreditors plus Perkins V reporting for CTE programs. Atlas K-12 produces MTSS and SEL reporting for districts; state-specific reporting bundles are on the roadmap.

## U.S. regional accreditors supported

| Accreditor | Region | Key expectation AtlasOA addresses |
|---|---|---|
| **HLC** (Higher Learning Commission) | North Central / Midwest | Criterion 4.B: ongoing assessment of student learning with documented closing-the-loop |
| **SACSCOC** | Southern | Standards 8.2.a / 8.2.b: identified outcomes for each program, ongoing assessment, use of results |
| **MSCHE** (Middle States) | Mid-Atlantic | Standard V: educational effectiveness assessment with clearly stated outcomes and organized processes |
| **NWCCU** | Northwest | Standards 1.C / 1.D: defined SLOs per program, systematic assessment producing meaningful improvement |
| **WSCUC** | Western (senior colleges) | Standards 2 and 4: demonstrated program-level outcomes assessment, results used in decision-making |
| **ACCJC** | Western (community colleges) | Standards II.A.3 / I.B: identified SLOs for courses/programs/certificates, assessment, improvement use |

For each accreditor, AtlasOA produces evidence packages that include:
- Outcome statements at course, program, and institutional level
- The assessment plan and rubrics used
- Aggregated data and trend lines
- The closing-the-loop record (what changed because of the data)
- Verification data from the subsequent cycle

## CTE and federal reporting

- **Perkins V Indicators 1S1-5S3**: enrollment, persistence, credentials, work-based learning, special populations
- **Annual program review templates** matching state CTE office requirements

## Specialized accreditors

AtlasOA supports outcome-to-criterion mapping at the level most specialized accreditors require. The closing-the-loop narrative generator ships with support for each of the following, built from the accreditor's own published standards:

- **ABET** (engineering, technology, computing): outcome-to-criterion mapping, rubric scoring, closing-the-loop narratives
- **AACSB** (business): assurance-of-learning narratives, including Table 5-1 support
- **CAEP** (educator preparation): closing-the-loop narratives
- **ACEN / CCNE** (nursing): outcome mapping and closing-the-loop narratives

For institutions where ABET reporting is the dominant workflow, AEFIS has a deeper ABET-specific toolkit. AtlasOA is the better fit when ABET is one of several reporting needs.

## Atlas K-12 reporting

Atlas K-12 produces reports for:

- **SEL screening cycle reports** (universal, by grade, by school, by tier)
- **Tier-movement reports** (how students moved between Universal, Targeted, and Intensive across the year)
- **Care Team activity logs** for state audit purposes
- **State-specific MTSS reporting bundles**: on the roadmap
- **Family-facing report generator**: on the roadmap (Q4 2026)

## Closing the loop

Every assessment cycle in AtlasOA must close with a documented change. The cycle cannot be marked "complete" without recording:

1. **What we found**: the aggregated data
2. **What we will do differently**: a specific, named change
3. **Who is responsible and by when**: name + date
4. **How we will verify**: which outcome to re-measure next cycle

This requirement is enforced at the data-model level so closing-the-loop records cannot be forgotten.

## Evidence export formats

- DOCX (for editing inside self-study templates)
- HTML (print to PDF for inclusion in self-studies)
- Plain text
- Per-program evidence packages as ZIP containing DOCX, TXT, and XLSX
- JSON via REST API (for institutional research teams)

## Roadmap items related to accreditation

- HLC Criterion 5 reporting workflows (governance and resource integration, Q1 2027)
- Improved exporters for accreditor-specific evidence packages (Q1 2027)
- ABET specialty toolkit expansion (under research)

See [ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md) for the full list.