Together, the nine AQIP Categories analyze interrelationships among systems essential to all effective colleges and universities. To advance the core purpose of all higher education, the Categories take a systemic view, defining and evaluating all of the key systems or processes within an organization as they relate to learning, and demanding concrete indicators that measure the effectiveness of those systems and processes. The questions in each Category provide every organization a roadmap for the examination of its systems by posing two questions repeatedly: Are we doing the right things to achieve our mission? and Are we doing those things well? Mission-focused and holistic, the Categories provide a framework that supports improvement within any organization whose mission targets learning.
AQIP Category One, HELPING STUDENTS LEARN, focuses on the design, deployment, and effectiveness of teaching-learning processes that underlie your organization's credit and non-credit programs and courses, and on the processes required to support them.
AQIP Category Two, ACCOMPLISHING OTHER DISTINCTIVE OBJECTIVES, addresses the key processes (separate from your instructional programs and internal support services) through which you serve your external stakeholders — the processes that contribute to achieving your major objectives, fulfilling your mission, and distinguishing yours from other educational organizations.
AQIP Category Three, UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS' AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS' NEEDS, examines how your organization works actively to understand student and other stakeholder needs.
AQIP Category Four, VALUING PEOPLE, explores your organization’s commitment to the development of your faculty, staff, and administrators.
AQIP Category Five, LEADING AND COMMUNICATING, addresses how your leadership and communication processes, structures, and networks guide your organization in setting directions, making decisions, seeking future opportunities, and communicating decisions and actions to your internal and external stakeholders.
AQIP Category Six, SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONAL OPERATIONS, addresses the organizational support processes that help to provide an environment in which learning can thrive.
AQIP Category Seven, MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS, examines how your organization collects, analyzes, distributes, and uses data, information, and knowledge to manage itself and to drive performance improvement.
AQIP Category Eight, PLANNING CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT, examines your organization’s planning processes and how your strategies and action plans help you achieve your mission and vision.
AQIP Category Nine, BUILDING COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS, examines your organization’s relationships – current and potential – to analyze how they contribute to the organization’s accomplishing its mission.