Since 2003, continuing education center directors and practitioners from around the world have been working to develop a means for assessing and improving the quality of their programs. The current Continuing Professional Development Benchmarking and Quality Improvement Program (CPD-BQIP) is a culmination of their efforts, and represents what we believe to be the first global quality standard for CE/CPD Organizations. The team that perfected this standard has come from institutions spanning the US, seven EU countries, and China, to ensure usefulness internationally.
In addition to quality standards, the team has also developed a set of tools and processes to enable self-assessment and benchmarking for the purpose of promoting continuous quality improvement at the organizational level, and also to provide guidelines for the accreditation of programs. The combination of the quality criteria, the tools, and the processes comprise the CPD-BQIP Model.
The following timeline summarizes the history of the development of the CPD-BQIP and recognizes its many contributors.
In addition to quality standards, the team has also developed a set of tools and processes to enable self-assessment and benchmarking for the purpose of promoting continuous quality improvement at the organizational level, and also to provide guidelines for the accreditation of programs. The combination of the quality criteria, the tools, and the processes comprise the CPD-BQIP Model.
The following timeline summarizes the history of the development of the CPD-BQIP and recognizes its many contributors.
- 2003- A team from four European and four South American universities develops a self-evaluation matrix based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. This project, called ALFA II-0180-A, is financed by the European Union.
- 2006- A team from European and American Universities modifies the EFQM-based matrix to be applicable for continuing engineering education centers. This project is called “Development of Accreditation in Engineering Education and Training” (DAETE), and is financed by the Atlantis Program of the European Union and by the Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) Program of the US Department of Education. A number of DAETE partners test this first version of the self-assessment matrix for its applicability to all continuing professional development (CPD) or continuing engineering education (CE) centers and programs.
- 2008- The University Quality Management project (UNI-QM), which aims to create tools for quality management in organizations concerned with lifelong learning and continuing education, also bases its model and tools on the EFQM Excellence Model. UNI-QM is financed by the European Union.
- 2009- Project DAETE2, a natural continuation of DAETE and UNI-QM, continues refining the quality management processes and tools, to be appropriate and useful for CPD and CE programs in areas outside engineering. Research is done with benchmarking data from CE centers in several countries.
- 2011- Version 2.0 of the DAETE self-assessment matrix is published and adopted as a tool of the CPD Benchmarking and Quality Improvement Program (CPD-BQIP) of the IACEE.