Welcome to the UC Davis WASC Preparatory Review Report

This on-line portfolio has been constructed to meet the requirements for the UC Davis WASC reaffirmation of accreditation, 2002-2003. It is to be used by the members of the visiting team charged with making a recommendation for our accreditation. It is open to other interested parties, but readers should consider that members of the external teams are the primary intended audience. We assume that these team members are familiar with WASC's expectations for campuses under review.

UC Davis is one of the first institutions to use the new standards and submit an on-line portfolio. In the absence of established templates, we created an organization for the portfolio elements that tries to balance the sometimes conflicting dictates of logic and convenience.

Content

We recommend that reviewers familiarize themselves with the information from WASC about the Standards and the process for reaffirmation of accreditation and with other UC Davis WASC-related information before diving into this portfolio.

The UC Davis institutional portfolio systematically includes the required data sets and documents the UC Davis response to the four standards. It contains a rich array of references to relevant UC Davis resources. The reflective and concluding essays offer contextual information and analysis pertinent to the standards.

Links

We are mindful of the time limitations of the visiting team, so as the WASC Handbook suggests, we have been selective in the elements we have highlighted. We have endeavored to supply adequate information that demonstrates our adherence to each standard and criterion without burdening the team with excessive documentation. Following the advice of the WASC staff, we have minimized the amount of new material specifically developed for this report and have instead identified a series of links to relevant already-existing documents that demonstrate our adherence to the standards. We have tried very hard to keep these current and accurate. However, given the scope and breadth of our institution, there are times when campus offices change their own website addresses, effectively "breaking" our links. We are routinely checking for this, but a reader may encounter a broken link. Please use the contact email or phone number to inform us of this problem, and we will try to rectify it as soon as possible.

Navigation

Since the site has several layers, it takes a little practice to become familiar with its organization and navigation. The top level homepage of our preparatory report has links to the main part of the Institutional Portfolio and to our essays and the appendix. Following the Reflective Essays link leads to a list of the four essays. Each of those opens into a new browser window. When you are finished with it, close the new window.

Following the Institutional Portfolio link from the home page takes you to the main part of the our report. On this Institutional Portfolio page, there are links to the Basic Descriptive Data, the Prescribed Exhibits, and to the evidence we are presenting for each of the four standards. To view that evidence, follow the link with the title of the standard. For example, clicking on Defining Institutional Purposes and Ensuring Educational Objectives takes you to the page associated with Standard 1. Each of these pages contains a statement of the standard, the guidelines, and the criteria for review. There is also a link to the associated reflective essay. To view the UC Davis evidence for a criterion, click on the statement of the criterion. A new browser window opens. In it there is a UC Davis Summary of Evidence. The summary text includes links to the evidence, and there are additional links to relevant evidence listed at the end of the summary. After examining the summary and evidence, close the browser window, and proceed to the next criterion of interest.

When documents open into the current browser window, use the browser back button to return from them. When they open into a new browser window, close the new window and continue in the original window. It is best to use browser windows smaller than your full screen size. With full screen windows completely covering each other, it is difficult to navigate.