Wednesday 28 March 2007

CILIP Seal of recognition

I have just heard that SINTO has been awarded the CILIP Seal of Recognition. Heather Taylor at CILIP commented that "The assessment report commented positively on the quality of the documentation provided, and on the strong evidence that they were based on the needs of the members and encouraged cross sectoral co-operation".

This is great news. On my blog of 20th February I explained some of the reasons why we wanted to go for the Seal of Recognition. It's not that the SoR makes the quality of the product any better but that it provides external validation to individuals and organisations that our product will meet their needs. I hope that the SoR will encourage people to select our events and will help them make the case for funding from limited training budgets.

Heather also replies to my comments in that earlier blog
You are right that the identification of training and CPD needs is an important
part of the programme development process, and this is reflected in the assessor
comments mentioned above. We have indeed noticed that applicants are including
statements regarding this in their applications. Please note however that the
assessment for the SoR is always based on the content of the programme(s)
sent as examples, and is not an overall quality assurance exercise, since
there are other elements which are outside CILIP's remit - e.g. choice of
venue, access, catering, quality of technical equipment etc.
There is no denying this. Occasionally we run events that do not meet the standard we would wish for all sorts of reasons. Just because we have the Seal does not guarantee that every courses will be excellent but it does show that we strive for excellence.

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