What's an audit?

A quality audit is an inspection to evaluate an organization's compliance with a quality standard. It's not just a general health check to make sure the program is running well. All sorts of things can be audited, but in this case we are mainly talking about the quality of accredited educational programs.

It's still an audit of the organization even if the organization has only one person in it. All audits are documented, and audits always have a defined scope, that is, a particular range of activities.

Audits normally follow a structured process:

1. The auditor starts with a meeting to explain what will be audited and how the audit will work.
2. Then the auditor:
   1. asks questions, inspects documents, and reviews the results of monitoring
   2. checks it against the standard
   3. keeps notes.
3. During the audit of an educational institution, the auditor may also want to watch instructors teach and should if possible interview students.
4. The audit ends with a meeting (called the exit meeting). The auditor explains what he/she found.
5. Then the auditor writes a written report.