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According to public relations office for International affairs, Dr. Arabkheradmand, Vice chancellor for International Affairs, Dr. Fotoohi, Academic Consultant of University Chancellor, Dr. Halabchi, Vice Chancellor for Students Affairs, Dr. Nekoofar, Director of International Relations, Accreditation and Ranking, Lee Hammond, ASIC CEO, and Inspector, Dr. Lawrence Watson, the head of ASIC Inspectors and Accreditation Consultant, Dr. Hemmati, Executive Consultant for International Office and Representatives of offices for Educational Affairs, Research Affairs, Student Affairs, International Affairs, Management Development and Resource Planning participated in this meeting on Monday, 3 rd May.
At first, Dr. Arabkheradmand, welcomed the audience and stated that accreditation helps universities and scientific centers to know their strength and weak points, enhance their strength pints and work to remove the weak points. Every accreditation certificate has a limited valid period and after this period the candidate university should be reaccredited to maintain its accreditation status so it is vital for a university to continue to comply with standards.
Dr. Arabkheradmand declared that now, TUMS is on its reassessment to be reaccredited. So, during the last two days, ASIC inspectors investigate the reliability of the respective repots with their extensive presence in different parts of the university that were chosen by them. He emphasized on the purpose of this meeting which was providing ASIC with in depth information on self assessment process based on performance of different units in TUMS. Then Dr. Kheradmand asked Dr. Fotoohi, Academic Advisor of University and Head of Research Center for policy making to introduce this center and TUMS long term plans.
Introducing the respective center, Dr. Fotoohi said that the main responsibility of this center which is directly supervised by the university Chancellor, is promotion of making decisions based on documents and evidences.
He included codifying scientific map, a four year plan and a year action plan for the university was the main areas of operation and declared that national and International map which has been codified in 2006 and providing university scientist map from 2009 to 2025 was placed on the agenda of this center.
Dr. Fotoohi added that other responsibilities of the university include supervision of the respective plans in academic, research, and remedial framework of TUMS. He also said that this center entails a programming network for all units and university departments such as offices of vice chancellor, schools, research centers, and hospitals.
Moreover, he referred to confirmation of all proposed plans by University Board of Directors and declared that Research Center and Policy Development is in charge of supervision of performing these plans in line with the specified flowcharts.
In the following, Dr. Nekoofar as the Director for International Relations, Accreditation and Ranking explained activities related to International Quality Assurance and Accreditation Network (IQAAN) and said that the network formed after getting accreditation certification from ASIC, with the mission of doing self-assessment in subset units of university and with aim of making sure that all educational and research purposes in national and international level are met based on the standards.
Dr. Nekoofar stated that a written plan of IQAAN that allows universities to be effective in doing international accreditation, was approved by University Board of Directors in 2014. He also explained the three levels of the network and said that due to the extent of the university, supervision by headquarters office was impossible. So, by forming different layers, the functional tasks performed better and university framework got to know the accreditation procedure and understood its importance.
Moreover, Dr. Nekoofar stated that by proposing the information of this network to Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education, it was supposed that Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) assist other medical universities to do International Accreditation in their own universities.
He also referred to bilingual website of IQAAN Secretariat that has operated to this address Iqaan.tums.ac.ir
In the following, Ms. Azadi officer of International Affairs presented the report of a four year performance in International Office and Dr. Nekoofar, presented the report of other offices in the university.
ASIC inspectors found the proposed framework that is under the label of IQAAN, an effective and successful model and they positively stated that the amount of actions which have been done with respect to indicators in five distinct areas is huge and can have a positive effect.
Translated by: S. Javedanfard