Institute of Professional Editors Ltd.

The Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE) established the Accreditation Working Group (AWG) in December 2001 to set out why accreditation for editors is being investigated, research how other organisations and professions handle accreditation, state the principles that should underlie any accreditation scheme and develop possible models for accreditation to be put to members.

AWG developed an Issues Paper which was circulated to all societies of editors in June 2002, and published in newsletters of societies of editors.1 It sought feedback from members in meetings and workshops, and through comments made to AWG members.

CASE also asked AWG to develop two possible models to be put to members (plus the option of no accreditation). AWG presents one fully developed model (‘Option 1'), and another option (‘Option 2') which could be developed into a workable system if members so chose. It also describes how an accreditation scheme might be administered.

Consultation

A process of consultation is needed to ensure that any accreditation scheme is approved by a majority of members in each state or territory society of editors. The process must be transparent and allow all members to comment.

AWG members will speak to this draft report at the national conference (18-20 July 2003), and at the same time circulate it to all societies of editors and to other stakeholders.

The deadline for comment is 30 November 2003. AWG intends to refine the report in accordance with the feedback and, early in 2004, present its final proposal to CASE. AWG has undertaken initial testing of the weightings and points outlined in its recommended accreditation scheme. AWG encourages societies of editors to carry out their own tests as part of the consultation process and to provide feedback with their overall comments on the accreditation scheme.

Characteristics of an accreditation scheme

There are many routes to competence as an editor and many specialties within the broad profession of editing. In devising a scheme, AWG set out to measure competence rather than excellence. The scheme would be based on the principles identified in the Issues Paper, that an accreditation system

be:
	fair transparent appropriate inclusive consistent	flexible acceptable practical sustainable accountable

The accreditation scheme should also take account of the education and training available in editing in Australia and elsewhere. While appropriate recognition should be given to education and training, AWG did not wish to exclude editors who lack formal qualifications but can demonstrate competence through other avenues. Likewise, experience as a working editor should be recognised, but a competent editor with little working experience should not be excluded.

Another prime consideration is the burden on the applicant to provide all the necessary information: compliance should not be onerous. It is important that applicants understand which criteria they can choose to be accredited against (qualifications, experience, evidence of competence and so on), how the scheme operates, and what redress they have if they do not agree with any decision affecting them. AWG recommends that guidelines be prepared for applicants and assessors to explain the accreditation process.

Finally, the accreditation scheme must be based on the Australian Standards for Editing Practice (ASEP).2

Since any accreditation scheme would be established and administered by CASE, AWG proposes that membership of a state or territory society of editors be a mandatory requirement for accreditation. To make consistent the application of this latter requirement, AWG recommends that CASE members devise common criteria for society membership and, after full consultation, ask all societies to incorporate these criteria in their constitutions.

Option 1 (points-based system)

AWG recommends an accreditation framework that includes five fields - qualifications, experience, portfolio, testimonials and professional participation - scored on a point system designed to ensure that a competent editor meets the minimum criteria for accreditation. For the purpose of this proposal, the term ‘accreditation' is taken to mean accreditation of an individual, not of a course or an institution.

The scheme is designed to be flexible to take into account the diversity of the profession, in terms of both genre and medium. The only mandatory requirement is full membership of a society of editors. Apart from this, applicants are able to choose which of the fields they wish to be counted towards their accreditation. Accreditation is awarded if the applicant meets a minimum requirement of 100 points.

Each of the five fields and the way in which the points are allocated are shown below. While AWG repeats that compliance should not be onerous, it is the responsibility of applicants to provide accessible evidence of their claims.

■    Qualifications (maximum of 40 points)

The qualifications field measures educational attainments relevant to the profession.

Relevant qualifications and training include general tertiary education (diplomas, degrees), postgraduate programs, vocational training (certificate IV), skills upgrading and professional development. Specialist editing courses provided by higher education and vocational institutions, professional societies and private training bodies increasingly provide the training that was once done in house.

Professional development is an important component within qualifications. Although such courses are often short, they are tailored to the needs of editors and are an important way of keeping up to date with developments in the profession. Inclusion of professional development programs in the ‘qualifications' field is also a means of encouraging societies to measure the learning outcomes and quality of their training activities.

A maximum of 40 points is available for this field, allocated against the following courses:

• undergraduate program - 6 points per equivalent full-time year of a completed course, 4 points per year of an uncompleted course
• postgraduate program (for example PhD, MA) - 18 points
• editing program in the vocational education sector- 3 points for certificate IV or equivalent
• specialist degree in editing - 6 points per year of a completed course, 4 points per year of an uncompleted course (to be counted separately if the applicant already holds a general higher education qualification)
• specialist undergraduate diploma in editing - 4 points
• specialist postgraduate program in editing - 6 points
• professional development - up to a total of 10 points, weighting to be determined by societies for each state or territory using guidelines to be established by the proposed Accreditation Board (AB).

Using guidelines to be developed by the AB, assessors will allocate points to educational programs not covered here.

■    Experience (maximum of 40 points)

The experience field focuses on the quantity and not the quality of the applicant's editing work. It also recognises that continuing employment as an editor is a strong indication of competence. This field is designed to be flexible enough to cover in-house editors, freelance editors and corporate, academic and government positions that include an editing component.

A maximum of 40 points is available for this field, with 5 points allocated for each year of full-time editing or equivalent.

In-house editors can verify their role and the time spent in this role through employment records and job descriptions. In the case of freelance editors, evidence can include:

• an annotated list of publications edited, noting the precise nature of the applicant's role in the production of the publication; details of a contact person who can verify the applicant's contribution; the size of the publication; and the ISBN or ISSN where relevant
• a form to be completed by clients that sets out the precise role the applicant played in a publication - this ‘client form' to be made available in guidelines to applicants and to be drafted to conform with the provisions of the Federal Privacy Act 1988 (as amended 2002)
• contracts, editorial briefs, invoices and financial records
• business registration records, advertising, listings in registers and Yellow Pages.

Where editing forms only a component of their employment, applicants should provide a list of projects or other activities describing their role, an estimate of the proportion of the time devoted to editing, an outline of the precise nature of the editing tasks undertaken and the name of a contact person or a completed client form.

■    Portfolio (maximum of 100 points)

The portfolio field allows applicants to submit evidence of their editing work using one or more of the following methods:

• documentation, including email records
• an interview with an accreditation assessor (including telephone interview)
• a workplace visit.

Applicants need to demonstrate the quality of their work by submitting, or discussing at interview, up to three publications at various stages of production. The applicant should explain the stages of production and show how the manuscript reached its final form, including information about any constraints such as time and budget.

Documentation should include:

• an original draft
• at least one edited version in hard copy or e-copy
• evidence of initial editing, structural editing, copy-editing and proofreading
• a style sheet, author queries and editing report
• the final publication.

Representative samples of these stages may be submitted if the whole work is not available. Work previously submitted as part of the assessment requirements of an educational program will not be accepted.

Applicants who choose an interview or visit need to provide oral or documentary evidence of their work to the assessor. Structured questions or hypothetical scenarios will be developed for use in interviews, and examples of such questions made available in guidelines to applicants.

The maximum score for the portfolio field is 100 points. Submissions, interviews or workplace visits will be assessed against all of the five Standards described in the ASEP, weighted equally at 20 points each.3 The focus of the assessment is broad competence across the five Standards as they relate to applicants' work rather than detailed compliance with every subsection of all five Standards. Points will be allocated for each Standard as follows:

• 20 points - fully competent against the Standard
• 10 points - competent
• 0 points - does not meet the Standard.

Using these broad bands for the point scores allows a simple but fair marking system which is consistent and easily moderated.

A minimum of 10 points per Standard is required in order to accrue any points overall for this field. This means that if zero is scored against any of the Standards, a nil point-score will be recorded for the field.

■    Testimonials (maximum of 20 points)

The testimonial field allows applicants to submit testimonials to their work, such as letters of appreciation (including emails) from clients and authors, named acknowledgments in publications, and references from colleagues and/or employers.

A maximum of 20 points is available for this field, consisting of 2 points per testimonial.

■    Professional participation (maximum of 20 points)

The professional participation field recognises the contribution of the candidate to the editing profession.

Applicants may provide documentary evidence of:

• presenting editing courses and workshops for professional development
• presenting papers at industry conferences
• membership of the committee of a society of editors
• service to the profession, including contributing to policy debate and developments in the industry

• honorary life membership of a society of editors.

A maximum of 20 points is available for this field, consisting of 5 points per item.

Option 2

AWG considered various possibilities for a second option, but on closer analysis most turned out to be merely inferior versions of Option 1. The only distinctively different option was an examination-based scheme.

AWG decided not to develop this option in detail because such a scheme manifestly fails to meet the Issues Paper requirements of practicality and fairness, and because the cost is likely to be high.

There are many disadvantages to an exam-based scheme:

• Supervised exams would have to be held in centralised locations - a disadvantage for applicants in rural and remote areas.
• Unsupervised exams (even if accompanied by a statutory declaration) are susceptible to cheating, and therefore not credible.
• Exams enable no Recognition of Prior Learning. Participation of experienced editors is essential for a successful and credible accreditation scheme, but many might not be prepared to sit an exam (indeed, some might feel insulted by the suggestion).
• Any exam would have to be broad enough to cover a range of genres and media, and would need to be updated to keep pace with technology.
• To prevent the content of the exam from becoming known, a range of alternative versions incorporating a large number of questions would have to be prepared.
• With enough ingenuity, questions could probably be devised to test most of the Standards, but some editorial competences - such as reliability in keeping deadlines and tact in handling authors - cannot be tested in an exam setting.
• The process of developing a suitable exam could be prolonged, which would unduly delay the introduction of the accreditation scheme.
• The cost of developing and implementing an editing exam is likely to be prohibitive given the limited resources available to the societies.

AWG recognises, however, that there are certain advantages in exams, such as consistency and objectivity. If CASE were to decide in the future that examinations of competence are a desirable mechanism for determining accreditation, they could be incorporated as a sixth field of Option 1.

Other possibilities

Another variation on Option 1 is to develop a two-tiered system which distinguishes ordinary accreditation from a more advanced level. CASE may wish to consider the introduction of an advanced and a basic level for accreditation once an initial scheme has been established and proved workable.

Administration of an accreditation scheme

The scheme as described under Option 1 above will be administered at a national level by an Accreditation Board appointed by CASE. AWG recommends that CASE organise its affairs so that it can administer the scheme (handling money, employing an Accreditation Secretary, being a party to contracts, and so on). In the meantime, CASE could delegate one of the societies to administer the scheme on its behalf.

AWG proposes the following framework for administration of the scheme described in Option 1 above.

■ Applications

The AB will develop an application form that allows applicants to make their own assessment of their scores by field, noting the documentation relevant to each area under the following headings:

• field
• evidence
• points possible
• points claimed.

Applicants will be required to submit a signed and witnessed statement at the time the application is lodged that the information they provide in their accreditation application is accurate. Material and information supplied by applicants will be treated as strictly confidential.

Applications for accreditation will be sent to the Accreditation Secretary, who will check to ensure that documentation is complete and then, according to guidelines drawn up by the AB, appoint an assessor to examine each application and report on it in writing.

■ Assessors

All applicants who score 150 points will be invited by the AB to become assessors. To reach 150 points applicants wishing to qualify as assessors will need to submit a portfolio, regardless of whether they would qualify for accreditation without it. Thus, applicants can have confidence that those making judgements about their accreditation have demonstrated a high level of competence against the Standards. Societies will also invite editors with appropriate experience and other qualifications to submit a portfolio and apply to become assessors under the scheme.

The list of assessors will be published (on the CASE website if possible) and applicants have the option of vetoing up to three assessors they regard as inappropriate to assess their application. Applicants who wish to be assessed by a specialist editor (science, legal, fiction and so on) may request this at the outset of the accreditation process, although they would be nominating a subject or genre, not an individual assessor. An assessor can also consult with a specialist in a particular genre, where appropriate. Applicants will not be told who has assessed their application.

Assessors will make recommendations to the AB, which has responsibility for granting or denying accreditation status.

■ Fees and funding

AWG envisages a fee of $200 for a five-year accreditation period. It estimates that, after an initial period when there is likely to be a larger number of applications, some 80 applications for accreditation per year might be expected, generating an annual income of approximately $16,000. This would be sufficient to employ part-time secretarial assistance and pay other administrative costs of the scheme.

In the first year of the scheme's operation, editors might be offered a discount to encourage them to apply for accreditation and to help the scheme's establishment.

■ Moderation

Where required, moderation will be undertaken. This would normally be when an applicant's score is within a band 5 points above or below the cut-off point for accreditation or assessor status, where two assessors differ about whether an applicant has reached the required score for accreditation or assessor status and/or when the applicant's self-assessment differs significantly from that of the assessor(s). Detailed guidelines about moderation processes will be prepared by the AB.

Complaints and appeals

■ Complaints

Complaints from clients or industry stakeholders against accredited editors will be reviewed by the AB.

The complainant and the editor in question will each be required to submit an account of the incident to the board. The AB many obtain further accounts from parties to the incident, as appropriate.

If the AB decides that there has been a breach of editing standards, the editor in question may be asked to forfeit their accreditation status until such time as they can submit further evidence of competence under the accreditation scheme.

Editors who disagree with the decision of the AB will have the right to appeal to CASE. The decision of CASE will be final.

■    Appeals

Applicants who are unhappy with the decision made about their application for accreditation or about the outcome of a complaint made against them will be able, within a 30-day time limit or a longer time limit set by the AB, to appeal to CASE. CASE will review the application and hear submissions from the applicant, assessor(s) and the AB, as appropriate. The decision of CASE will be final.

Accreditation Board

Each state or territory society of editors will nominate one person (as well as an alternate member, if the society wishes) to serve on a national Accreditation Board. Nominees must be eligible to be assessors (see the criteria under ‘Assessors' above). The usual term of AB members will be three years, except that half the positions on the first AB will be for two years to ensure that there are always experienced members on the board.

The role of the AB will be to set up and administer the scheme, review applications, moderate difficult cases, grant or deny accreditation (based on recommendations from assessors) and refer appeals to CASE. It will usually convene by email and will appoint an Accreditation Secretary to take charge of the day-to-day running of the scheme. It will also maintain a detailed record of the scheme and a listing of accredited editors. It will report annually to CASE.

To set up the scheme, initial tasks will include:

• establishing shared understandings of what constitutes competence according to the ASEP
• working out how to work: setting up contact protocols, administrative procedures, document handling, filing systems, professional confidentiality
• developing a ‘case law' to cover specific circumstances, for example, the weighting allocated to a particular educational program
• setting up a financial management system
• developing documentation for the accreditation process, including questions for structured interviews, scenarios, client forms and so on
• publishing handbooks for assessors and applicants, which will include FAQs and sample questions, scenarios, client forms and so on
• writing a position description for Accreditation Secretary
• advertising the position of Accreditation Secretary, and selecting and appointing the successful applicant
• calling for applications for assessors, administering their applications and publicising the list of assessors
• maintaining a continuing pool of assessors
• calling for applications for accreditation.

Duration and renewal

AWG recommends that accreditation be for a period of five years.

Renewal will be granted to candidates who fulfil the following criteria

• full membership of a society of editors
• continuing employment as an editor
• evidence of work and other professional activities worth 20 points under the criteria described in Option 1, of which 10 points must be earned from continuing education or professional development activities.

Recommendations to CASE

• That CASE establish an accreditation scheme based on the recommendations for Option 1 in this report, following consultation with and decision by all its members.
• That CASE, through a website and other means, promote the accreditation scheme to editors, the public and potential clients, informing them about the operation of the scheme and its value to the industry.
• That CASE organise its affairs so that it has the legal capacity to administer the accreditation scheme.
• That CASE devise consistent national criteria for society membership and, after full consultation, ask all societies to incorporate them in their constitutions.
• That CASE arrange for the administration of an accreditation scheme to be undertaken via an employed (part-time) Accreditation Secretary.
• That CASE request the AB to develop documentation to support the accreditation scheme, which will include FAQs and guidelines for applicants and assessors.
• That CASE request the AB to consider arrangements for training assessors, where necessary, and developing procedures for moderation and review.
• That CASE review the accreditation scheme after five years' operation.

Prepared by the CASE Working Group on Accreditation:

Vic: Janet Mackenzie (convenor); jmack@mansfield.net.au Canberra: Janet Salisbury; janet.salisbury@biotext.com.au NSW: Pamela Hewitt; emend@bigpond.net.au NT: Gail Warman; gail.warman@octa4.net.au Qld: Robert Byrnes; robertobyrnes@excite.com SA: Rosemary Luke; rosemary.luke@unisa.edu.au Tas: Sheila Allison; sheila.allison@utas.edu.au WA: Betty Durston; bdurston@cygnus.uwa.edu.au

Footnotes

1	‘Accreditation Issues Paper', CASE Working Group on Accreditation, June 2002.
2	Council of Australian Societies of Editors, Australian Standards for Editing Practice, 2001.
3	The five Standards are (A) the publishing process, conventions and industry practice, (B) management and
	liaison, (C) substance and structure, (D) language and illustrations and (E) completeness and consistency.

APPENDIX

The Draft Report was presented to the national conference of editors in Brisbane, ‘Beyond Gutenberg and Gates ... gazing into the e-future', 17-20 July 2003. As a result of discussion during the conference, the Accreditation Working Group provides some further comments and a bibliography.

Costing and value

Given the criteria of the Issues Paper that an accreditation scheme needs to be practical and sustainable, its cost is obviously critical. The AWG hopes that members will give careful consideration to this matter and discuss it thoroughly in their state/territory workshops. The AWG will consider all recommendations and try to come up with a realistic and acceptable figure in a final report.

■ Accreditation fee

It is possible to make a rough estimate of the cost of administering an accreditation scheme, but there are no data on the value that editors are likely to derive from the scheme or the amount they would be willing to pay. On the other hand, the AWG felt that members were very unlikely to vote for a scheme unless they had some idea of what it would cost them. The Draft Report suggests a fee of $200 for five years on the basis of the number of editors thought likely to apply for accreditation and the administrative cost of the scheme proposed in Option 1. This was derived from an indicative calculation, which is all that is possible at this stage:

Estimated annual expenses	$
Employing an Accreditation Secretary on a contract basis
(1 day per week for 50 weeks at $240/day)	12,000
Administrative costs (teleconferencing, bank fees,
printing of guidelines for applicants, advertising, etc.)	4,000
Total	16,000

At present, the societies of editors receive a total of about 100 applications for membership per year. The AWG estimates the number of members likely to apply for accreditation (after the initial period when there is likely to be a larger number of applications) at about 80 per year. Based on that estimate and on the table above, the cost per application would be around $200.

Additional revenue derived from the expected high number of applications from existing editors in the first year would be offset by the need to employ the Accreditation Secretary for more time during the initial phase of the scheme. It is likely that this would be required to help the Accreditation Board prepare information and instruction materials for candidates and assessors and to handle the large number of applications.

■ Payment of assessors

The costing outlined above does not provide for any payment to assessors. Several people at the conference said that few editors would wish to become assessors unless they received some remuneration. A realistic payment based on hours of work would make the scheme prohibitively expensive. Even if the scheme paid an honorarium of $200 per application, the cost to applicants would be doubled.

An additional option would be to charge $200 per application as well as an additional annual administration fee of, say, $50, for all accredited members. Thus, if there were 200 accredited editors, $10,000 per year would be collected in ongoing fees, which could cover some of the costs of the assessors' fees.

The issue of the fee payable is crucial. If it is set too low, the scheme could fail for lack of assessors; if it is set too high, editors will not apply. The AWG urges members to consider all aspects of cost and value in the light of the benefits that the scheme is likely to provide to them.

Comparison with other organisations

The AWG approached a number of editors' organisations in other countries to find out whether they have accreditation and if so how their schemes operate. The following organisations were contacted:

• American Copy Editors Society
• Association of Earth Science Editors (Netherlands)
• Council of Science Editors (USA)
• Board of Editors in the Life Sciences, or BELS (USA)
• Editorial Freelancers Association (USA)
• Editors' Association of Canada
• European Association of Science Editors
• European Journalism Fellowship
• Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (UK)
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders (UK)
• Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors (Netherlands)

It quickly became clear that very few organisations have accreditation schemes, although most are working to introduce them. The two most applicable schemes at this time are:

• the BELS certification examination for editors in the life sciences
• a scheme run by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders in the UK, which involves a two-tier process of accreditation by examination (currently proofreading only) followed by registration by either experience plus client testimonials or training.

In addition, the AWG examined the schemes of comparable professions in Australia (indexers, public relations practitioners, cinematographers, nurses, librarians, historians, lawyers, architects, engineers, statisticians, and storytellers), as well as some other overseas organisations, such as the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) and the Medical Library Association (Chicago). Its research showed that these organisations offer a variety of approaches to accreditation and certification. These are variously based on qualifications, experience, professional development, testimonials, portfolios and testing. In developing the points system presented in the attached proposal, the AWG has drawn on all these schemes.

For comparison with the scheme by AWG under Option 1, the following table shows the fees charged by some of the organisations that were researched.

Organisation	Scheme				Cost (AUS$)
Overseas writing and editing organisations
Board of Editors in the Life		Registration			$50
Sciences (BELS)		Certification by exam			$250
		Membership			$40 per year
Society for Editors and		Accreditation exam (currently			$375
Proofreaders (UK)		proofreading only)
		Registration (experience and/or			$70
qualifications)
Other professions in Australia
Public Relations Institute of Australia				Enrolment	$110
				Membership	$275 per year
Australian Society of Indexers				Registration	$40
				Membership	$50 per year
Australian Library and Information				Membership	$217 per year
Association
Statistical Society of Australia			Accreditation		$165 for 5 years
			Membership/administration		$30 per year

References

Board of Editors in the Life Sciences, Certification Program for Editors, Radnor (PA) (undated).
Bosch, Mary-Jane, ‘Accreditation: Who needs it?', Australian Editor, no. 2, Winter 1999.
Business Services Training, ‘Business Services Training Package, Stage 1', report to the Australian

National Training Authority, 2002.

Canberra Society of Editors, ‘Accreditation-the way ahead', paper submitted to CASE, October
2001.
Cook, Margaret, ‘Global push to accredit teachers', Education Age, 9 October 2002.
Council of Australian Societies of Editors, Australian Standards for Editing Practice, 2001.
Cope, Bill and Freeman, Robin, Developing Knowledge Workers in the Printing and Publishing Industries:

Education, Training and Knowledge Management in the Publishing Supply Chain, from Creator to

Consumer, Common Ground Publishing, Melbourne, 2002.
CREATE Australia, ‘Final Report: Writing, Publishing and Journalism Scoping Study', report to the
Australian National Training Authority, November 2002.

Editforce, ‘Proposed Freelance Accreditation System: White Paper', Sydney, September 2001.

Editors' Association of Canada, ‘A Short History of the Editors' Association of Canada (EAC)
Committee on Professional Standards', Fall 1997.
Gray, Catherine, et al., ‘Accreditation questions: Structure for finding out about different kinds of

accreditation system', paper submitted to CASE, July 1998.
Gray, Catherine, et al., ‘Thoughts on a way of moving towards accreditation', paper submitted to
CASE, July 1998.

Institute of Publishing (UK), ‘National Occupational Standards for Publishing, Draft Standards,
version 3.0', Blue Pencil, September 2001.
Lester, Stan, ‘The professional accreditation of conservator-restorers: developing a competence-based
professional assessment system', Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 25, no. 4, 2000.
Otmar, Renée, ‘A survey of education and training needs for editors in Australia', paper presented at
the conference ‘Partnerships in Knowledge', Canberra, April 2001.
Paterson, Jonathan, ‘A leap in the dark?', Active Voice: Journal of the Editors' Association of Canada,
April 1998.
Salisbury, Janet, ‘Accreditation-how do others do it?', Australian Editor, no. 2, Winter 1999.
Society for Editors and Proofreaders (UK), ‘Accreditation in proofreading: prospectus and notes to
applicants', Blue Pencil, September 2001.
Society of Editors (Qld) Inc., special feature ‘Accreditation', in Offpress, July 1998.
Society of Editors (Qld) Inc., ‘Training and Accreditation of Editors and Proofreaders', discussion
paper, October 1998.
Statistical Society of Australia Inc., ‘Optional accreditation-the state of play', Newsletter 73,
November 1995.
Thomas, Ray E., ‘The future of UK professional and vocational qualifications', Educational Courses in
Britain, 1997.
Wood, Erin, ‘Where to for registration of professions?' Professional Update: Association of Professional
Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia, vol. 12, no. 1, January-February 2002.