Professional field in the accreditation process: examining information technology programmes at Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences

In this paper, we analyse 53 Dutch accreditation reports in the field of information technology to assess the mechanisms of the reported involvement of the professional field in the undergraduate programmes of universities of applied sciences. The results of qualitative content analysis reveal a coupling effect in reporting on mechanisms of interaction. Although the involvement of the professional field is tightly coupled with the undergraduate programmes at universities of applied sciences at the strategic level, there is an under-representation of university-industry interaction on an operational level, which suggests the need to explore the actual interaction taking place between the professional field and the programmes. Simultaneously, our results indicate that accreditation reports are not able to provide a holistic picture of professional field engagement in the curriculum of undergraduate programmes at the operational level, which questions their role in acknowledging the role of industry in shaping and achieving intended learning outcomes. Perhaps policymakers should consider introducing other tools or standards for addressing the outcome of the engagement and the responsiveness of the programmes at universities of applied sciences to the professional field.