Recently, the Information Management and Information Systems Undergraduate Program from the School of Information Science and Technology at Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU) has been successfully accredited by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) in the United Kingdom. CILIP posted this news online immediately on its official website
(https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/NanjingAgUniversity.)
CILIP is a professional organization for librarians and other information practitioners in the United Kingdom. It is one of the earliest professional organizations in libraries around the world, whose headquarter is set in London, and one of two great library associations in the world as well as the American Library Association (ALA).
For the past half a year, CILIP has checked the applications and accreditation materials previously submitted by the Information Management and Information Systems Undergraduate Program from the School of Information Science and Technology at NAU. Then two assessors of CILIP, Helen Berry and Ann Hindson, visited the university to assess the program education. The accreditation visit consists of several sections, such as checking program education materials, interviewing module teachers and student representatives, having an interview with the leader of the Academic Affairs Office, and visiting the library and teaching labs. Eventually, the program was successfully accredited by CILIP and passed the international accreditation, whose valid period is 5 years.
The Information Management and Information Systems Program at NAU is the second program accredited by CILIP in mainland China, and the first undergraduate program with international accreditation at NAU as well. CILIP’s accreditation indicates that the courses of the Information Management and Information Systems Program at NAU can be brought in line with those of Library and Information Science Undergraduate Program in the United Kingdom and even the world. From now on, the graduates of this program will be granted associate membership in CILIP, and be eligible to apply for full membership. In addition, CILIP’s accreditation is beneficial for graduates of the program to be employed by overseas library and information institutions, especially by those in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand. It is also beneficial for the graduates to go abroad for further education.
CILIP’s accreditation marks an important progress in the process of undergraduate program construction and education internationalization at NAU. It also lays a solid foundation for a wider range of international communication and cooperation in the future between Library Information and Archive Management disciplines at NAU and those in first-class universities in Europe and America.