The ISSA Certificate of Excellence is issued for a period of three years. At the end of the three-year period, the member institution can submit a request for recertification for another three years.
As the ISSA revises its Guidelines every six years, the following situations may arise:
- The relevant ISSA Guidelines have changed since the last certification, the member institution needs to repeat the full process of assessment. The fee will be the same as with any initial certification, namely CHF 5,000 per set of guidelines.
- The relevant ISSA Guidelines have not changed since the last certification, the member institution will have a more limited assessment, consisting of a selection of 25% of the Guidelines by the member institution itself, and a random sample of additional 25% of the Guidelines by the expert-evaluator.
This approach enables the member institution to be assessed on the Guidelines in areas that have gone through changes since the initial certification enabling a permanent improvement and ensures that the member institution still complies with the Guidelines. The fee is less than a full assessment process, namely CHF 3,000 per set of Guidelines.
- In case only minor changes were made in the revision of the set of Guidelines, the ISSA will offer a limited assessment, consisting of a selection of 25% of the Guidelines by the member institution itself, and a random sample of additional 25% of the Guidelines by the expert-evaluator. ‘Minor changes’ means that the changes only refer to editorial changes and/or less than 10% of the Guidelines were changed. The fee will be less than a full assessment process, – CHF 3,000 per set of guidelines.
Because of the two different types of recertification, the full and the limited assessment, the Recognition certificate mentions the year of the publication of the applicable guidelines.