Initial accreditation is for five years. The review process, described above, is repeated every five years for continuing accreditation. Unless there are special circumstances, only one individual visits the program for the first five-year review and every 10 years thereafter. A three-person team conducts the visit at the end of the 10 years, and then every 10 years thereafter. The standards on which programs are judged are delineated in a document titled Standards and Evaluative Criteria for Recreation, Park Resources and Leisure Services - Baccalaureate Program .
Standards are criteria for evaluating the quality of a program.
They define characteristics of the program that are related directly and indirectly to effective instruction. Programs seeking accreditation must meet all standards in Organization and Operation Standards and the Baccalaureate Degree Standards. Since it was difficult to develop standards for all of these, it was difficult to assure quality. These four options are the only ones that may be accredited. They are generic in that they provide a framework for more specific specializations that programs might wish to offer.