Institute of Professional Editors Limited

Response of the Institute of Professional Editors to ‘ACCREDITATION OF EDITORS: 

Professor Peters' comments on the accreditation scheme ratified by the members of all state and territory societies of editors centre on four issues. She feels that: the scheme privileges senior editors, and that a tiered scheme admitting ‘entry-level' editors would be fairer; that it fails to recognise formal training as a means by which editors gain expertise; that the Australian Standards for Editing Practice (ASEP) are currently an inadequate benchmark against which to measure ‘competence'; and that there has been insufficient consultation with employers and industry in its development.

In one way or another, each of these issues was explored to the greatest degree possible during the more than three years that the Accreditation Working Group (AWG) of the Council of Australian Societies of Editors took to research and test the current scheme. The history of the development of the scheme can be tracked through documents on the Institute's web site at <www.case-editors.org>.¹

A crucial point in the current context, and perhaps indeed in all thinking about the implementation of the scheme, is that there was a dramatic, member-driven shift between the initial and final schemes put forward to the societies by the AWG. This was that the accreditation scheme must be, more than anything else, performance-based. An editor applying for accreditation must be able to provide evidence, not of education and training courses completed-critical though these might be in their personal development-but rather of competence as an editor as measured against the ASEP developed by the societies.

In the broadest terms, the scheme will acknowledge the ability of an editor to do the job and recognise that there are many routes by which editors come into the profession. We see the following specific benefits to the approach proposed.

• The decision to seek accreditation should encourage editors to put together a good portfolio, choose tasks that will add to a body of work of high standard, seek mentorship, think even more seriously about the quality of their work and strive for excellence.
• Accreditation will be a foreseeable, attainable goal that demonstrates competency in the workplace and increases future job prospects. It will become an integral part of an editor's career path.
• If, as is touched on elsewhere in this response, courses and the accreditation scheme eventually work together in terms of standards, requirements and outcomes, the scheme can but benefit students, steering them away from inadequate courses and again providing direction for a career pathway.
• Increasingly, national industry standards require professions and training organisations to have assessment and accreditation processes. By delivering such standards for our profession through an accreditation scheme, we are helping all editors, established and beginning. Without a capacity to work towards industry accreditation, new editors are, in many respects, left adrift.
• Accreditation should benefit editors moving to work in other states or countries, in that accreditation based on rigorous assessment against comprehensive standards by a national professional association is likely be a more transportable qualification than, say, completion of a particular course.

The Institute was previously known as the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE). The web site address will be changed in due course to reflect the new name.

To respond to the specific issues raised by Professor Peters:

Why not a tiered system?

The AWG examined more than a dozen professions, many of which have graded schemes for accrediting their members, and the idea of a graded or tiered system came up frequently during the consultative process. The AWG looked into it thoroughly and concluded that such an elaborate scheme was beyond the profession's resources at present. Instead, the group decided on an achievable aim, being bound by the criterion of sustainability in the Issues Paper of June 2002: ‘The financial cost and professional commitment involved in setting up and operating the system must be able to be maintained in the long term...As well as the cost in money terms, the members involved might have to commit time and effort that could be better spent in other areas of the profession.'

This is not to say that the accreditation scheme will not evolve to fulfil Professor Peters' suggestions (indeed, the current scheme has, in effect, two tiers-‘meets the Standard' and ‘exceeds the Standard'), but this will take some time. The Institute's Accreditation Board must first set up the machinery of the scheme and establish transparent, consistent, agreed criteria (based on the ASEP) for granting accreditation. Once that is done and the scheme is working successfully, the Institute may wish to consult the membership about refinements such as grading or specialisation. There are other possibilities: for instance, the Institute might prefer to retain a single grade of accreditation and put its efforts into mentoring junior editors so they can achieve it.

There appear to be few professions in which graduation from a course is also a ticket to accreditation or certification in the profession. Some period of experience in direct employment is often required before-perhaps in order to continue practising-some form of industry requirement must be met.

The ‘level' of accreditation

The aim of the Institute's accreditation scheme, as stated in the Final Report of the AWG, is to make accreditation neither absurdly easy nor impossibly hard. It was framed (and tested) with ‘The expectation is that most working editors will be able to satisfy the requirements'. It is applicable to both general and specialist editors. Applicants are assessed in relation to the nature of their work: they are not required to meet every subsection of every Standard. A book editor, for example, would not be expected to meet the requirements for editing screen-based information if they are not also involved in that type of work.

Thus, we do not concur with Professor Peters' deduction that accreditation will be restricted to editors who are ‘veteran[s] of multiple publishing projects with plenty to show for it, and experience of various editorial roles'. Accredited editors will be working editors who can demonstrate, to their peers, satisfactory competence in their areas of editorial activity.

Attracting new editors

Editing is generally seen as a desirable occupation, and competition to enter the profession is fierce. All the societies have experienced solid growth in membership over the last few years. This seems at odds with Professor Peters' claim that special efforts are needed ‘to entice younger talents into the profession'. Some of the societies have various classes of membership-student, associate and full, for example. In such cases, most ‘new entrants' are happy to join as, say, associates and progress to full membership through work experience supported by society mentoring, training and contacts. We expect that this will continue and that the implementation of the accreditation scheme and the concomitant establishment of a national body will in no way diminish the critical role that the state and territory societies of editors play in the development of editors and the profession.

The accreditation scheme was never intended to cater for ‘the aspiring novice with base-line skills'. It is not an entry-level qualification but a recognition of achievement, designed to separate aspiring novices from competent editors.

The availability of formal training

Professor Peters recommends ‘a comprehensive survey of the range of editing/publishing courses offered by Australian institutions'. Early in its deliberations, the AWG embarked on just such a survey but had to abandon it when it realised that it was beyond its brief and our resources.

In any case, we believe that the suggested parameters are too coarse-grained to provide an informative assessment of a course. For such research to be useful to the Institute, it would have to report on more than duration, level and an outline of the content. The names and even the descriptions of units can be misleading, and similar courses can vary depending on who is teaching them.

That aside, we would see it as useful in the future for Australian institutions offering editing and publishing courses to assess their content against the Accreditation Board's criteria for accreditation.

The disconnection between formal training and the industry

The discussion paper describes the scheme's disregard for formal training as ‘extraordinary'. The industry's scepticism about the value of formal qualifications in editing is well known anecdotally and was confirmed by the AWG's consultative process. The assessors will take qualifications into account, but the profession was united in insisting that accreditation should not be granted without evidence that an applicant can actually do the job.

The societies of editors have made training a priority since their formation, and they were instrumental in setting up the first formal courses. Training providers have not shown the same degree of responsiveness to the profession's identified training priorities. The ASEP state the knowledge that the profession regards as essential for an editor, but although it is four years since they were first published, few providers have begun to alter existing courses to reflect their content and requirements.

The Institute's initiatives such as the ASEP and the accreditation scheme provide a positive opportunity to create dialogue and improve communication between the profession and training providers. Perhaps when the Institute has more resources, it will set up an Education Working Group to consult with providers and industry. When funds become available, the Institute may research courses and recognise those that meet its requirements. A two-way process in which training providers also sought to align their courses to the requirements of the Institute would bring mutual benefits.

ASEP

There are now some deficiencies in the Australian Standards for Editing Practice, as Professor Peters points out. These reflect the pace of change in technology and other aspects of the information industry. It was always the intention to revise the ASEP at regular intervals and a revision is currently in progress. The Standards Revision Working Group will take note of the suggestions in the discussion paper.

Consultation with employers

The AWG approached the Australian Publishers Association several times during the three-year process which delivered the accreditation scheme. The APA made encouraging noises and provided a generous donation of $400 to assist with the costs of teleconferencing, but to our disappointment they provided no feedback on the content of the scheme.

The suggested questionnaire to consult employers has already been mooted by the Standards Revision Working Group, and the possibility of establishing an Education Working Group was mentioned above.

Acknowledgment

The Institute thanks Professor Peters for her discussion paper, which has contributed to a sharpening of ideas about the implementation and future evolution of its accreditation scheme. It hopes that she will continue to contribute to Institute activities and the development of the editing profession.

Institute of Professional Editors July 2005