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The AP Course Audit review process for 2008-09 begins in March 2008. The College Board has contracted with the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC), a not-for-profit organization based at the University of Oregon, to coordinate the AP Course Audit submission and review process. EPIC is a partner of The Center for Educational Policy Research (CEPR), which works with federal agencies, state education departments, non-governmental organizations, private foundations, and school districts to support research on a range of issues in the areas of high school-to-college articulation, adequacy funding, large-scale assessment models, and other policy initiatives designed to improve student success.
 The Center for Educational Policy Research
The Review Process
Outcomes of Review
Reviewer Eligibility Requirements
Reviewer Selection and Training Process
Evaluating Resources/Textbooks
Checks and Balances
The Review Process
To receive authorization from the College Board to label a 2008-09 course "AP," each AP teacher must access the AP Course Audit Web site and submit two important documents related to the course: a course syllabus and the subject-specific AP Course Audit form. After submitting both documents, the teacher’s syllabus will be forwarded electronically to an external reviewer who will validate that it does indeed demonstrate how the course meets the curricular requirements for that subject.
Reviewers are charged with finding evidence in your syllabus of the curricular requirements. No individual biases or preferences for additional course components are allowed to be part of the authorization decision; the reviewer is simply verifying that the curricular requirements for your course appear in your syllabus. Evidence of a requirement can take different forms; a teacher might demonstrate how the course meets the requirements by describing what content is covered, by referencing assignments or assessments given in the class, or by stating explicitly that certain requirements are a part of the class. To see examples that demonstrate how various requirements can be met, visit the samples of evidence available on AP Central.
For information on preparing syllabi that demonstrate the inclusion of these requirements see:
Syllabus Self-Evaluation Checklist
Course Requirements
Additionally, subject-specific Syllabus Development Guidelines will be available on AP Central in March 2008.
Outcomes of Review
Schools will receive notification of a course's authorization status within two months of the teacher having submitted both required documents. For a course to be authorized, the syllabus must clearly and explicitly demonstrate that each of the AP Course Audit's curricular requirements is addressed in the course.
There are two possible outcomes of the initial review:
- If the reviewer finds that the syllabus meets or exceeds the requirements listed on the AP Course Audit form, the authorization of that course will be noted on the school's AP Course Audit status page on the Web, and the teacher and principal will be notified via email and mail, respectively. The authorized AP course will then be included in the ledger that is made available to colleges and universities in November 2008.
- If the reviewer cannot determine that the syllabus meets or exceeds the requirements listed on the AP Course Audit form, that submission is routed to a senior reviewer for review. If the senior reviewer agrees that the syllabus does not clearly and explicitly demonstrate that each of the curricular requirements is addressed in the course, the senior reviewer will provide the AP Program with specific, objective rationale(s) explaining why. The rationale(s) the senior reviewer provides will be included in an e- mail that is sent to the teacher. The teacher will then have the opportunity to revise and re-submit the syllabus based on the feedback received.
If, after resubmitting a revised syllabus, our reviewers can still not make a determination to authorize the course, a College Board representative will call the teacher to provide additional suggestions for how the syllabus could be revised. The teacher will then have a third and final chance to revise and submit the syllabus.
If, after submitting the revised syllabus a third time, our reviewers cannot find clear and explicit evidence of the curricular requirements, or an alternate approach to those requirements that nonetheless enables the teacher to provide a college-level learning opportunity to students, the course will not be authorized for the 2008-09 school year. The school is still welcome to order and administer AP Exams in that subject, and the teacher can re-submit materials for authorization in the following year.
Reviewer Eligibility Requirements
To become a reviewer or senior reviewer, educators must meet the following eligibility criteria and successfully complete a training process:
Reviewer:
- College faculty who have taught one semester of the course they are reviewing within the past 3 years.
- Recently retired (less than 5 years) AP teachers who have taught the course they will be reviewing.
Senior Reviewer:
- College faculty who have taught one semester of the course they are reviewing within the past 3 years.
- Recently retired (less than 3 years) AP teachers.
- Preference is given to applicants with pedagogical expertise (e.g. Masters degrees in curriculum and instruction, and department chairs).
Current AP teachers are not eligible to be reviewers for the AP Course Audit.
Reviewer Selection and Training Process
The process of selecting and training reviewers for the AP Course Audit is as follows:
- Potential reviewers are required to participate in an online training session, which explains and discusses the specific criteria for reviewing syllabi in the subject area. The training session also focuses on evaluating syllabi fairly and without personal bias.
- Potential reviewers then rate a series of syllabi online. These syllabi have been carefully selected and annotated by senior reviewers in the subject area. Reviewers must rate the pre-selected syllabi consistently and accurately before they are cleared to become reviewers.
Evaluating Resources/Textbooks
In determining whether the textbooks and classroom resources listed on a teacher's syllabus meet the requirements, reviewers will consider how these items enable the teacher to meet the curricular requirements for the course. The College Board has published a non-exhaustive list of example textbooks which can enable teachers to meet the curricular requirements for each course, but schools do not have to use textbooks on this list in order to be approved. These lists are not exhaustive and do not signify an endorsement by the College Board. These lists will be updated annually.
Example Textbook Lists
Checks and Balances
Various steps are taken to ensure that all AP Course Audit materials are reviewed fairly and consistently:
- Teachers are able to submit syllabi up to three times before a final determination about the course is made.
- Senior reviewers will perform complete back-up review for all courses that are not authorized after the initial review. The senior reviewer will either confirm or negate the judgments of the reviewer.
- Reviewers will regularly rate pre-scored, benchmark documents intermixed with new submissions to ensure consistent, reliable rating. If a reviewer rates a benchmark document inaccurately, that reviewer will be required to complete an online retraining exercise before being allowed to resume reviewing.
- Every 20th syllabus that is authorized in its first review will be re-read.
- The ratings that each reviewer gives each course will be tracked statistically to identify outliers. This analysis will gauge leniency and severity bias as well as unusual patterns in the responses to individual items. The analysis will also track the time spent analyzing each document to determine whether any reviewer is rating documents too quickly.
- Each reviewer's statistical profile will be generated daily, and the profiles will be reviewed each day to identify anomalies. Any reviewer demonstrating an anomaly will be contacted and the anomaly will be discussed with the reviewer. A senior reviewer will also examine a random sample of the reviewer's documents to look for any problems or discrepancies.
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