First the organisation that seeks for obtaining a label for either the whole institution or a program/course needs to contact the Open ECBCheck Administration Office for a first inquiry (0. in figure 3). In this step, the applying organisation is informed by the Administration Office about the process that needs to be completed to obtain the label as well as about all costs and tasks. If the institution decides to continue the process, the eligibility application will follow.

In the second step (1. and 2. in figure 3) the applying institution has to fill in a first brief questionnaire (see Annex 2) either for the institutional process or the process for a program/course to find out whether the institution or programme/course meet the scope of Open ECBCheck and the organisation or program/course have a realistic chance to obtain the label. This application form is evaluated by the Administration Office and it is decided whether the institution or programme/course is eligible. If it is decided that the institution or programme/course is not eligible, the Open ECBCheck Administrative Office provides the institution with feedback on the reasons as well as advice on the question whether a reapplication would be an option in the future and what issues would have to be changed before. If the organisation is decided eligible the process can be taken further. As the analysis of existing standards and labels has suggested, this eligibility application is of importance to make sure that a programme or course falls into the scope of Open ECBCheck for the case of programme certification, that an organisation understands that the process needs at least a certain level of seriousness to be completed and that the programme or institution has the potential to successfully complete the certification process.

The next step (3. in figure 3), self-assessment of the organisation, is very crucial. The organisation will be provided with a ToolKit (the ToolKit is based on Excel and provided in digital form online) that is the foundation for the institution to perform an extensive self-assessment based on a catalogue of quality criteria. The criteria and the full ToolKit are available before starting the process due to the community architecture described previously This self-assessment is evidence based and thus organisations that conduct the assessment are not only required to record self-evaluations for each criterion within the ToolKit but they are also required to provide proof for their rating. This proof may be provided in form of protocols, concept papers, curricula, information brochures or any other document that may proof the self-rating.

The self-assessment has two targets. On the one hand, it is an assessment of the quality of programmes/institutions and forms the foundation for the decision if a label will be granted and thus needs to be thorough, extensive and enough proof has to be added to the self-assessment report, which will be the result of the self-assessment. On the other hand, the self-assessment has a learning function for the organisation and will provide the organisation with the possibility to identify areas of improvement. If the organisation performing the self-assessment for either the institution itself or a program/course believes that the self-assessment report is sufficiently completed, it can be submitted to the Open ECBCheck Administration Office.

During the self-assessment phase, the Administrative Office also proposes two peer-reviewers that will receive the self-assessment report for review.

These peer-reviewers are as well members of the Open ECBCheck community and should belong to Capacity Building Organisations that already have successfully completed the certification. While assigning peer-reviewers the Administrative Office has to take into account that there are no known potential interest conflicts (e.g. the institution of the peer-reviewer may be a competitor of the institution providing the self-assessment; also the institutions may be close partners, a sign of possible positive prejudice).

Furthermore, the assessed institution may object to one of the proposed peer-reviewers in case significant reasons exist; institutions are also obligated to inform the Administrative Office about any possible positive prejudice.

When the self-assessment report is finished and the peer-reviewers are set, the peer-review process begins as the next step (4. and 5. in figure 3) based on a peer-review guideline (see Annex 3). For each criterion, the reviewers assess whether the rating of the organisation is reasonable with regard to the provided proof and description by the organisation. Within the process, it is not only assessed whether the required documents and proof are provided but also the provided information is reviewed on comprehensibility and possible areas for improvement are identified. Three criteria need to be satisfied for a positive result of the peer-review:

clarity of provided information, comprehensiveness of provided information and validity. Clarity of information relates to the question, if the provided information on a criterion is clearly understandable.

Comprehensiveness relates to the question if all necessary information has been included to back up the rating of a criterion within the self-assessment. And finally, validity is related to the question, if the rating of a criterion is reasonable in light of the provided proof. However, not the programme/course or the institution are reviewed directly. Also, no peer-review team visit at the organisation is included as such a visit would likely be too time and resource consuming for most of the Capacity Building Organisation, especially smaller ones operating in developing countries. If data or details are unclear or unsatisfactory, peer-reviewers will have to ask the organisation via the Open ECBCheck Administrative Office to provide missing or update incomplete parts of the self-assessment report. The additional data or details have to be provided within an acceptable timeframe defined by the Administrative Office. Depending on the amount of revision necessary the timeframe is suggested up to two weeks.

The peer-reviewers then write a peer-review report based on the provided self-assessment and materials to proof the results. This peer-review report contains three main areas. Firstly, the reviewers provide the organisation with a summary of the self-assessment review including most importantly all criteria where the peer-reviewers disagreed with the self-assessment rating with a corresponding reason. Secondly, the peer-review report includes a recommendation, whether an institution or a program should be awarded with the Open ECBCheck label that is considered by the Open ECBCheck Awarding Body. Thirdly, the peer-reviewers write a detailed learning report that highlights those shortcomings and contains improvement possibilities and suggestions. As learning is one main goal of Open ECBCheck, the learning report should provide the receiving institution with advice and best practice for each of the criteria where improvements are suggested. As soon as the peer-review report is completed it is submitted to the attention of the Administrative Office.

In the final step (6. and 7. in figure 3) the Awarding Body will be provided with the anonymous peer-review report for a programme/course or institution.

The decision whether a label is granted will be taken by simple majority vote of the Awarding Body and does not need to correspond with the suggestion of the peer-review report. If the peer-review report is not satisfactory to decide, the Awarding Body will have to send back the report for a revision via the Administrative Office. Again, the Administrative Office has to set an appropriate deadline. If the decision is positive, the Awarding Body will inform the institution about the completion of the process and the Administrative Office to update the official register of institutions or programmes/courses that obtained the label. Furthermore, the Awarding Body forwards the learning report from the peer-reviewers to the organisation for further improvement. After awarding, the label is valid for three years and an organisation needs to report on achievements based on the learning report (8. in figure 3) and also may re-apply (9. in figure 3) for certification. If the decision is negative, the Awarding Body will inform the institution about the reasons for not awarding the label and will as well provide the learning report for possible improvements. Any institution or program/course will need to wait for about one year before a re-application will be possible and the Awarding Body has to offer advice to the organisation what would be the minimum required changes to make a reapplication reasonable. The Administration Office has to be informed about the rejection to make sure that there is no reapplication before the one year waiting period.