The Collaborative Online System for Accreditation (COSA) was initially conceptualized by the Vice-President, Quality Assurance and Institutional Effectiveness. The University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) was in the process of seeking accreditation and a system was needed to manage, people, documents and other resources involved in this process.



The Manager, Knowledge and Compliance Systems, was given the mandate to acquire or develop a system to facilitate this exercise. After extensive research on accreditation systems the development approach was adopted and thus COSA was created. COSA was successfully launched in April 2010 and rolled out to all staff members of the accreditation self-study steering committee. This software was also instrumental in expediting  the accreditation process of UTT.
COSA is web based interactive software that provides the following features and benefits:

• Accessibility from any web browser
• Resource Management
• Tracking users progress
• Facilitation of team communication
• Built-in collaboration tools
• Allow stakeholders to become engaged in the accreditation process regardless of their  location
• Contains many built-in reports
• Users can view preliminary Self-Study submission at any stage of preparation
• Real-time updating of information