University and College Accountability Network
American university ranking database
The University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) provides information for prospective students and their parents to compare American private colleges and universities across a wide variety of characteristics. Users can search for participating institutions and compare important data and information, including admissions, cost, financial aid, popular majors, and campus safety. Links to the institutions' websites provide a "virtual campus tour."
U-CAN was publicly launched on September 26, 2007. At the time of the launch, more than 600 institutions had volunteered to participate. The network was developed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU).
On September 17, 2008, U-CAN launched enhanced features designed in response to focus groups. Features included an advanced search that increased the number of searchable fields from three to 17.
U-CAN represents the first time that colleges and universities have voluntarily joined and self-developed a system to provide data and information for prospective students. Other systems are under development by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of Universities. These are expected to be released publicly in 2009,
As of September 2008, information on more than 660 colleges and universities was available to the public, and another 75 had agreed to participate but had not yet publicly posted their data.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “University and College Accountability Network” as american university ranking database. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as american university ranking database. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 14, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7894985. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “University and College Accountability Network”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow University and College Accountability Network primary sources, University and College Accountability Network archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University and College Accountability Network”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “University and College Accountability Network” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.