 Prior to the Standards' development, existing quality control mechanisms in education abroad were few and those in place were mainly used on an ad hoc basis.Existing mechanisms included regional and disciplinary accreditation, in-country accreditation and reviews (APUNE), institutional guidelines and practices, internal or outside reviewers, student evaluations, faculty and department reviews, advisory boards, approved program lists as some institutions.The first edition of the Standards were released in 2004, and the second edition was put out the next year.