distance learning education

							      How can you tell what the students are learning when they are not here?

Three recently published documents are likely to have a major impact on how CUA and
other universities are permitted to develop and offer distance education courses. As
colleges move to create online courses, the agencies that accredit educational institutions
are signaling on how this new technology will change the practices of accrediting those
institutions.

Some pundits have hailed distance education as an inspired way to make education
accessible to all, while others see it as creating a two-tiered system of education, with
secluded campuses for the haves, and a computer education for the have nots. Whatever
your view of distance education, it has arrived. A recent study by Dunn & Bradstreet's
Market Data Retrieval found 70% of accredited two- and four-year schools now offer
some form of distance learning.

Distance Learning: Academic and Political Challenges for Higher Education
Accreditation (online at http://www.chea.org/Commentary/index.html ) is a monograph by Judith
Eaton, the President of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Ms. Eaton
highlights three issues that must be addressed in the new environment where a physical
site may not be part of the educational equation.

   Can federal funds be accountably delivered in a distance learning environment?

   Can accreditation continue to be relied upon to assure quality in a distance learning
    environment or will alternative forms of quality review be needed?

   Can the federal government remain comfortable with the principle of self-regulation
    in higher education as distance learning expands, or are more government controls
    needed?

The author posits that without physical plants to inspect, and full-time faculty credentials
to review, that accreditors will turn more toward student achievement to judge
institutional performance.

The Statement of Commitment by the Regional Accrediting Commissions for the
Evaluation of Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs
(http://www.wiche.edu/telecom/Article1.htm) is a general discussion on how the regional
commissions are dealing with the emergence of distance education. The regional
commissions only accredit degree granting institutions of higher learning, and do not
accrediting distance education programs that do not lead to a degree. However, if degree
granting colleges and universities offer distance education training, such activities will be
subject to evaluation by the accreditors.

The Statement raises, but does not answer, the obvious question of how an accreditation
system set up by geographical regions will evaluate and accredit a virtual institution. The
Statement also notes that the first time development of distance education programming
leading to a degree for off campus students will be subject to careful prior review.

Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs, billed as a
work in progress, is perhaps the most practically- oriented of the three documents dealing
with distance education and accreditation. Best Practices is intended for use by the
regional accrediting commissions in conjunction with their own policies and procedures.
College administrators can use the document as a checklist as they consider offering
distance education courses. For example, does the university have a policy dealing with
ownership of intellectual property? If the university will be offering distance education
courses, Best Practices indicates adoption of such a policy is a must.

Other questions raised in Best Practices are the following:

   What support services are available to those responsible for preparing courses or
    programs to be offered electronically? Does the staff include qualified instructional
    designers?

   What orientation and training programs are available to those responsible for program
    development?

   What is the history of student retention in this program?

   What evidence is there that the program is consistent with the role and mission of the
    institution including its goals with regard to student access?

   Does institutional documentation indicate an awareness of legal and regulatory
    requirements of the jurisdictions in which it operates, e.g. requirements for service to
    those with disabilities, copyright law, state and national requirements for institutions
    offering educational programs, and international restrictions such as export of
    sensitive information or technologies?

Implicit in all of the questions raised is the larger question of whether the rush to offer
distance education courses is in keeping with “seeking truth and serving students”1 or
whether distance education will simply end up as modern day correspondence courses.


Related material: See the interview with Michael Haney, a program officer with National
Science Foundation, for a look at how the NSF views distance education proposals.

Note: Links to the eight regional accrediting commissions are available at
http://www.chea.org/Directories/regional.htm




1
 Words of Derek Bok, former President of Harvard, in a statement on academic institutions and
commercial activities.