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Initially drafted by the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications and further developed by The Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions, the “Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs” promotes well-established essentials of institutional quality and espouse the philosophy that education is best experienced within a community of learning; that learning is dynamic and interactive; and that the academic programs have integrity and a coherent curricula which define expected learning outcomes.
These best practices are divided into five components.
- Electronically offered programs both support and extend the roles of educational institutions, with growing implications for institutional infrastructure.
- Methods change, but standards of quality endure. The important issues are not technical but curriculum-driven and pedagogical. Decisions about such matters are made by qualified professionals and focus on learning outcomes for an increasingly diverse student population.
- Faculty roles are becoming increasingly diverse and reorganized. Workload, compensation, ownership of intellectual property are just a few examples.
- Colleges and universities have learned that the twenty-first century student is different, both demographically and geographically. These differences affect everything from admissions policy to library services.
- Both the assessment of student achievement and evaluation take on added importance. Institutions should conduct sustained, evidence-based and participatory inquiry as to whether distance learning programs are achieving objectives.
The Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs is at http://www.ncahigherlearningcommission.org/resources/electronic_degrees/. To summarize:
Best
Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs
Institutional context and commitment
Curriculum and instruction
Faculty support
Student support
Evaluation and assessment
Destination 10: 3
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