Quality distance education programs

In situations such as this, lack of an institutional vision for distance learning is usually at the center of the problem. Reprinted from Distance Education Report, All Rights Reserved. Skip to content. Online Education. October 31, Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti. Post Views: 1, Sign Up for Faculty Focus! First Name. Last Name. Global boundaries are vanishing, merging people of diverse cultures, nationalities and age groups.

Distance learning opens new dimensions of opportunities for students to obtain higher education without the constraint of location and time. Distance Education is a form of education in which student is not physically present at the school. They learn through e-content compri- sing of videos and e-books. Traditionally, every student has Today anyone can learn anything on the Internet from anywhere in the world. That is why the According to the Census of India , the population of India is 1.

Which means Education is the most important The relationship between students and faculty members is very cordial, which helped me a great deal to excel in the areas of my interest. The time I've spent over here actually helped me to grow both in my professional and personal life. JNU has provided me with a platform to explore my potential to a great extent and just because of that I was always in the top ranks of many competitions, such as Sudoku Contest, Chess Tournament, Cricket and Technorazz.

I have secured my place in OYO Rooms with all the help provided by the placement department. I would like to thank all of my faculty members for helping me to become a better person.

Thank you for creating such wonderful opportunities for me. And it was all possible only because I had confidence in myself and the members of Placement cell, JNU that encouraged me a lot and it means a lot. Call Us. To provide acceptable, high-quality programs, institutions need to show commitment to achieving a level of excellence comparable to the quality, integrity, student support, and effectiveness evident in their traditional campus instruction.

Adopted in March , these documents demonstrate the commitment of the regional accrediting agencies to encouraging excellent practices in distance education, including the importance of standardization in the accreditation process of DE programs. These documents, however, are not the endpoint of efforts to improve the evaluation of DE quality. Rather, they represent the beginning phase of endeavors to promote quality standards in a new and evolving field.

It is not yet clear how institutions will use these working documents as authoritative and consistent evaluation guidelines to measure the achievement of the required standards for single-mode and dual-mode DE programs or web-enhanced courses. As described in the Best Practices document, such efforts are still a work in progress. The disruption and altered forms of online learning following the emergency remote instruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic is a clear indication that more changes are forthcoming to meet the challenges of emerging practices in the evolution of distance education.

When considering the improvement or development of quality online learning courses and programs, the use of current quality standards established by different organizations can be helpful. OLC is structured as a membership resource organization that was established to improve quality in online teaching and learning. Efforts by these organizations provide useful benchmarking tools, checklists, and rubrics for faculty and course developers. Several accrediting agencies employ evidence-based methods to establish standards and evaluation criteria for institutional accreditations.

To accomplish this, evaluation criteria, checklists, and commissions rely on proven quality frameworks and guidelines such as the Quality Matters framework Delva et al. The DEAC accreditation handbook specifies relevant criteria for online learning, such as having sufficient design and delivery of materials with readily available and reliable technology DEAC, Disruptions by the Pandemic The spring COVID pandemic elicited a hastened response that drove higher education to incorporate online learning on a large scale as a necessity and convenience to continue to serve students.

This swift switch to remote work and learning led to significant changes Downs, The pandemic disrupted higher education operations, forcing institutions to deliver courses online that would enable students to continue their studies and practicum or internships and allow final-year students to graduate without adequate preparation for students and faculty.

The urgent nature of the pandemic did not permit the normal process of developing online courses to assure quality instruction. Institutions made rapid and significant changes that, under the circumstances, could not include training that would have been a normal procedure for administrators, faculty, and students. With the switch in full swing, it was essential for higher education institutions to change direction immediately, anticipating a future that could depend on online learning.

Downs, The pandemic affected the accreditation processes and disrupted the implementation of quality measures for courses that were not previously designed for online instruction but were rapidly converted for virtual delivery. The nature of that response did not allow institutions time to confer with the accrediting agencies. As the pandemic continued unabated, the C-RAC members unanimously agreed to measures developed to assure the continued delivery and quality evaluation of online courses.

Accreditors worked under the direction of the USDE, which provided them the grounds by which some requirements for institutions could be waived, such as conditions to permit institutions to switch to distance education and to allow accrediting agencies to perform the site visits virtually. The USDE guidance to accrediting agencies released in March of included the flexibility to bypass public comment periods and adoption by full agency membership, which has enabled accreditors to develop and adopt temporary policies as they navigate the challenges of the pandemic Dasher-Alston et al.

The USDE made certain pandemic-related accommodations for higher education accreditors. For instance, they were allowed to ignore the DE review requirements for institutions with plans to deliver distance education programs for students who were unable to attend classes on campus due to the pandemic, and they were authorized to perform virtual site visits.

Accreditors endeavored to provide support and guidance on how to navigate the challenges related to the potential spread of COVID as campuses reduced or suspended face-to-face instruction entirely.

Institutions were encouraged to inform their accreditors of the changes they have made to continue instruction, support students, and ensure quality. When the HLC board of directors realized in the spring of that the move to DE for almost all institutions would be a new reality and a deviation from the norm, they took rapid measures to approve temporary emergency policies that enabled the leadership to provide opportunities for institutions to address the challenges posed by the developing pandemic.

Many reviewers come from institutions that were closed and had imposed travel restrictions on their faculty and employees, just as most campuses scheduled for review were closed to visitors as faculty and employees worked remotely. To assure continuity of operation, HLC decided to institute and implement virtual evaluations conducted by peer reviewers using innovative evaluation methods with the understanding that follow-up visits would be scheduled as soon the travel bans were lifted.

Unfortunately, the pandemic was not as short-lived as had been anticipated Downs, Only a few institutions requested waivers. The majority of schools that received the waivers were comprised of small, rural institutions with poor connectivity problems, institutions offering specialized residential programs, and single-purpose institutions offering experiential programs.

In the summer of , HLC issued new guidelines that permitted institutions to request waivers that would expire on December 31, HLC, b. Qualifying institutions were required to show that they were committed to maintaining features of distance education quality as established on the HLC website.

The institutions that completed a virtual evaluation during the spring of were eligible to take part in a verification visit. The comprehensive evaluations that were planned for the fall of were conducted virtually by most of the review teams. Where it was not possible for reviewers to go to the campuses, HLC extended the verification visit protocol to consider rescheduling the visits during the spring of Institutions and accrediting agencies need to put measures in place to respond quickly and successfully when the unthinkable happens.

A lesson from the pandemic is to be prepared for any emergencies or sudden disruption in service. The efforts of the USDE, HLC, CHEA, and C-RAC to reach out to institutions during the pandemic are indicative of their interest in the continuity of instruction during a global emergency, interest in maintaining quality, and determination to reassure institutions of their support.

It also revealed the obvious issues plaguing the creation of concrete plans, namely the indeterminate nature of how long the pandemic would keep campuses closed, the type of training that faculty and students would need to flourish in distance learning, what the credit hour will look like in the future as institutions ponder the changes resulting from the disruptions, and the long-term effect closures would have for students, faculty, administrators, and other internal and external constituencies.

The premise of accreditation is the process of peer-review where the bulk of the accrediting commission members or those that decide the status of accreditation are faculty and administrators from other institutions.

With the travel limits in place due to the pandemic, reviewers resorted to virtual visits. Were those reviewers able to thoroughly accomplish their tasks? Will the video conferencing format be sufficient? Also, the notion of colleagues reviewing colleagues, which has been a long-standing practice in accreditation evaluations, raises concerns as some people perceive the potential for conflicts of interest or opening doors to favoritism.

Since this is a process that serves an important gatekeeping role for setting quality standards in instruction and gaining access to huge sums of money in federal aid, should a different independent process be instituted? Conclusion DE accreditation provides evidence of the high quality of a program and enables institutions and students to benefit from government funding.

DE programs require equal amounts of academic rigor and equivalent access to the support available to students in traditional face-to-face learning environments. Institutions developing DE programs need to be familiar with accreditation standards and conversant with the assessment strategies necessary to adapt and maintain those standards within an evolving academic context.

Accrediting organizations can help meet those challenges. As accreditation agencies establish criteria to assess and assure delivery of commensurate educational opportunities, they need to review and revise standards from time to time to incorporate the impact of new technologies and platforms as they are introduced.

Institutions need to respond to new standards set by the accrediting agencies, continually assessing DE programs and courses, and making necessary revisions to ensure the consistent improvement of content and delivery. Students need to understand the importance of verifying that the institution they plan to attend has been accredited by a recognized accrediting agency. As DE continues to evolve, higher education institutions will face challenges as they pursue quality in designing, developing, and delivering DE programs that reflect the nature of online teaching and the learning experience.

The pandemic has given accreditation agencies and institutions a formidable challenge: the impetus to engineering new, more sustainable, outcomes-based models to achieve and maintain standards in higher education DE programs. A lesson from the pandemic is to prepare for emergencies that result in sudden disruption in service. This paper is offered as a primer for a reflective view on reimagining DE quality assurance in higher education in a post-COVID era.

Checklist for evaluating compliance with federal regulations and related commission policies. Quality matters TM: An educational input in an ongoing design-based research project. American Journal of Distance Education , 29 3 , — Allen, I.

Digital learning compass: Distance education enrollment report Babson Survey Research Group.