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Distance Education Recommendations Issued
The eight regional commissions responsible for accrediting U.S. colleges and universities have issued final recommendations on the accreditation of distance education programs. The recommendations differ only slightly from a draft released earlier in the year.
While emphasizing the need to maintain quality in education even when courses are conducted over the Internet, the recommendations are vague on some crucial points. They say, for example, that education should be overseen by "academically qualified persons" or "competent professionals," without specifying that those people should be faculty members or what constitutes appropriate qualifications. In addition, the measures and outcomes by which programs are to be evaluated are left undefined. Also lacking is any reference to the faculty’s role in governance, even though all the accrediting bodies make such reference in their guidelines for evaluating traditional education programs. The AAUP’s position is that, as with all other curricular matters, the faculty should have primary responsibility for determining the policies and practices of an institution in regard to distance education.
The recommendations, titled Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs, will be used by the regional commissions as guidelines for accrediting distance education programs. They are available at <www.wiche.edu/telecom/Article1.htm>.
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