Ummmm, maybe not secret but very quiet. A "program integrity" rule. Education Department enforced distance education rule before it was published | Inside Higher Ed
This is very informative Kiz. Now I know why Liberty and NCU are both very stringent about the time frames in which you participate in a discussion board; that's how the government determines if you are attending an online class. Online class discussion boards are a useless pain, IMO, but they are here to stay if that's how the government determines federal aid status.
Thanks a lot federal government. “It does seem rather inappropriate that the department would ask us to spend a week of our work time, not serving students, but rather responding to their requests, when they had not even published their regulations in the Federal Register,” Glapa-Grossklag said. I know that in this regulatory environment, my company spends more time and money trying to comply with the latest government legislation that hasn't even been codified into coherent regulations than serving its customers. It is a resource drain and effects American companies' abilities to compete in the global market.
It has become very difficult to deal with the Department of Education during the past couple of years. We had a couple of nice folks from the USDOE come to campus for their regularly scheduled visit. As I discussed how distance learning operated at our institution, it became apparent that these people had extremely little experience with distance learning and they admitted that we were only the second university with an online program that they had visited. My Executive Director and I invited them to come across the street to our offices and we would be happy to educate them on how online courses operate, what learning management systems do (and do not do) and any other issues in which they might be interested. They never showed up. Later, we were asked to provide what turned out to be over 4,000 pages of documentation on student activities within the online courses (they would not accept the official records from our student information system, nor will they accept electronic documents--we were required to kill trees instead). We were then told that we needed to create new online attendance policies (which we have) and to familiarize ourselves with the laws and regulations regarding what constitutes academic engagement in online courses (which do not exist), so we used the DOE documents on activities that do and do not constitute academic attendance (which is probably what they meant). Now they want us to apply the July 1st regulations RETROACTIVELY, going back to 2009. So, this article, reflects my and my department's life for the past year (taking time and personnel away from students to generate piles of paper for the US DOE).
Yet another reason the DOE needs to be reevaluated and potentially dismantled. I think each and every department needs to go through a serious reevaluation every 10 years. We need to get rid of programs that do not work.
The U.S. DOE was established by President Carter and began operations in 1980. Since that time, according to the Federal Budget Office, DOE has received approximately 1.2 TRILLION dollars in federal allotment (not counting the substantial extra monies coming to DOE from President Obama's stimulus plan). I suppose that what we can ask is whether that 1.2 trillion investment has resulted in significant improvements in U.S. education. What is the ROI on the DOE?
Just out of curiosity, when did the Department of Education get into the business of recognizing accrediting agencies?
I think the ROI from the DOE is MIA. It is sad that a quality institution like Sullivan has to jump through hoops created by ill-informed bureaucrats.
It's yet another externality of Title IV funding. In this case, he who loans the money to those who pay the piper is he who calls the tune.
Not sure about ED, but I believe Congress was recognizing accreditation organizations since the 1950s or earlier.
SurfDoctor, what do you know about Sullivan? I spoke with Ryan from their doctoral admissions department and got a very good feeling about that school. Of course I go off topic again. Maybe I should start a new thread.
