Two Schools Lapse on Accreditation

If "stringent" means rigorous and exacting, then the notion that DETC's standards are "less stringent" but not "inferior" is a non sequitur. If "stringent" means "inflexible," perhaps DETC's standards are equally rigorous, yet more flexible.

Naw....

 

I'm not sure that I get the idea that a school seek DETC accreditation until it is "big enough" to seek RA. There are a myriad of regionally accredited schools with student populations in the hundreds, rather than tens of thousands. I would be surprised to hear a college president declare, "well, we had the choice of being regionally accredited, but we chose national accreditation because it was less expensive."

Accreditation (RA or NA) allows an institution's students to seek federal financial aid. Here's the rub: As we know, the DETC was established to accredit correspondence schools and any student taking (or school offering) more than 50% of its courses through correspondence is ineligible for federal financial aid (hence the DETC's shift from correspondence education).

 

Intriguing idea; however, I must return to my original point: If DETC established a programmatic accrediting commission, what could they offer my university's online program that we do not already get from our regional accreditation from SACS? The value-add of ABET certification for technology and engineering programs is clear. What would justify the time, effort and expense of an RA institution to seek DETC accreditation?

 

There are regionally accredited schools with student populations below the hundreds. WASC, for example, accredits Deep Springs College, American Conservatory Theater, and Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, and their total enrollments are in the 25-30 range. So size is not necessarily the issue -- it's more about financial resources. These particular schools presumably have such resources, despite their small size.

On the other hand, Columbia Southern University is big (~ 17,500 students), but is accredited by DETC. They don't seem to be pursuing RA, despite their large size.

 

Actually, Columbia Southern does have an RA connection. CSU is owned by Mayes Education, which bought RA Waldorf College in 2010. Waldorf is a B&M school in Iowa that has now expanded into online programs. The business strategy may be to maintain separate DETC and RA operations, in which case there may be no need to change accreditation at CSU, regardless of its size.

 

I think it's no secret that the quality of DL delivery is highly variable. An association like DETC could, hypothetically, push the quality envelope and help schools with poor delivery to improve. They could become a "center of excellence" for DL. Communications, research, journals, and accrediting degree programs that teach people how to create online learning are just a few things they could do. It would do a heckuva lot more for higher education than accrediting SCUPS.

 

True. Of course it is just as true that there is at least as much variation in quality in the delivery of face-to-face courses.

I would agree, but I am not certain that the DETC is in the position to do this, without a major influx of research, development and delivery talent that currently resides outside the NA community. DETC does offer a conference, however, judging by the prior programs, it does not offer much in terms of advancing the state-of-the-art of distance learning and teaching. In actuality, Sloan-C offers everything that you mention, minus the ability to accredit. If the DETC were able to merge with Sloan-C and WCET, then they could have a decent shot at this.

 

Yeah, but that variability is from individual instructors, not different delivery systems. In some DL programs, even good instructors get buried by the crappy delivery system. In the classroom, however, the variability is totally due to individual instructors and their limitations. It's not like there are different classroom-based delivery systems employed by various schools.

 

You are correct that the variability in F2F classes is based on the instructor, but I would say that, most often, the same is true of DL courses (having overseen hundreds of faculty at more than one institution and with 4 different LMSs). I have witnessed well-designed online courses that were taught poorly by faculty and successful online courses, where the instructor largely mitigated the effects of a poorly designed course.

By "delivery system," I assumed that you meant the LMSs, but I could be completely misunderstanding what you wrote.

 

As usual, we're in violent agreement!

By "system," I mean the computer system used (e.g. Blackboard), but also the instructional design system (ISD) process, as well as how they prepare faculty for the online environment. True, this last one is also a factor in classroom-based instruction, but I've found it to be acute in DL. Sooooo many faculty can muddle by in the classroom (aided by textbooks, PowerPoint presentations, student activities, and other things that take the pressure off one's ability to facilitate a classroom discussion). Those same people get to the online environment and practically disappear.

Imagine if DETC led the way in preparing faculty to teach online? Just a small thing overall, but if they were the center of excellence for facilitating online instruction, schools could either "send" their faculties there to learn it or take the principles in-house and do it. Either way, the level of instruction would inevitably rise, which would be a good thing.

The possibilities are almost limitless. Instead, DETC chooses to focus on accrediting Southwest U. CSU (both of them), and a bunch of other run-of-the-mill operations that ought to go elsewhere for accreditation.

Or how about this? DETC provides accreditation, then consults with each school to help them get RA! We turn the "stepping stone" process into a GOOD thing, and one that has positive progression! That would be a cool business model for DETC, and would serve the public in a big-time way.

Maybe I ought to go to work for DETC?

 

DETC has announced that the accreditation of the following schools will lapse as of March 31, 2013:

- Humanities and Sciences Academy of the United States, Tempe, AZ
- Humanities and Sciences Academy Arizona, Tempe, AZ
- International Commerce Secondary Schools, Tempe, AZ
- Deakin University, Geelong, VC, Australia
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The first three are accredited in the "high school" category. They share the same Tempe address as Harrison Middleton University, so there may be some connection. HMU is accredited separately; their DETC accreditation is not due for renewal until January 2018

 

And Deakin is one of those violations of DETC policy (by DETC, of course): accrediting residential schools and accrediting schools awarding the Ph.D. When asked, a highly placed DETC official declined to comment. Naturally.