News from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation-Summer 2022

June 21, 2022

Assuring Quality for Online Students: What Will Be the Future of Education?

Rebecca LaBoeuf
Content Writer

While it’s difficult to say exactly what education will look like come 2030 and beyond, one thing is for sure: Colleges and universities need to focus and their relationships with their students if they want their technology and data to work to their full potential.

“It is really important for institutions of higher education to recognize that particularly for online learners, we have to provide the supports that they need when they need them,” Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Chief Operating Officer Amelia Manning said. For example, many SNHU online students complete their assignments at night, outside of traditional school hours. Offering 24/7 tutoring services to help them at a time that makes the most sense for them meets students when they are in most need of support.

In addition to academic support, colleges and universities can match their students to advisors who are there to support them throughout their educational journey. “It starts first with knowing their students,” Manning said. “And so, the way that we think about the role of an advisor is that they approach the whole person."

She said it’s not just the classes a student needs to complete their degree or their academic standing. While those aspects are undoubtedly important, an advisor needs the larger picture to know how they can best support their students.

Some questions they seek to answer include:

  • Why is the student here?
  • What is the student doing or not doing that is impacting their success?
  • What is their motivation for going back to school?
  • What are their strengths, assets and resources?

Advisors and other student experience staff members need to consider what support students have at school and home to help them overcome obstacles and find success in college. “Learning is hard,” Manning said. "... What we have found over time is that the students that we serve sometimes lack the resources to be able to persist past those obstacles and that is where we can help," she said.

As a former academic advisor herself, Manning knows firsthand the relationships that can be forged with students and the pivotal role advisors can play in a student’s journey. “We are in a position where sometimes the advisor will step into that space to be the cheerleader, to be the challenger for our students, to be the one who's reminding them of why they're here,” she said.

Without that human connection and understanding, the data would be irrelevant.

This article is excerpted from an article published originally by Southern New Hampshire University. Click here to read the full article. Southern New Hampshire University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

Quality Review of Distance Education: It Starts with Curriculum

Leah K. Matthews
Executive Director
Distance Education Accrediting Commission

More than ever before, distance education makes it possible for students to engage in learning in any place and at any time. Today’s distance education students expect to receive quality education that has engaging content, active learning environments, collaborative groups, meaningful interactions, and the opportunity to participate deeply in the learning process. In short, they expect and deserve to benefit from their distance education experience.

To fulfill their obligation to students, institutions providing distance education need to make the investments necessary to carefully develop, examine, evaluate, and assure the quality of instructional design and the appropriateness of curricula content delivered via distance education. Utilizing a variety of instructional design methods and multiple techniques for interacting with curriculum content supports students to develop rich understandings and achieve learning outcomes. 

Accreditation standards for distance education provide a scaffolding for a practice that entails thoughtful and deliberate assessment of distance education quality. The curriculum standards implemented by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) provide one example for a quality review framework.

By design, DEAC’s accreditation standards for curricula are intended to address the validity and integrity of distance education curricula to include:
accepted educational and pedagogical principles;

  • the requirements of any applicable federal, state and/or industry regulators;
  • the standards implemented by other institutional and programmatic accrediting agencies;
  • input from academic and subject area specialists;
  • input from member institutions; and
  • input from the public, including students and employers of institutional graduates.

DEAC’s written accreditation standard for curricula and the layered and iterative review process that characterizes DEAC’s accreditation process ensure that the standards are appropriate, clear, and objective, for example:

Program learning outcomes reflect academic competencies at an appropriate level and rigor. . .  The effective design of program outcomes, curricula, and supplemental materials results in cohesive educational offerings and evaluation methods of student learning that are clearly connected to the stated outcomes. The institution delivers clear, up-to-date, and well-organized curricula and instructional materials and provides access to appropriate learning resources. Institutions present evidence that all educational offerings conform to commonly accepted education practices.(Accreditation Standard III, page 88, DEAC Accreditation Handbook.)

DEAC also considers curricula in the context of measurable and operational components, such as whether the academic content

  • Is mapped to, and supports, clearly defined program outcomes;
  • Includes learning activities consistent with accepted industry standards with respect to the degrees to be awarded, including, as applicable, research projects, supervised clinical practice, field work, applied research exercises, theses, and dissertations;
  • Is designed to be effectively presented on a distance learning model;
  • Reflects current knowledge and practice and be kept up to date and accurate through a regular review cycle;
  • Is developed using sound principles of learning and distance education instructional design principles;
  • Identifies course prerequisites and includes instructions and suggestions on how to study and how to use the instructional materials effectively; and
  • Is developed by qualified persons competent in distance education practices and experts in their subjects or fields (Standard III.E.). 

This approach, both conceptual and operational, provides a comprehensive matrix of interwoven requirements which examine curricular content, design, delivery, student achievement, rigor, resources, practica (if applicable), and documentation of academic credit hours awarded. In each case of quality review, curricula are evaluated within the context of the special requirements of a distance education teaching and learning model.

Further, DEAC assigns subject matter specialists to conduct a comprehensive in-depth evaluation of course/program materials through assessing the institution’s overall effectiveness of its online learning management system.  This evaluation culminates in a written assessment by trained subject matter experts. The scope and volume of materials submitted for a review of the curricula is more extensive for an initial applicant for DEAC accreditation than for an applicant for reaccreditation, but in each case, curricula materials are comprehensively reviewed for a range of representative courses, including general education, core coursework, electives as well as samples of student capstone projects, and dissertations.

Accreditors have a principal focus: establishing standards of accreditation and reviewing institutions and programs against these standards, most especially those related to curriculum and education quality. Institutions, for their part in the accreditation process, must be willing to engage in a deep and meaningful assessment of their curriculum and commit to quality improvement. And policymakers should address building the capacity of all educational institutions, including distance education, for underserved students, especially where access to quality and affordable options is extremely limited. All students, including distance education students, deserve this commitment.

CHEA Accreditation Podcast Series Available on CHEA Website

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has produced an accreditation podcast series that is now available on the CHEA website. The series features contributions from all seven of the accrediting organizations that serve on CHEA's Accreditor Advisory Council.

These short podcasts address accreditation and the accreditation process from the accreditor’s perspective. Each individual organization’s podcast speaks to issues of interest to accredited institutions and programs and the accreditation community. Their presentations will be of value to CHEA members and other accreditation stakeholders. Click here to listen to these podcasts.

CHEA Participates in UNESCO’s World Higher Education Conference in Barcelona

Representatives from CHEA and the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG) took part is sessions at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Higher Education Conference (WHEC), which took place May 18-20, 2022 in Barcelona, Spain. The conference is held every ten years, although the current WHEC was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 2,000 international participants attended the conference in-person, with another 8,000+ participants attending online.
 
CHEA was asked by the WHEC secretariat to participate and facilitate a roundtable discussion. CHEA chose to provide a panel discussion of recent CIQG research on diversity, equity and inclusion and how quality assurance agencies around the world respond to and enact equity in their quality assurance activities. Participating on the panel were Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, CHEA’s President; Michelle Claville, CHEA’s Vice President for Research and Policy Analysis; and CIQG Advisory Council members Nadia Badrawi, President of the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education; Carolyn Campbell, Senior Consultant and Board Member of The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education; and Jamil Salmi, global tertiary education expert.
 
Cynthia Jackson-Hammond also participated on a panel facilitated by the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) addressing quality assurance across borders. Dr. Jackson-Hammond was asked to provide her observations, from a U.S. perspective, related to quality assurance initiatives internationally.
 
More information on these sessions and the WHEC will be included in the next issue of the CIQG newsletter, Quality International.

CHEA Holds 2022 Summer Roundtable

The 2022 CHEA Summer Roundtable was held virtually on June 15, 2022. More than 300 registrants took part in the all-day conference, which was open only to CHEA members, CIQG members and CHEA-recognized accrediting organizations.

The importance of innovation was a theme echoed throughout the Summer Roundtable. The program  featured three hour-long sessions:

  • Innovation in Higher Education was moderated by Collette Pierce Burnett, President and CEO of Huston-Tillotson University and featured Barbara Gellman-Danley, President of the Higher Learning Commission and James Oliver, Pithan Executive Director of Innovation at Iowa State University. The discussion focused on the challenges – and opportunities – for institutions and for accrediting organizations to be innovative, with panelists agreeing that bold leadership is needed to support innovation and risk-taking. All also agreed that not innovating was no longer an option for institutions or accreditors.
  • The “Vulnerable” Areas of Confirming Institutional Accreditation was moderated by Jahan Culbreath, CHEA’s Director of Federal Relations and featured Kassandra Ardinger, a member of the CHEA Board of Directors and a trustee of the University System of New Hampshire and Sonny Ramaswamy, President of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. Issues discussed ranging from enrollment declines to institutional and system mergers and to the need to better communicate the value proposition of attending college. While the seriousness of the challenges facing institutions was not downplayed, panelists agreed that the issues also pose opportunities for new approaches to address problems and find innovative ways to support student learning outcomes.
  • The CHEA Arbitration Process featured Jan Friis, CHEA’s Senior Vice President for Government Affairs and Lisa Parker, a partner with Husch Blackwell. The CHEA Arbitration process is a new and innovative approach to providing a non-binding arbitration process that can be used by institutions and accrediting organizations to avoid legal action to contest final arbitration decisions resulting in denial or removal of accreditation. The program will be launched on January 1, 2023, with more information available on the CHEA website by November 1, 2022.

“We thank all of the participants at the Summer Roundtable for their thoughtful presentations, as well as the excellent questions and answers at each session,” said CHEA President Cynthia Jackson-Hammond. “The level of participation and active involvement by speakers and attendees alike made this a truly outstanding conference.”