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What Does the Future Hold for Online Education?

What Does the Future Hold for Online Education?

Guide to Online Education > Online Education Trends > What The Future Holds > Online Education and Standards of Excellence

1. Growth of Online Education Abroad
2. Online Learning and K-12 Education
3. Online Education and Reusable Learning Objects
4. Standards of Excellence for Online Education

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Looking ahead to the future, another important issue facing online education is ensuring the quality of the online student’s educational experience. In the United States, educational institutions are given a “seal of approval”, known as accreditation, after a undergoing a voluntary peer review process to determine if minimum criteria are being met. Accreditation verifies that a school or program offers a quality educational experience.

Outside of the United States, similar bodies are tasked with ensuring the educational standards in colleges and universities. These accreditation organizations have developed a set of standards that, if followed, provide a measure of excellence. As online learning challenges the traditional metrics of education, there has been a great deal of discussion regarding what standards should be established.

Organizations must consider issues such as:

• Address how to make education available to those who are disabled
• Be able to deal with different copyright laws
• Decide how to make education available in various languages
• Define how to measure student learning
• Define what constitutes a quality education
• Establish what constitutes excellent student services
• Provide for technical support
• Resolve hardware and software compatibility

There are many ways in which to answer these questions. Once these issues are resolved and regulated, online learning will need to standardize course excellence. Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States all make use of regional or national accreditation bodies; other nations allow for most colleges and universities to have their own departments to help determine particular standards. Luckily, new consortiums have formed to help sort through these issues and provide a set of global standards. Preliminary reports show a surprisingly close standard of excellence in all participating countries.

Related links:

• e-xcellence
• IMS Global Learning
• CETIS
• The Council for Higher Education Accreditation
• The Sloan Consortium
• Educause
• Baldridge National Quality Program

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