Transcript Distance Education Regulations Update

Distance Education Regulations
Update
Dr. Mike Rogers
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Faculty Development
Office of Academic Affairs
BOR
What Do We Know?
•
October 2010- U.S. Department of Education (DoE), as part of final “Program
Integrity” rules, requires Title IV schools to secure any required state approvals for
out-of-state distance learning- state-by-state beyond the school’s home state.
•
April 2011- Following considerable debate about the rationale and practicalities
of compliance, DoE shifts full implementation from July 2011 to July 2014, but in
the meantime expects “good faith” compliance efforts by schools.
•
April-August 2011- Schools get up-to-speed on complexity of state-by-state
compliance, and some states clarify or revise their requirements. Some schools opt
to withdraw from certain states.
•
April-August 2011- SHEEO works to provide an “authoritative” guide to state
requirements; and The Presidents’ Forum and COSG, supported by the Lumina
Foundation, explore an interstate compact.
•
July 2011- a federal court throws out DoE’s requirement on state regulation and
distance learning, but on a consultation technicality. State authority unaffected.
DoE next step unclear, but DoE may already have necessary statutory authority to
proceed, or opt to institute formal consultation.
•
September 2011 – DOE appeals ruling that vacated state authorization ruling.
What Do We Know?
• State regulations predate the federal
regulation.
• State regulations survive anything that
happens to the federal regulation.
• States with regulations expect you to be in
compliance before you enroll the first
student in that state.
What Do We Know?
• Confusion – respondents don’t understand the
nuances of regulations from state-to-state.
• Difficult processes – some of the requirements
seem duplicative of accreditation, unnecessary,
and expensive.
• Little value added – from their point of view this
gets in the way of serving students, but they
aren’t seeing the need for consumer protection.
• Consistency – they would like to see more
uniformity or reciprocity among states.
What Has the USG Done?
• Established a website to track ALL information about this issue –
http://www.usg.edu/academics/distance_education_regulations.
• March 2011– sent email to each state asking if USG could apply as a
system. Alabama, Vermont and Nebraska said yes. Florida - ?
• May 2011 – held a state wide DE Regulations meeting.
• May 2011 – established a state by state matrix of responses.
• May 2011 – posted information regarding what USG institutions should
do regarding acceptance of students.
• May 2011 – advised institutions to begin to seek approval.
• Continue to update website
frequentlyhttp://www.usg.edu/academics/distance_education_regulati
ons
SREB ACTIONS
• Programs listed in the Electronic Campus are
considered part of an SREB reciprocal
agreement between 15 of the 16 SREB states.
• Free Trade Zone Agreement.
• Working to achieve reciprocity with other
regional organizations.
Letter Sent to SREB States:
• Dr. Linda Noble from the University System of Georgia
recently contacted you asking for instructions for our
state institutions to obtain authorization to offer
distance education courses to students from your state.
Through this letter we are following up to your response
to her March 22, 2011 email. As sister SREB member
states participating in electronic campus.org and through
the current SREB Free Trade Zone agreement, we believe
our institution is in compliance with your state
regulations by having programs listed in the electronic
campus. Please let us know if any further action is
required for authorization to offer distance education
programs in your state.
What Should Institutions Be Doing?
1. Determine where your out-of-state DE students
are coming from.
2. Use a sound business decision process to
determine whether to seek approval from:
• All 50+ states and territories or…
• A specific geographic area or…
• States with high student population for you or …
• Your criteria
• Until such time as your institution makes a
business decision that it will not accept students
from certain states due to additional costs
required to attain authorization resulting from
authorization to offer DE course in those states,
you should conduct your business as usual.
What Should Institutions Be Doing ?
• Document business process but do not publish
• Seek approval from your selected states
• Post a statement to your web site similar to
what North Georgia has done
• Go about your business as normal
What Should Institutions Be Doing?
• https://sites.google.com/site/uwgstateapprov
als/
• Recently enacted federal regulations requiring enforcement of
state laws affecting the delivery of distance education degrees,
programs and courses to students whose physical presence is in a
state other that Georgia may limit <INSTITUTION’s> ability to offer
online opportunities to these students. If you wish to enroll in one
of our online offerings and are located in a state other than
Georgia, please inquire before enrolling to determine if we have
acquired permission to offer online courses in your state. You may
email your inquiry to (insert email address.) Please note that this
email address is exclusively for questions regarding state approval
of online offerings. Other types of inquiries should be sent to the
academic department offering the online courses.
• An live example may be seen
at:http://www.northgeorgia.edu/Graduate_Admissions/Degree_
Programs/Graduate_Programs.aspx
CONSUMER COMPLAINT PROCESS
1. Have available SACS contact information
2. Have a consumer complaint hotline
available
•
•
Posted on your website
Hosted by a third party
3. Have available consumer complaint hotlines
to the states from which you have online
students.
•
SHEEO has this data but you may not link to it.