Rating Online Colleges

You may have been disappointed by what you've found on the websites of the most well-known guides to colleges and universities because they do not often specifically address online programs, or, if they do, they do not answer the questions that you have. Further, you may be disappointed because it is hard to find a clear list or description of what it means to have an online program of high quality.

For example, if you go to Peterson's guide to education, you can enter the search term, "online" and come up with a list of colleges and universities that offer online courses and programs. However, there are no descriptions of what an online program means or offers, nor are there ratings, or even lists of criteria. Instead, all you get are links to programs that have "online" somewhere in their key words.

For those who turn to the U. S. News and World Report for their lists, "America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools", the information is equally incomplete. One will find that the major online colleges are not in any of the lists one is most likely to see. You might be surprised to find that University of Phoenix, Capella, Thomas Edison, and others are nowhere in the 100 Top Schools, nor do they figure in the top 25 of the Tier 3 or Tier 4 schools. Further, their criteria seems remarkably irrelevant to most online colleges: freshman retention rate, classes with fewer than 20 students, full-time faculty, and freshmen in the top 10% of high school class. These criteria are fairly meaningless because online colleges typically use adjunct faculty, have part-time adult students, and the class size tends to be around 25.

This is not to say that criteria have not been developed for evaluating online programs. Accrediting bodies and distance learning associations, specifically WICHE and Sloan-C have been very pro-active in coming up with guidelines, best practices, and benchmarks for online programs. Sloan-C's Five Pillars of Quality Online Education is a classic, and is followed by most of the 500 or so colleges and universities in the consortium. The Sloan-C Synthesis of Effective Practices is very valuable for colleges and universities seeking to maintain high-quality programs. Similarly, Quality Matters has developed a checklist and rubric for evaluating and developing online courses.

The problem with the quality issues is that they tend to be completely provider-side, and do not help you, the prospective student, who just wants to find a good program.

What do you do? One good approach is to visit the websites of the colleges that interest you and answer the following questions:

-Do they use a course management system for online courses? If so, which one is it? How easy is it to use?

-Is there an easy-to-find technical support team?

-Do they offer training or orientation with the online course management system?

-How many courses and programs are 100% online?

-What are the library resources that are available for elearners? Databases? Journals? Are the college's online library holdings appropriate for your major?

-How many online courses are offered and how often are they offered? How long do they last? Is there flexibility?

-Are you able to review a sample course?

-Does the college have creative initiatives for the eLearner? Do they offer audio or iPod courses? Mobile learning? Online video?

-Does the college seem to have an energetic approach to online, that engages your interest?

-Consortium membership? If the college is a member of the Western Governors' initiative (WICHE), Sloan-C, or another online consortium, that is a good indication of the college's commitment to quality.

-Does the college offer federal financial aid through Title IV? If so, there is a chance that the college will have had to adhere to certain standards such as retention rate, graduation rates, and satisfactory academic progress. To use Title IV as a quality standard can be misleading, though. Many innovative programs choose not to conform to the Title IV standards because they claim it makes their program too "cookie cutter."

-What is the college's mission? What is their vision? Is it clearly articulated? Does it make sense to you?

-Does the college have regional accreditation? In the case of distance education, accreditation through the Distance Training and Education Council may actually be better.

-What is the college all about? Who are their board members? What is their financial situation? Who are their partners? Do they seem to have adequate infrastructure to handle online?

I'd really like to see more alumni groups put together informational websites. Granted, some of the information may be biased, and it would compare one college directly with another. Nevertheless, it would be useful to be able to read about the graduates' experiences, their impressions of the college, and their professional development. It would be a nice counterpoint to the existing surveys, which seem to be heavily weighted toward institutional measures and rubrics.

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