Accreditation of Online BS Programs

1. Accreditation of Online BS Programs Harvey A. Gullicks, Ph.D., P.E. University of North Dakota

2. ABET Accreditation • UND does not approach accreditation of on-campus & distance deliveries as separate programs. • Rather, the UND BSCE program is accredited as one program, which utilizes multiple modes of education delivery. • It is critical that advising of distance students protects the rigor of your program. • Ensure that credit is not given for algebra- based physics, statics, mechanics of materials, & engineering transfer courses. • Do not waive course prerequisites without very good rationale.

3. ABET Accreditation • Prepare for extra ABET distance delivery scrutiny: • Proctor concerns • Good proctors: library, church, community college, university, human resource personnel • Delayed exam taking concerns • Keep proctor access window short as reasonable • Impress on students: ethical issues, importance for maintaining program accreditation for their graduation & future graduates, student consequences of cheating • Restrict materials & technological devices during testing: cameras, cell phones, calculators, notes, books, etc.

4. ABET Accreditation • Advising Concerns: Email Documentation • Distance students = transfer students: Rigorous transfer credits & work experience waivers review. • Enforce course prerequisites with academic advisement registration holds & course registration permission numbers system. • Work & course load: <6 cr.hr. if working full time • Advising must present options to take courses from other institutions for later transfer. Frequent requests to review courses for transfer acceptability. • Faculty advising load: Distance students take 3 times longer to advise than on-campus students. Financial aid

5. ABET Accreditation • Student Education Experience Equivalency • UND’s experience: Distance students are your best advocates to speak to the rigor of your program & value of your program. Include them in most if not all program assessment tools. • Faculty Buy-In • Distribute the advising load uniformly • Provide faculty overload pay opportunities from distance student course access fees • Need summer advising compensation • Encourage faculty-distance student interaction • Prompt response to distance students

6. ABET Accreditation • Admission: Expect many more applications for admission than will enroll in classes. • Enrollment: Expect only about 30 to 40% of distance student admissions to actually take courses from campus distance delivery • Biggest factor: math preparation of the student • Successful calculus series transfer students typically do well. (No prior calculus often = no success.) • Retention: Expect about 20-25% of admissions to continue after 1st or 2nd semester. • Graduation: Variable 3-9 years to graduate

7. CE 482/483 SeniorDesign Course Sequence • The senior design courses contribute to achieving many of the civil engineering program outcomes. However, these courses are particularly important for documenting the following outcomes: • Designing a system or component • Working in teams • Communicating Effectively

8. Designing a Systemor Component • Distance students can contribute good ideas for realistic design projects based on their work experience. • Because of their work experience, distance students often bring important leadership and organizational skills to the design team.

9. Designing a Systemor Component • Distance students can obtain useful background data for the project such as site survey data, soils data, traffic data, etc. • Distance students may have specialized computer analysis skills and access to specialized software that they can share with the on-campus students.

10. Designing a Systemor Component • Distance students often have practical experience with the design process that they can share with the on-campus students.

11. Working in Teams • In order to utilize the experience and skills of the distance students, we try to include both distance and on-campus students on the senior design project teams. • Our experience has shown that distance students often bring valuable team working skills such as leadership, in-depth knowledge of the topic, and good work habits.

12. Working in Teams • Our experience has shown that on-campus students appreciate the team working skills of the distance students.

13. CommunicatingEffectively • Our experience has shown that having distance students on design teams can greatly enhance the communication learning experience. • We rely on Blackboard to provide the necessary communcation tools for the senior design projects.

14. Communicating Effectively • Each team is organized as a separate group on Blackboard. This facilitates emailing among team members and file sharing. • Blackboard has other tools such as the Wimba Classroom, Wikis, and server access that can enhance team communication.

15. Communicating Effectively • Generally, design teams with distance students make the best use of the communication tools available on Blackboard. • The Wimba Classroom is particularly useful because it allows teams to share voice, PowerPoint slides, and software applications in a web conference.

16. Communicating Effectively • The Wiki feature on Blackboard provides a way for teams to post text on the web in a secure location that can be accessed by the other team members. This feature is useful for posting team journal entries. • We can also make software programs available to distance students using the Citrix server which they can link to with Blackboard.

17. Communicating Effectively • In general, we have found that more distance students on a design team, the more use is made of the various communication tools on Blackboard.