Interactive Distance Education for All Learners (IDEAL) was praised by reviewers who evaluated BGSU's distance education program for the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The program earned accreditation from the commission with the help of IDEAL, whose staff includes Director Connie Molnar (second from left) and instructional designers Garrett Whitehead (left) and Terence Armentano (second from right). Dr. Terry Herman (right), now an assistant professor of visual communication and technology education, was director of IDEAL during the accreditation review, while Dr. Bruce Edwards (back) is associate dean for distance education and international programs.

BGSU accredited to offer degrees via distance education

Bowling Green has taken a big step toward meeting a state mandate that instructs colleges and universities to expand access to bachelor’s and master’s degree programs.

BGSU has won accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools to offer full degree programs—not just individual courses—online.

With that “stamp of approval,” the University is poised to respond to the mandate from Gov. Bob Taft’s Commission on Higher Education and the Economy by delivering academic programs to underserved populations throughout the state, thereby enhancing Ohioans’ skills and opportunities for advancement, said Dr. Bruce Edwards, associate dean for distance education and international programs.

The accreditation also allows the University to move forward quickly on key components of its Academic Plan that focus on “enhancing educational opportunities such as evening, weekend, degree completion, and distance learning programs in targeted areas.”

The plan isn’t to put everything at BGSU online, Edwards said, but rather to target needs of the state’s citizens with offerings that will be helpful in the workplace, beginning with the Advanced Technological Education degree completion program in the College of Technology. The program is aimed at adults with an applied associate degree and work experience in business, industry or education.

Come fall 2005, the next two programs to be available completely online will be a bachelor’s degree completion option in liberal studies—which, in the College of Arts and Sciences, has allowed students to focus on subject areas of interest in a traditional format for a number of years—and a master’s degree in education. The latter program is for teachers who want to develop special education expertise.

Given the University’s new emphasis on engagement, the accreditation also provides impetus for joint ventures with regional two-year campuses that will encourage those who earn an Associate of Arts degree to continue their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree at BGSU online. Through a recent Ohio Learning Network grant, the University is exploring a collaborative distance completion degree in Fire Science and EMS that would serve the needs of many emergency services workers throughout Ohio.

Getting the learning commission’s approval for online degree programs was a yearlong process that encompassed a thorough review of BGSU’s technological infrastructure, academic curricula, online course design and faculty and student support units. The evaluation culminated with a two-day site visit last August by Dr. Roberta Teahen from Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., and Dr. Von Pittman from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

“BGSU has positioned itself to deliver intellectually rigorous and technologically sophisticated distance education courses,” they wrote in a follow-up report. “The team is impressed with the thorough manner in which BGSU has approached its expansion of distance learning.”

Teahen and Pittman were so impressed, in fact, that they encouraged developers of the distance education program “to write and speak about their approach so that others may learn from their experience.” They’ll be doing just that in April, having been invited to make a presentation at the commission’s annual meeting in Chicago.

“That was a pleasant surprise,” said Edwards, explaining that the presentation will focus on how the University made its case for accreditation. The invitation “just means that BGSU gets its day in the sun as a campus that has successfully initiated, virtually from scratch, its distance education program,” according to the associate dean, who credited the achievement to a cooperative University-wide effort that included Firelands faculty and administration.

Among the elements of BGSU’s distance education effort that received specific praise from the learning commission evaluators were technological structure and faculty support, particularly through IDEAL. Housed in Continuing and Extended Education, IDEAL, short for Interactive Distance Education for All Learners, “has great expertise that will be useful to the rest of the campus … particularly in the areas of instructional design, use of technology-mediated instruction, and assessment,” they wrote.

Calling online learning commensurate with the best of BGSU’s face-to-face classroom experience, Edwards noted that “consistency and innovation remain its key values.” At a time when students are more technologically and communication savvy, he said, not offering distance education would mark BGSU as not in tune with those students’ expectations.

Dr. William Balzer, associate vice president and dean of Continuing and Extended Education, added that the North Central Association’s approval, through the HLC, gives the University’s distance programs essential credibility. “Accreditation assures Ohio’s citizens that these online academic programs are intellectually comprehensive and rigorous, providing a high-quality education for success in the workplace,” he said.