Current accreditation practice is a product of a campus era with much less technology and less emphasis on outcomes. Campuses and physical facilities to which we have long been accustomed have a reduced presence. State and federal officials press for information about outcomes through performance funding and accountability measures. Corporations and other employers demand outcomes to confirm that prospective employees possess carefully delineated job skills. Politicians and the public focus on accountability for what students can do and how well they do it.
Distance learning can strengthen the perception that more scrutiny of outcomes is needed.
This is because distance learning environments may not include, for example, physical facilities and campuses. Full-time faculty may not be available and curriculum may be developed elsewhere. Accreditation standards that examine these features of an educational environment may not yield adequate information about quality. There may be little to examine other than student achievement outcomes. WGU, a private, competency-based university established in 1997, possesses three characteristics essential for this purpose.