Florida Administrative Code › 6 - DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION › 6E - Commission for Independent Education › Chapter 6E-1 - GENERAL INFORMATION › Section 6E-1.003 - Definition of Terms

Current through Reg. 50, No. 138; July 16, 2024
Terms used in these rules are defined in Section
				  1005.02, F.S. In addition, as
				  used in the rules of the Commission, unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise:
(1) "Accredited Foreign
				Medical Schools" means institutions chartered outside the United States, in a
				nation whose accreditation standards have been determined by the United States
				Department of Education to be comparable to the accreditation standards applied
				to United States medical schools, when the foreign medical school has been
				inspected and evaluated by the nation's recognized agent and approved or
				accredited by its home nation using those comparable standards.
(2) "Additional Locations" means any
				locations other than auxiliary classroom space that supports a licensed
				institution.
(3) "Address of
				Record" means the current mailing address and location of the institution in
				Florida.
(4) Adequate Clinical
				Clerkship Library Facilities - Comprehensive resource and information facility
				sufficient in size, current breadth of holdings and information technology to
				support its medical education.
(5)
				Adequate Laboratory Facilities - Industry standard facilities that allow
				students to engage in scientific research, testing and diagnostic
				evaluation.
(6) "Advertising"
				includes any form of public notice, however disseminated or utilized, offering
				training or education to the public or recruiting students to enroll in a
				school or college program. The term includes publications and promotional items
				which may be seen or encountered by prospective students, including catalogs
				and other institutional publications which contain institutional policies or
				disclosures; mailing pieces, such as bulletins, brochures, or flyers;
				classified advertisements; news releases; posters; electronic notices provided
				through Internet, radio or television; or any other form of public notice
				resulting from the institution's recruiting and promotional efforts.
(7) "Applied General Education" means courses
				directly related and applicable to a specific occupation, fulfilling the
				general education requirements for an occupational associate degree as
				described in subparagraph
				6E-2.004(4)(n)
				1., F.A.C., in natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences,
				language, composition, and humanities and the arts.
(8) "Asynchronous" means that students may
				access a prepared educational program electronically or by other means, at a
				time of their own choosing rather than at a specified time.
(9) "Auxiliary Classroom Space" means a
				location within 10 miles of a licensed school or college, and under its
				administrative and academic control and included in its licensure; where
				classes are held as needed to supplement the physical capacity of the licensed
				institution; and where the licensed institution is not required to maintain
				ongoing administrative or faculty offices, but has the responsibility of
				providing all administrative, academic, and student services.
(10) "Board-Certified, " "Board-Eligible, "
				and "Board Licensed" refer to the appropriate recognition by the State Board of
				Medicine or other recognized agency which regulates the practice of medicine in
				the jurisdiction where the foreign medical school operates and where clerkships
				are offered.
(11) "Change in
				Control" means any change in the organization of an institution which affects
				the authority to establish or modify institutional policies, standards, and
				procedures. A change in control occurs when a person acquires or loses control
				of an institution or of the parent corporation that owns the institution,
				whether by means of the sale of the institution, sale of the assets, transfer
				of the controlling interest of stock, conversion of the institution from
				nonprofit to for-profit or vice versa, or similar transaction. A change in
				control does not occur upon the retirement or death of the owner of an
				institution, if ownership and control passes to a member of the owner's family
				or to a person with a pre-existing ownership interest in the
				institution.
(12) "Chartered" means
				incorporated according to the requirements of the Florida Department of State,
				Division of Corporations or similar authority in another
				jurisdiction.
(13) "Citation" means
				an instrument which meets the requirements set forth in Section
				1005.385, F.S., and which is
				served upon a licensee, an applicant, or any other subject within the
				jurisdiction of this Commission, for the purpose of assessing a penalty in an
				amount established by this rule.
(14) "Clinical Clerkship" means supervised
				instruction in medical disciplines with an opportunity to observe and to
				participate in the theory and practice of expert care of patients with a broad
				spectrum of traumatic conditions, psychiatric disorders, disease, or other
				human ailments, in order for the students to achieve comprehensive knowledge in
				medical diagnosis and treatment as part of a course of instruction leading to
				an M.D. or D.O. degree or the equivalent.
(15) "Clock Hour" means a period of 60
				minutes with a minimum of 50 minutes of instruction in the presence of an
				instructor.
(16) "Collegiate"
				describes a college or university which is licensed by the Commission to offer
				degrees as defined in Section
				1005.02(7),
				F.S., or the degree programs offered by such an institution.
(17) "Complete Application" means an
				application which the Commission staff has reviewed and found to contain all
				required forms, supporting documentation addressing each standard, all required
				signatures, and evidence that all appropriate fees have been paid.
(18) "Compressed Time Period" means delivery
				of required contact clock hours or credit hours in a significantly shorter
				period than those described in the definitions of "Semester" and
				"Quarter."
(19) "Contract Training"
				means providing a program to a particular employer or entity for a specific
				length of time, in a specific place, to a specific cohort of students, when all
				appropriate academic and student services are provided to the cohort, an
				agreement (memorandum of understanding or contract) is signed with the employer
				or entity, and the program is not advertised to the general public.
(20) "Core Clinical Clerkship" means initial
				clinical training required of every medical student, generally taken in the
				third year of medical school, in such fields as internal medicine, pediatrics,
				surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, and family medicine.
(21) "Correspondence Learning" means
				instruction through mail or e-mail requiring the institution to mail a
				syllabus, texts, lessons, and other materials to the student and to provide
				adequate educational services, responses, comments, and evaluations in a timely
				manner to the student.
(22) "Costs"
				means the amount of money directly related to the investigation and prosecution
				as determined by the Commission.
(23) "Course" means one organized unit of
				study focusing on one subject or skill for a specified period of time; for
				example, English 101, College Math, or Introduction to Computers.
(24) "Credit By Examination" means credit
				awarded upon determining the level of students' competencies in a specific
				subject area through standardized tests or institutionally developed
				examinations.
(25) "Credit for
				Prior Learning" means credit for learning acquired outside the licensed
				institution, that has resulted in a level of knowledge and skills appropriate
				and comparable to the level and content of the program or credential offered.
				Such learning must be validated and documented by qualified instructors using
				consistent, educationally defensible procedures and standards.
(26) "Direct Contact Instruction" means the
				physical presence of one or more students and one or more instructors at the
				same physical location. Direct contact instruction includes instruction and
				learning that takes place in a seminar, workshop, lecture, colloquium,
				laboratory, or tutorial, in a setting consistent with the stated mission,
				purposes, and objectives of the institution and the specific program or course.
				A learning agreement or learning contract should be a central feature of direct
				contact instruction.
(27) "Distance
				Education" means planned learning that normally occurs in a different place
				from teaching and as a result requires special techniques in course design,
				special instructional techniques, special methods of communication by
				electronic and other technology, and special organizational and administrative
				arrangements.
(28) "Distance
				Learning" is a general term used to cover the broad range of teaching and
				learning events in which the student is separated (at a distance) from the
				instructor, or other fellow learners.
(29) "Elective Clinical Clerkship" means
				additional specialized clinical training, chosen by the medical student from an
				approved list of electives published by the medical school, generally taken in
				the fourth year of medical school.
(30) "Emerging Field of Study" means a
				subject area not yet offered by traditional institutions as a discipline for
				study leading to a particular credential, but that is deemed worthy of
				exploration and development.
(31)
				"Enrollment" means registering a student to take programs or courses at an
				institution, when such registration obligates the student to pay tuition to the
				institution and obligates the institution to provide instruction to the
				student.
(32) "Executive Director"
				means the chief administrative officer of the Commission.
(33) "Fair consumer practices" means the
				honest, accurate and equitable conduct of business and academic relations
				between institutions and their students or prospective students.
(34) "First Professional Degree" means the
				first degree signifying completion of the minimum academic requirements for
				practice of a profession. The degree may require four, five, or more academic
				years, depending on the profession and the particular institution. A first
				professional degree is most commonly a bachelor's degree, but may be a master's
				or doctoral degree.
(35) "Florida
				Student" means any student enrolled at a Florida campus of a licensed
				institution and for distance education, a student whose mailing address for
				purposes of receiving distance education lessons and materials form the school,
				is a Florida address.
(36) Foreign
				Medical School Affiliation Agreement - A signed statement between a teaching
				hospital and a foreign medical school in which the teaching hospital agrees to
				make its resources available to a foreign medical school in order for the
				foreign medical school to offer its educational program at the
				hospital.
(37) Generally Accepted
				Accounting Principles (GAAP), effective September 30, 2002, is defined in the
				Board of Accountancy Rule
				61H1-20.007, F.A.C.
(38) "General Education Courses" are those
				college-level courses designed to place emphasis on principles and theory
				rather than on practical applications associated with a vocational,
				occupational, or professional objective. General education courses may include,
				but are not limited to, English, history, philosophy, literature, religion,
				art, music, sociology, foreign languages, humanities, mathematics, chemistry,
				biology, and psychology, when such courses are not within the area of
				concentration of a vocational, occupational, or professional program. For
				example, English Composition is considered a general education course, but
				Business English is not. Courses designated as "applied, " "specialized, "
				"technical, " or similar designation do not meet this definition.
(39) "Indirect Contact Instruction" means a
				delivery method which does not require the physical presence of students and
				instructors at the same location, but provides for interaction between students
				and instructors by such means as telecommunications, electronic and
				computer-augmented educational services, correspondence, postal service, and
				facsimile transmission. Detailed course outlines or comprehensive syllabi are
				central to indirect contact instruction and learning, along with specified
				competencies to be mastered, details of interaction and feedback from the
				instructor, and specified procedures and timetables for evaluation.
(40) "Innovative Method of Instruction" means
				a new method of instruction not in use by traditional institutions, but one
				that provides effective and appropriate instruction in a way that ensures
				delivery, learning, evaluation, and timely communication with
				students.
(41) "Institution" means
				any college, university or postsecondary career school under the jurisdiction
				of the Commission as provided in Chapter 1005, F.S.
(42) "Institutional Accreditation" means
				accredited status awarded to an institution by an accrediting agency or
				association that is recognized by the United States Department of Education as
				an institutional accrediting agency.
(43) "Learning Agreement or Learning
				Contract" means a document drawn up between the instructor or the institution
				and the student(s), describing in detail the planned learning experiences that
				must be completed, the specific competencies to be mastered, and the evaluation
				methods to be used. An important characteristic of a learning agreement or
				learning contract is that it may be individualized to fit the needs of the
				student.
(44) "Main Florida
				Headquarters" means the location designated by an out-of-state institution as
				its main administrative and academic center in Florida.
(45) "Media and Computer Assisted Learning"
				means instruction through electronic information transfer, data processing,
				facsimile transmission, or through other technology.
(46) "Minor Modification" means a change to
				programs and curricula intended to keep educational material up to date and
				relevant to the changing needs of employers, when such modifications affect
				less than 20% percent of the program or curriculum and do not change the
				purpose or direction of the program; or providing a previously approved program
				as contract training.
(47)
				"Noncollegiate" or "Nondegree" describes a nonpublic career school licensed by
				the Commission to offer certificate or diploma programs as defined in Section
				1005.02(16),
				F.S., or the certificate or diploma programs below the degree level offered by
				any institution under the jurisdiction of the Commission.
(48) "Nontraditional Education" means any
				positive progress toward a credential that is earned through experiential means
				or distance education and approved by the faculty of the institution granting
				the credential, or other sources verified by the American Council on Education,
				or testing from recognized sources such as but not limited to the Defense
				Activity for Non-traditional Education Support (DANTES), Servicemembers
				Opportunity Colleges (SOC), or other sources deemed by the Commission to have
				similar quality controls.
(49)
				"Occasional Elective Clinical Clerkship" means an elective course which does
				not exceed 6 weeks in length during the fourth year of medical school.
				"Occasional" in this context means no more than 3 students from any one
				unlicensed foreign medical school in any calendar year, with each of the 3
				students doing no more than 3 elective clerkships in Florida in any calendar
				year.
(50) "On-line Courses" means
				courses taken by electronic means through the Internet or other similar
				delivery system.
(51) Parent
				Medical Schools - The licensed foreign medical institution that is offering a
				clinical clerkship program at the Florida teaching hospital.
(52) "Prelicensure Professional Nursing
				Program" means a nursing education program that prepares a student for the
				practice of professional nursing by being qualified to apply for licensure as a
				Registered Nurse (RN). Examples include: Associate of Science in Nursing (ASN);
				Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN); Licensed Practical Nursing to Associate
				of Science in Nursing (LPN to ASN); Licensed Practical Nursing to Bachelor of
				Science in Nursing (LPN to BSN); and Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing
				(ABSN). The Nursing Assistant, Practical Nursing (PN), and RN to BSN programs
				are not included within this definition.
(53) "Program" means a prescribed group of
				courses, taken in the proper sequence to attain mastery of a body of knowledge
				or set of skills, and leading to a certificate, diploma, or degree.
(54) "Quarter" means at least ten weeks of
				instruction and learning, or its equivalent as described below.
(55) "Quarter Credit Hour" means either:
(a) A unit consisting of a minimum of ten
				hours of instruction appropriate to the level of credential sought, during a
				quarter, plus a reasonable period of time outside of instruction which the
				institution requires a student to devote to preparation for learning
				experiences, such as preparation for instruction, study of course material, or
				completion of educational projects; or
(b) Planned learning experiences equivalent
				to the learning and preparation described in paragraph
				6E-1.003(53)(a),
				F.A.C., above, as determined by duly qualified instructors responsible for
				evaluating learning outcomes for the award of credits.