Sloan-C honors Texas State for innovation in online education

Posted by Jayme Blaschke
University News Service
December 5, 2013

Texas State University has been awarded the 2013 Quality Scorecard Effective Practice Award in recognition of innovation in online education.

The university was honored for the project "Using the Quality Scorecard to Meet Accreditation Standards at Texas State University" at the Sloan Consortium's 19th Annual International Conference on Online Learning Nov. 21 in Orlando, Fla.

"We are proud to honor the outstanding commitment and accomplishments of this year’s field of nominees,” said Kathleen Ives, acting chief executive officer and executive director of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). “Through innovative practice, they have demonstrated their dedication to advancing online education.”

Sloan-C is the leading organization dedicated to integrating online education into the mainstream of higher education and helping institutions and individual educators improve the quality, scale and breadth of education. The Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Programs measures and quantifies elements of quality within online education in higher education through the evaluation of 70 quality indicators.

In 2012 and 2013, a team of Texas State faculty and staff assessed the university's online education system against the quality indicators and developed a series of recommendations. These results were subsequently aligned with accreditation standards of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, the regional body for the accreditation of degree-granting higher education institutions in the Southern states. Based on scorecard results and calibration with accreditation standards, Texas State is prioritizing and implementing new policy, services and resources.

"Through this project, the university has a research-based and transparent approach for improving its online education programs," said Debbie Thorne, associate vice president for academic affairs. "This is a multi-year initiative and we are so pleased to be recognized by experts for taking a leadership role in ensuring continuous improvement, excellence and quality in online education."

For more information on the initiative at Texas State, please contact Josh Book in the Office of Distance and Extended Learning at (512) 245-2322.