• Petition for Distance (Online) Education Approval

    for consideration by the ATS/COA Board of Commissioners
  • Board approval, available at two levels, is required whenever an accredited member school decides to offer distance (online) education courses* for the first time, even if only one course  (Policies and Procedures IV.F.1).

    • Limited distance (online) education approval is required before a school offers any courses online and limits a school to offering less than half of any degree online. 
    • Comprehensive distance (online) education approval is required for a school if it plans to expand its online offerings so that half or more of any degree could be completed online (for the PhD/ThD degree, see also Standard 5.15^). Comprehensive distance (online) education approval may not be sought until a school has had limited approval for at least one semester.

    Distance education (limited or comprehensive) approval is needed only once, after which it applies to all approved degrees the school may wish to offer online. In completing this form, please include links to additional documentation as deemed helpful (e.g., sample course, student and faculty training modules, online library or student service resources, NC-SARA approval, evaluation plan or data). Your Commission staff liaison will contact you if there are any questions regarding this petition.

    *Distance education refers to any course where at least half of the instruction occurs when the instructor and the students are not in the same physical location (Policies and Procedures IV.F). Hybrid courses that have both onsite and online components are considered to be online courses only if at least half of the instruction occurs online, i.e., when the instructor and students are not in the same physical location.

    ^Standard 5.15 also requests a petition for an exception to residency (an experiment) to offer more than half the coursework online in a PhD/ThD degree program.

  • Please respond to the following questions whether petitioning for limited or comprehensive approval. Respond succinctly, but thoroughly. Responses by schools applying for comprehensive approval will likely be more fulsome and demonstrate reflective evaluation of their online offerings during the limited approval period.

     

    Please refer to the ATS Standards of Accreditation and Policies and Procedures as needed.

  • Please submit this completed petition to the ATS Accrediting Records Coordinator by hitting the "submit" button below. You can expect an automated confirmation email within a few minutes. There is no fee for this (or any) Commission petition. Please do not send any paper copies or any emailed attachments; submit only this completed, online form.

    NOTE: Petitions for distance education approval are typically decided by the Board of Commissioners within a few months (see submission deadlines on the ATS petitions and notifications webpage).

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