AFT Guidelines for good practice in distance education
from AFT On Campus, October 2000, pg 6 ff

Posting these guidelines does not constitute endorsement of them. This posting is made as a contribution towards discussion.

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The article describes the guidelines below as the product of substantial discussion within the AFT, and also as being in substantial agreement with those of the major accrediting bodies.

Guidelines:

1. Faculty must retain academic control of distance education courses and programs.
2. Faculty must be prepared to meed the special requirements of teaching at a distance. Teaching distance education courses should be a matter of faculty preference. Faculty must be provided with:
• Adequate training and technical support - in terms of hardware, software and troubleshooting;
• Additional compensation, in the form of credit toward workload assignments. to meet the extensived time commitments of distance education; and
• Positive recognition through the institutional rewards process for the creative work of formulating distance programs.
3. Course design should be shaped to the potentials of the medium.
4. Students must fully understand course requirements and be prepared to succeed. Information should include:
• All course requirements
• The weekly time commitment and specific computer skills the course requires
• A presentation of the practical difficulties of working at a distance and what is needed to manage those challenges successfully.
• Students will also need:
• Reliable extended-time support throughout the course, to be descriubed by the institution in all literautre advertising distance education courses
• Telephone number for technical support, available as many hours per day as possible.
5. Faculty and students must maintain close personal interaction through
• Real-time electronic interchange through devices such as chat rooms and discussion groups
• Asynchronous communications such as email and computer bulletin boards
• Where feasible, opportunities for same-time same-place between the teacher and students, or among students.
6. Class size should be set through normal faculty channels.
7. Courses should cover all material, equivalent to a classroom-based course.
8. (Faculty) Experimentation with a broad variety of subjects should be encouraged. On the other hand, institutions should nto continue to offer courses that have been unsuccessful. If attrition rates are high or test scores are low, or if the teacher reports disappointing results, the faculty should declare a "time out" during which a careful evaluation is conducted, along with an exploration of techniques employed elsewhere. If the faculty determines that problems have been overcome, the course can be reinstituted.
9. Faculty and librarians must provide research opportunities that are equivalent to those in traditional classrooms.
10. Student assessment should be comparable to that done in traditional classrooms.
11. Institutions must offer equivalent advisement opportunities.
12. Faculty should retain creative control over the use and reuse of distance education materials.
13. Full undergraduate degree programs should include some same-time same-place coursework. As a general rule, faculty should consider allowing up to 50 percent of a full undergraduate course of study to be offered at a distance.
14. Evaluation of distance education coursework should be undertaken at all levels - institutionally, regionally and nationally.