WASC Concept Papers 2nd Series:

THE CHANGING ECOLOGY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND ITS IMPACT ON ACCREDITATION

March 2013

Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities

This 2nd series of concept papers was commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities to further inform the region, the Commission, and WASC staff of the changes that are occurring in higher education, identify ways in which WASC can continue to be responsive to these changes, and provide a mechanism to engage member institutions in this overall phenomenon.

These papers are offered under a Creative Commons license that allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit WASC and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Table of Contents
Title
1. 2. 3. Changing Ecology Introduction The New Ecology for Higher Education: Challenges to Accreditation New Ecosystems in Higher Education and What They Mean for Accreditation and Assessment From Educational Institutions to Learning Flows

Author
Ralph Wolff, President, WASC Peter Ewell, Vice President, NCHEMS Richard DeMillo, Director, Center for 21st Century Universities and Distinguished Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology Marina Gorbis, Executive Director, Devin Fidler, Research Director, and Bettina Warburg-Johnson, Program Assistant, Institute for the Future Paul LeBlanc, President, Southern New Hampshire University Sebastian Thrun, CEO, Udacity George L. Mehaffy, Vice President, AASCU Adrianna Kezar, Professor, University of Southern California Denise DeZolt, Chief Academic Officer, Laureate Education Molly N. Lee, Senior Prorgram Specialist, UNESCO

Page
2 4 10

4.

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Thinking About Accreditation in a Rapidly Changing World Changing Ecology: Towards Accreditation for Institutions Offering Courses, not Degrees AASCUs Red Balloon Project The New Ecology of Higher Education: The Changing Faculty The Nexus of For-Profit, International, and Accreditation

20 25 28 32 39 44

10. New Ecology of Higher Education in Asia-Pacific: Implications for Accreditation

Changing Ecology Introduction Ralph Wolff WASC

WASC has had a tradition of commissioning series of concept papers when a new area for accreditation is to be explored. These papers help to frame emerging issues from multiple perspectives. This approach was used for the 2001 Handbook of Accreditation to identify major changes to both the Standards and the Institutional Review Process. It was used again more recently with a set of six papers commissioned in 2010 (http://www.wascsenior. org/redesign/conceptpapers) that informed the work of the accreditation redesign steering committee and the revision of the 2013 Handbook of Accreditation adopted by the Commission in February 2013. Key elements of the accreditation redesign in the 2013 Handbook are transparency, a focus on retention/graduation, student success, and student learning. The Commission also requested that the WASC accrediting process be responsive to innovation and the rapidly changing environment of higher education. A task force on the Changing Ecology of Higher Education was formed in 2011, and it led to the inclusion in Standard 4 that, as a part of the institutional planning process, institutions should be responsive to this changing environment. What could not have been foreseen when the task force was created was how dramatically the changes to higher education would be during the period of the 2013 Handbook revision. At the outset, we saw the rapid expansion of free online content through providers such as iTunes U, TED, Khan Academy, and University of the People, as well as low cost course offerings through providers such as StraighterLine. The development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) through new companies such as Udacity, Coursera, and EdX drew immediate attention due to the involvement of the top research universities. As these and other enterprises began offering courses for free, hundreds of thousands signed up for them and continue to do so. This coincided with the development of the first competency based programs not using credit hours as the basis for determining student progress or completion. A pathway for obtaining federal financial aid for competency based programs was identified by the recent promulgation of guidelines by the US Department of Education in March 2013 using direct assessment. Innovations such as badges and other ways to acknowledge learning in non-degree frameworks were being developed by those outside higher education and are finding their way into many universities. What started as a focus on the changing character of students and institutions within the existing community of higher education has now exploded with new providers, many in the for-profit sector, and new combinations of courses and learning activities within and outside traditional higher education institutions. Learning adaptive software and support systems have made the whole learning environment dynamic and subject to disruption. Not only has the change been dramatic, but the rate of change and the publicity around it (some would characterize it as hype) has also been more rapid and extensive than anyone could have predicted. At the same time, significant changes are occurring within traditional higher education, including: increasing internationalization, the new majority of faculty no longer holding full-time tenure track positions, innovations sponsored by national higher education organizations and foundations to innovate and restructure in the face of fiscal challenges, and the increasing development of online degree programs. Throughout this dynamic environment, questions concerning accreditation have arisen, and institutions are worried about entering into such new arrangements without guidance as to whether or how accreditation rules may apply. At the same time, WASC has been asking whether the focus of accreditation on institutions needs to shift in some ways to courses, or even to individual students. Many of these innovative practices call for increased attention on learning outcomes and the ability of both institutions and accreditors to assure the quality and integrity of learning, even as the locus, format, and arrangements of learning takes on new forms. To explore the implications of these changes, we asked nine authors to describe the changing ecology of higher education as they saw it, and suggest what role accreditation might play in assuring quality for currently accredited institutions undertaking innovative practices and/or partnering with new institutions. We asked that they discuss whether WASC should consider accrediting new forms of education and institutional arrangements.
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The following papers address these issues from multiple perspectives: Peter Ewell, Vice President of NCHEMS, updated his 2010 paper, The New Ecology for Higher Education: Challenges to Accreditation, which provides a comprehensive overview of these changes and their implications for accreditation. Richard DeMillo, Director, Center for 21st Century Universities and Distinguished Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, offers a historical and comparative perspective of change in the 20th and 21st centuries in his paper, New Ecosystems in Higher Education and What They Mean for Accreditation and Assessment. He suggests that the current ecosystem is dramatically different, and a standards based approach of accreditation is no longer workable. Marina Gorbis, Devin Fidler, and Bettina Warburg-Johnson from the Institute for the Future describe the rapidly changing workplace where traditional jobs are being replaced with new forms of online enterprises that call for new skills and learning flows instead of traditional degrees in From Educational Institutions to Learning Flows. Paul LeBlanc, President, Southern New Hampshire University, explores disruptive innovations in higher education in Thinking about Accreditation in a Rapidly Changing World. He describes how competency based education provides a new and much needed approach to learning, and at the same time, could lead to the disaggregation of accreditation activities. Sebastian Thrun, founder and CEO, Udacity, describes the innovative efforts undertaken by this path-breaking organization and the need for accreditation to be involved in assuring the quality and integrity of MOOC courses in Changing Ecology: Towards Accreditation for Institutions Offering Courses, not Degrees. George L. Mehaffy, Vice President, American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), describes the history and institutional approaches to innovation in AASCUs Red Balloon Project, reflecting that innovations are occurring within traditional state universities to respond to fiscal challenges and new student characteristics. Adrianna Kezar, Professor, University of Southern California, provides a detailed overview of the new majority of non-tenure track faculty (NTTFs) and the impact of disaggregated faculty roles. She urges accreditation to more actively respond to these changes in The New Ecology of Higher Education: The Changing Faculty. Denise DeZolt, Chief Academic Officer, Laureate Education, describes the important role of for profit institutions in meeting President Obamas goals for expanding access. She also discusses the expansion of international education in The Nexus of For-Profit, International, and Accreditation. Molly N. Lee, independent researcher recently with UNESCO, Bangkok, focuses on the changes occurring within higher education in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes new providers, new modes of financing, and new quality assurance systems in New Ecology of Higher Education in Asia-Pacific: Implications for Accreditation. Together, these papers describe changes that are already occurring and trends that are likely to affect both higher education and accreditation. They are available as a collection and individually on the WASC website at http:// www.wascsenior.org/redesign/conceptpapers. We hope these papers, collectively and individually, will stimulate much broader discussion throughout the WASC region and beyond.

The New Ecology for Higher Education: Challenges to Accreditation Updated Version* Peter Ewell NCHEMS
As American higher education nears the midpoint of the second decade of a new millennium, it inhabits a landscape that is rapidly being transformed. If current trends continue, college students in 2020 will participate in new kinds of learning experiences, access new kinds of learning resources, and deal with a broader range of providers than ever before. Meanwhile, providers themselves harness almost unimagined new technologies, will face escalating demands for performance and be forced to operate in an increasingly seamless global marketplace for higher education. Together, these conditions constitute nothing less than a new ecology for higher education. Its characteristics are increasingly removed from the environment in which current accreditation approaches evolved. As a consequence, they are bound to pose challenges to these approaches. This brief paper examines the nature of these changes and the specific challenges that each poses to established accreditation practices. These changes are of two main kinds: one external to colleges and universities, and the other embedded in higher education institutions and the system they constitute. The paper then goes on to note the kinds of changes in accreditation practices that are needed to meet these challenges and how WASC has responded. External Challenges A first set of challenges resides within the wider social and political realm in which higher education must operate. Colleges and universities exercise little control over these forces and must in some way accommodate them. They do have a choice about how they do so, however, because some adaptations are deliberate and proactive, while others remain unconscious and reactive. Accountability for Results. Probably the most important shift in the external landscape for higher education that has occurred since the earlier version of this paper is an unprecedented demand for accountability on the part of the U.S. Department of Education. Beginning with the report of the Secretarys Commission on the Future of Higher Education in 2007 (the so-called Spellings Commission), each successive year has occasioned new calls for increased levels of performance and public reporting. Just last year, for example, reports were issued by both the American Council on Educations (ACE) Task Force on Accreditation and the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) that called for renewed attention to student academic achievement and public reporting. In addition, all expectations that the change of administration in Washington in 2008 would reduce the pressure on colleges and universities to demonstrate student success and acceptable learning outcomes among graduates vanished with the Obama administrations new postsecondary attainment goals and its accompanying accountability provisions. Whatever the fortunes of the respective political parties in the decade to come, therefore, the need to be accountable for learning will likely remain. What is more, the nature of the demand has shifted. Accreditors have been asked by regulators with growing stridence over the last twenty years to require institutions to pay attention to student learning outcomes in the course of a review. These efforts have met with considerable success, as shown by the findings of two recent surveys of institutional assessment activities conducted by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). Now there is a demand for accreditors to go beyond just doing assessment by examining the average performance of selected samples of students. The new expectation instead is ensuring that all graduates measure up to
* The original version of this working paper was prepared two years ago as a resource for the task forces charged with updating the WASC accreditation standards and visit process. Although this was only two years ago, the conditions affecting American higher education and institutional accreditation as its principal quality assurance mechanism are sufficiently different today that a new edition is called for. Accordingly, this paper expands and updates the observations made earlier in October, 2010. This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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established learning outcomes standards. The growing press for such standards is shown by the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) issued in 2011 by the Lumina Foundation for Education to stimulate the discussion of common standards for higher education and the college-ready standards for high school exit currently being implemented in most states. Regional accreditors have done a fine job of stimulating institutions to build their capacity to do assessment over the past fifteen years, but they have little experience with engaging institutions constructively in conversations about actual expectations and performance with respect to student learning outcomes. Transparency Demands. Accompanying these external demands for specific performance in the realm of student success and meeting acceptable levels of learning are growing calls for both accreditors and institutions to become far more transparent about what they do and the results they achieve. For many years, regional accreditations traditional practices of revealing only the accredited status of the institutions they review caused little public comment. In an age of accountability, though, this stance has become untenable. Accreditors are now pressed to publish the broad findings of all reviews by identifying areas of challenge and exemplary performance. At the same time, they are under greater pressure to broaden public participation in what is perceived by many outsiders to be a secretive process by increasing the number of public members on Commissions and, where appropriate, expert public participation on review teams. Institutions are simultaneously being asked to show more about their internal opera Accountability for Results tions (standards of student academic achievement, Transparency Demands quality of resources and learning experiences, and so on) and their academic results. Accreditors are Changing Demographics the vehicle for these demands, so they are increas Constrained Resources ingly called upon to require institutions to disclose A Global Higher Education System certain things and check up on how well they are doing so. Changing Demographics. Meanwhile, the composition of Americas student body is beginning to mirror its wider population with respect to race and ethnicity. African American and Hispanic students comprise over 27% of current college students, with California, the WASC regions largest state, leading this national trend. Most of this growth is in the youngest population quartile which is about to enter college. Despite their best efforts, established colleges and universities do not have a very good track record of retaining such students of color into their second years of enrollment and seeing them through to graduation. Because student success among traditionally underserved populations will be increasingly critical to maintaining baccalaureate degree production in the coming decade, accreditors must pay particular attention to statistics on student success, disaggregated by race/ethnicity, and to using the discussions generated by reviewing such indicators to refocus institutional attention on targeted retention and academic enhancement programs. Constrained Resources. The current global economic downturn was preceded by a long period of state budgetary shortfalls and consequent disinvestment in public higher education. And available evidence suggests that most states will be in structural deficit throughout the coming decade, even if the economy rebounds more broadly. Growing gaps between rich and poor accompanying these economic trends, moreover, already mean that higher education has become unaffordable to growing numbers of students. These conditions put pressure on accreditation to ensure that institutions are paying proper attention to the stewardship of their fiscal resources for future survival, demanding attention to efficiency as well as effectiveness. As above, they also raise questions of equity if institutions are turning their backs on qualified but less-well-off potential students in their admissions and financial aid policies. Finally, they put pressure on accreditors themselves to make the accreditation process more efficient by reducing duplication, streamlining reporting, and harnessing technology to enable virtual presence and collaboration. A Global Higher Education System. Finally, the U.S. higher education system is not operating in isolation

External Challenges

from those of the rest of the world. Just as students move from institution to institution and state to state with greater frequency, foreign students are coming to the U.S. and U.S. institutions are operating abroad in greater numbers. Distance delivery is accelerating these phenomena and it is likely that 2020 will be characterized by a flatter higher education world. Increased globalization has several dimensions that affect accreditation. First, it means that academic standards for undergraduate and masters-level work are converging across national contexts. The Bologna process in Europe is the most visible manifestation of the emergence of aligned global standards, with counterparts in Australasia, as well as Central and South America. To be acceptable abroad, U.S. standards for student learning outcomes will need to be aligned with these new prototypes and be assessed in similar fashions. Another dimension of going global is that the quality of U.S. institutions operating abroad must be assured. At the same time, in order to gain credibility, non-U.S. institutions are beginning to seek and receive recognition from American accreditors, including WASC. Both of these should entail extending partnerships between American accreditors and other national quality assurance agencies, which need to know what U.S. accreditation entails and what they can expect when dealing with it. Finally, a flattening world demands that U.S. college graduates have global competencies including an understanding of other cultures, geographic knowledge, and foreign language skills. One implication of these trends is that these should be added to established lists of generic competencies that accreditors require institutions to teach and assess. Internal Challenges Paralleling these external developments is a series of significant changes within colleges and universities that have an important bearing on the meaning of quality and, therefore, the conduct of accreditation as quality assurance. Here it is important to remember that despite changes in the number and scale of higher education institutions, underlying features such as structure and organization, curriculum and pedagogy, and faculty roles and responsibilities did not change very much in the century that followed the establishment of the first regional accrediting organizations in the late nineteenth century. Accreditation standards and review processes were designed specifically to fit this environment and did so appropriately and effectively for many years. With these elements in flux, however, existing standards and review processes become increasingly problematic. New Kinds of Providers. One of the most rapid and striking developments of the past five years has been the growth of new kinds of postsecondary providers. Pure distance-delivery institutions are becoming more common and, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the for-profit sector now serves over 12% of the nations undergraduates. Particularly striking has been the growth of some for-profit institutions that have doubled enrollment annually over multiple years. Such rapid growth raises fundamental questions about the ability of such institutions to match enrollment increases with necessary infrastructure and breadth of administrative experience. At the same time, the for-profit business model is not well understood by regional accreditors and poses challenges to established notions of governance. Finally, looking even farther into the future, some providers are not higher education institutions at all: expansion of corporate training opportunities and the growing number of resources that learners can access on their own now allow a dedicated student to master all the material contained in a baccalaureate program without attending an organized institution of higher education at all. Accreditation standards developed in an era dominated by face-to-face classrooms and faculty-centered approaches to teaching and learning are not well suited to these new institutions. In parallel, standards and review processes evolved primarily to address traditional instructional and scholarly activities are out of step with institutions for which awarding degrees and certificates is the dominant activity. New Patterns of Participation. The dominant pattern of college attendance in America no longer has individual higher education institutions at its center. Several dimensions of this dominant pattern can be discerned, some established and some emerging. First, Department of Education longitudinal surveys have for twenty years reported that the majority of students earning a baccalaureate degree attended two or more institutions, with a fifth attending three or more. These developments are raising issues about how learning transfers from one institution to another in a cumulative and coherent fashion as a student
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works toward a credential. Adding to this fractionalization, some parts of an institutions curriculum may be developed and delivered by third-party providers, raising parallel questions about transfer of content within the curriculum. For-profit companies such as StraighterLine, for example, allow institutions to essentially outsource many commonly-taken lower-division courses that are required to earn a baccalaureate degree. The growing availability of credit-bearing courses on the web through modalities like Massive Open On-Line Courses (MOOCs) will only add to this trend. Both situations render accreditations dominant paradigm of accrediting individual institutions increasingly obsolescent and demand greater attention to how institutions ensure that quality is protected when so much of the instructional process is outside their direct control. A New Paradigm of Teaching and Learning. Also fading into history is the traditional academic calendar based on fixed time-based terms (semesters or quarters) and one-way transmission of content. In contrast, the emerging new paradigm of teaching and learning, best illustrated now by a handful of competency-based institutions like Western Internal Challenges Governors University (WGU), is based on a mastery New Kinds of Providers model in which students make academic progress New Patterns of Participation by successfully completing, at their own pace, A New Paradigm of Teaching and successive examinations, demonstrations, or perforLearning mances. In contrast to the traditional seat-time approach, this model is not only asynchronous, A Transformed Contingent but it is also characterized by a wide diversity of Faculty individual learning experiences. No two students at WGU, for example, will have engaged in the same curriculum, although all will be expected to meet common outcomes standards. At the opposite end of the continuum, another feature of this new paradigm of teaching and learning is characterized by far more standardized and structured learning experiences built using insights about how people learn provided through cognitive science. Institutions employing this mode, like the British Open University and many U.S. for-profits, rely on a centrally-developed, standardized curriculum delivered by adjunct faculty or at a distance. By 2020, it is very likely that a majority of the nations college students will be experiencing one of these two transformed modes of provision. Both of these approaches challenge accreditations traditional view of instructional quality based on resources and processes. They also require established standards of mastery based upon an agreed-upon array of intended learning outcomes consistent with the needs of the 21st century. These approaches challenge accreditation to help establish what intended learning outcomes ought to be. A Transformed and Contingent Faculty. For most of accreditations history, the faculty workforce at all types of institutions was overwhelmingly centered on full-time faculty on a tenure track. Faculty members in these roles are expected to serve as colleagues for one another in developing new courses and curricula, setting academic standards and policies, and engaging to various degrees in scholarship and creative activity. Full-time appointments also meant that most faculty were available to participate in professional development to build their skills in such areas as effective collaborative pedagogy, use of technology in teaching, and assessing student learning outcomes. Since that time, the face of Americas faculty has shifted markedly. According to NCES figures, about a third of the current professoriate now consists of part-time faculty hired on a contingent basis to staff introductory or lower-division courses with high student demand. Meanwhile, growing numbers of those employed full-time are not on a tenure track and remain employed on a contract basis as instructors. These trends are especially prevalent at open-admission public colleges and universities and are overwhelmingly the case in the rapidly growing for-profit sector. In light of accreditations heavy focus on the faculty role in designing and approving all aspects of the teaching/ learning process, and accreditations historic emphasis on the role of faculty in participatory governance, these trends must be re-examined. Especially salient are questions about how the quality of teaching and learning is monitored and assured when the faculty role is unbundled so that different individuals are
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responsible for instructional design, content delivery, mentoring, and student assessment. Implications of These Changes It is easier to define these emerging changes and identify the challenges they pose to current accreditation practices than it is to delineate the specifics of how these practices ought to change. Nevertheless, these trends suggest the following: Accreditors will need to perform a more overt accountability role, with processes more attuned to public concerns about quality. This will include greater public participation in the accreditation process by increasing the number of public members on Commissions and, where appropriate, lay members of review teams. One implication, already visible as of June 2012 at WASC, is that the results of reviews be reported in more detail to external audiences, including summaries of findings and an enumeration of institutional strengths and shortcomings. Another is that WASC ensure that all institutions make learning outcomes public, together with appropriately justified levels of student performance on them. Accreditors will need to shift some of their attention toward monitoring how students progress longitudinally toward credentials, using the services of many educational providers. This may require special attention to examining how the increasingly disparate parts of a students experience fit together to constitute an effective path to a given credential or degree. How institutions treat, monitor, and evaluate incoming transfer courses will also be an important part of this. In addition, accreditors will need to increasingly recognizeand possibly reviewoutsourced providers of packaged courses and informational websites. At the very least, they will have to pay more attention to examining the criteria by which institutions decide to use licensed providers such as these and accept their credits. These trends, as well as the changing paradigm of teaching and learning, will require even more emphasis to be placed on aligned standards of academic achievement, as well as solid evidence that these standards are being achieved. This will require attention to what the common elements of a bachelors or masters degree ought to be, as well as how institutions set performance benchmarks on these learning outcomes as good enough. This was the reason WASC revised the contents of CFR2.2a and is according new prominence to institutions efforts to assess these competencies. The Lumina DQP may provide institutions with useful guidance in doing this. Accreditors will require new standards and review approaches to deal with an unbundled faculty roles. Reviewing faculty credentials and how faculty members are deployed will no longer be enough. In addition, attention must be paid to how the unbundled components of the traditional faculty role are re-integrated to yield coherent learning experiences and how individuals are developed and evaluated in these new roles. Current accreditation standards, including WASCs, are properly focused on the faculty role in delivering content, but less attention is typically paid to the faculty role in mentoring students and assessing their performance. Also, as these distinct roles are increasingly enacted by different individuals, review attention must also be devoted to examining how institutions ensure that they are appropriately integrated and coordinated. Review processes will need to be more visibly cost-effective, employing, where appropriate, more virtual communication and less paper-and-pencil reporting. What reporting remains must be indicator-based and ruthlessly focused on institutional effectiveness and performance. These revisions are apparent in the institutional review process established in the 2013 WASC Handbook of Accreditation, which emphasize indicators. A focus on performance, in turn, means continuing to develop new requirements that every visit include a focused conversation about graduation rates and eventually extending such requirements to include mandatory conversations about student learning results. U.S. accreditors will increasingly need to partner with and mutually recognize the actions of quality assurance authorities in the rest of the world. As they do so, moreover, they will need to align their expectations of what degree recipients at various levels should be expected to know and do with the Qualifications Frameworks already established by other countries. For WASC in particular, this means reviewing
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and aligning the outcomes standards noted in CFR2.2a with the Lumina DQP and some of the major Qualifications Frameworks of nations where institutions from the region do business. This also means creating more proactive partnerships with the quality assurance agencies of these countries. As shown by the past ten years, change can happen quickly and become transformational. After all, tools that we now take for granted, ranging from Google to GoToMeeting, were only created in the last decade. The standards and review processes that WASC has developed for the current Handbook looking toward 2020 anticipate similar rates and directions of change. They are positioned for an era of greater accountability and rapid instructional transformation, while they provide institutions with a sound basis upon which to examine themselves objectively and systematically improve. As such, they represent an appropriate response to the new ecology for higher education that faces us today.

New Ecosystems in Higher Education and What They Mean for Accreditation and Assessment Richard DeMillo Center for 21st Century Universities, Georgia Tech
Introduction In its American incarnation, accreditation exists because of a confluence of two otherwise unrelated historical trends. The first involved the massive outpouring of philanthropy to institutions of higher learning at the beginning of the 20th century. Shocked by the dismal state of university administration and accountability, industrialists like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie demanded minimal standards as a condition for receiving grants and gifts. These were men of industry who were enamored with industrial management practices, including quality control and measurement. The second trend was spurred by the massive increase in enrollments in the mid20th century, increases that threatened to overwhelm the nations colleges. The solution was to make institutions more efficient. Efficiency in postWWII America meant factory efficiency, and so colleges and universities adopted the methods of the factory floor. By the 1950s it was officially decided: universities were going to operate on a factory model. Raw materials (students) were to be moved efficiently through (classes, majors, high studentteacher ratios) a factory (universities) in which defects were discarded (selective admissions and normative grading) and highquality products (graduates) were stamped with seals of approval (degrees). Accreditors were the quality control department of the factory. It was a role they adopted enthusiastically. The mission statement of nearly every accrediting body begins with a recapitulation of the need for quality control in higher education. The factory model that is crumbling, and it is being replaced by a new ecosystem for higher education. This does not bode well for traditional accreditation. It is technology that has shaken the factory model. This is the Year of the MOOC. A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course, a kind of online reimagining of what a college learning experience should be like. Technologyenabled teaching to global classrooms of 150,000 students has been the subject of feverish coverage by virtually everyone with a passing interest in the dire condition of American higher education. The New York Times called it the Tsunami1. Salman Kahns academy of thousands of short instructional videos has drawn hundreds of millions of viewers, and his ubiquitous thoughts about how this technology might redefine higher education has attracted the attention of Charlie Rose, David Brooks and Tom Friedman2. The technology of higher education has become sexy. It is easy to dismiss this, as many of my colleagues do, as a faddish rush to an overhyped, shiny new technology, but there is a serious rationale for what is taking place in higher education. The technology itself is just a metaphor for change. Hype Factors There is a lot of hype in current discussions of educational technology, but that does not diminish its importance. In fact, hype factor is an important part of innovation. For that reason alone, there is much known about hype curves and the role they play in longterm change. Whether that change endures depends on how much value it creates, but in the beginning, when longterm prospects are unclear, there is a kind of mania that fuels innovation. In the case of the British Railroad, that mania began with this announcement in the May 1, 1829 edition of the Liverpool Mercury: The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway hereby offer a premium of 500 (over and above the cost price) for a locomotive engine which shall be a decided improvement on any hitherto
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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constructed, subject to certain Stipulations and Conditions, a copy of which may be had at the Railway Office, or will be forwarded. As may be directed, on application for the same, if by letter or post paid. It did not hurt that the winning steam engine could reach uphill speeds of 24 miles per hour, that the legacy technology defeated itself when a horse crashed through a wooden floorboard, or that Queen Victoria declared herself charmed by the technology, and thereby deemed the technology to be the 19th century version of sexy. The hype began in earnest. Business innovation (ticketing, firstclass seating, and agreements allowing passengers to change carriers midtrip) was rapid and fueled as much by intense competition as by a chaotic, frenzied stock market in which valuations soared beyond any seeming sense of proportion, causing John Francis in 1845 to despair: The more worthless the article the greater the struggle to attain it. When the market crashed during the week of October 17, 1847, in no small measure due to the 18456 crop failure and potato famine, and established companies failed, railway financiers like George Hudson were exposed as swindlers.

In the end, the modernday equivalent of $2 trillion was pumped into the investment bubble, as even desolate and economically insignificant outposts were connected by some of the 2,148 miles of railway capacity that entrepreneurs built during the British railway investment mania of the 1830s. Conventional wisdom is that early investors in British railway companies were played for suckers, but as my colleague Andrew Odlyzko pointed out3, conventional wisdom is sometimes false. The collapsing bubble is not the end of the story. Between 1845 and 1855, an additional 9,000 miles of track were constructed. By 1915, Englands rail capacity was 21,000 miles. British railways had entered a golden age. But what really happened to all that early investment? The surprising conclusion is that during the height of the 1830s hype cycle, railways were built that were viewed as triumphant successes in the end. Early investors were rewarded for the wildly speculative exuberance of the 1830s. The term hype factor is a code phrase for rejecting innovation cycles, and there is a great danger that legacy institutions and processes in higher education will fall into that trap. The conclusion that is usually drawn from British Railway Mania may lead markets and investors astray because it seriously misrepresents actual patterns. The whole point of a cycle (hype, innovation, or investment mania) is that it can be used as a riskaverse template for rejecting sales pitches that start with This time is different. But that does not mean that this time is never different. This Time is Different Critics have had colleges and universities in their sights for a long time, and there have always been innovations aimed at fixing the problems with higher education4. Like Detroit concept cars, classrooms of the future come and go. Internet connectivity, interactive clickers, ubiquitous computers, and distance education were all sold as solutions at one time or another to the ills facing higher education. But these were solutions for legacy organizations that had no particular motivation to change. The critics who demanded change had few options and no leverage at all. Traditional institutions, or the incumbents, had no overwhelmingly hostile economic reality to cope with. In fact they had an overwhelming economic advantage: they were gatekeepers, and anyone who wanted a university credential had to respect their boundaries. Society and the marketplace put a high value on those credentials, and the incumbents could charge accordingly. MOOCs have exposed a bypass. The gatekeepers are no longer in charge, and that is why this time is different.
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Traditional institutions... were gatekeepers, and anyone who wanted a university credential had to respect their boundaries. MOOCs have exposed a bypass. The gatekeepers are no longer in charge, and that is why this time is different.

Around the time of the market collapse of 2008, public sentiment about the cost of a college degree began to shift dramatically. Millions of disadvantaged students, recent immigrants, returning military, non-traditional and older students poured into universities. Driven by shrinking state budgets, public institutions began hiking their prices at shocking rates. Recent graduates found themselves unemployed and unemployable, but still responsible for paying off college loans. A debt crisis emerged as college loans passed credit card debt (second only to mortgage loans) and default rates rose. It was a cumulative effect. By 2010, polling showed that a majority of the American public no longer regarded a college degree as affordable and not worth the price5. In a flight to quality, students tended to bypass lesserknown schools which, in an attempt to compete on price, offered unsustainably steep discounts. Institutional debt rose as private donors retreated in the face of the deepening recession6. It had not escaped the attention of employers that the value of dearly purchased credentials had been eroded over the years. The gap between what course catalogs promised and what was actually taught in the classroom began to grow7. Grade inflation awarded As and Bs to two thirds of all students8. Silicon Valley companies placed so little regard on university credentials9 that they instituted their own screening exams to determine which applicants actually had the required skills. In short, conditions were right for the destruction of gatekeeperenforced boundaries10. In such situations markets seek bypasses. Open Courseware, edX, Coursera, Udacity, Kahn Academy, Codecademy, Udemy, iTunesU, YouTube, TED, and dozens of similar services showed students how universities might be replaced by outside networks with hidden assets at low or no cost. This time is different because economic reality is different: a bypass economy is springing up at exactly the time that the higher education market is seeking a bypass. The New Ecosystem Around the crumbling boundaries of incumbent universities is an odd combination of traditional institutions that seem bent on redefining their value, and institutions that see change around them but are convinced that they will be unaffected. They are trying to find their way in a marketplace that is growing accustomed to the rapid pace of change and an investment culture that seems to have learned the lessons of the investment mania of 1830s England. What pumps energy into this new ecosystem is the optimistic view that old limitations can be overcome. The cant dos have changed mainly because technology has taken down barriers. Let me mention three of them. Cost. College costs are controlled by high labor costs, the high cost of physical plants, and high materials costs. All three of these factors have held university budgets hostage for decades, but technology enables new approaches. For example, open courseware and online delivery allow both deskilling and the use of lower cost more flexible physical plants, both of which lower costs11. Learning. It has been known since Benjamin Blooms 1982 landmark study12 that the best classroom outcomes are achieved by nonnormative mastery methods in which student progress is tailored to the individual, an approach that is prohibitively expensive without technology. With computerassisted mastery classrooms, student performance can be reliably improved by two standard deviations at negligible marginal cost. Individualization. The trajectory of American higher education has been toward increased specialization and individualized instruction. New program costs increase nonlinearly without technological support but new internetbased personalization technologies enable tailored curricula, contentbased advising and individualized analytics that would otherwise be impossible. The idea, viewed as a pipedream as recently as last year, that students can hack degrees13 to suit their goals and expectations, is now gaining support as tens of thousands of students are beginning to combine courses from dozens of toprated universities.

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In this new ecosystem, value dominates. It is open by design and construction and so incumbents risk playing a diminished role as attention shifts from institutions and programs (where accreditation and assessment have traditionally focused their attention) to individual students. Economically, it is the scale of the Internet that dominates. Hundreds of millions of new students, combining courses offered by many institutions in unexpected ways require not authorities, bureaucracies, and processes, but platforms that are flexible and adept at scaling to the demands of the new bypass economy. The question for all legacy organizations in the new ecosystem is, What value do I add? The Challenge for Accreditation and Assessment It is now economically feasible for a student anywhere in the world to piece together, jigsaw like, a curriculum that matches his or her needs and to have both the curriculum and the students performance certified in a way that is accepted by academic institutions and employers alike. This is not a factory. The focus on higher education has irrevocably shifted from institutions to students. The factory model with its manufacturing vocabulary will be irrelevant, and so will the language of quality control that has dominated higher ed policy for the last hundred years. That is a shift that accrediting bodies need to be prepared to make. In the midst of a growing realization that a diploma does not represent quality, or even a close match for what the job market demands, the challenge for accreditation is to find a new value proposition that, even if it does not replace the traditional quality function, is better suited to the new ecosystem. Competencybased assessment, once regarded as a poor cousin of real assessment, will almost certainly play an important role in the new ecosystem. MOOC providers like Coursera and Udacity have recently embarked on monetization strategies modeled on the successful LinkedIn model of referrals. In this model, noninstitutional providers offer proof that a student has accomplished a goal, learned a skill, or demonstrated an ability that an employer seeks. The American Council of Educators (ACE) has already signaled its willingness to equate such demonstrations to standard university credit14.

This is an approach to assessment that is outside the boundaries of existing institutions. It is an approach whose only role is to provide transparency and accountability so that realistic assessments can be made. Federal regulators and accreditors who try to create standards that accommodate such arrangements will realize quickly that standardsbased approaches do not scale to the number of combinations of students, courses, instructors, providers, and referrals that are possible. Traditional accreditors might be tempted to kick the problem back to institutions and require compliance for each universityprogram course combination. That burden is too heavy. Accreditation is a standardsbased industry in a marketplace where standardization is being marginalized. It is a difficult position for standardssetters and evaluators to be in and heaping more institutional requirements on an already strained system is not the answer. There is a promisingsounding, but apparently unused section of Federal Title 34 Regulations called Direct Assessment that allows for the substitution of direct assessment of student learning or the recognition of direct assessment of student learning by others.15 Rather than let course outcomes speak for themselves, 668.10 does exactly the opposite. It attempts to equate a direct assessment outcome with credit or clock hours and requires each institution that offers a direct assessment program [to] apply to the Secretary to have that program determined to be an eligible program for Title IV, HEA program purposes, an overwhelming burden for any institution.

In this new ecosystem, value dominates. It is open by design and construction and so incumbents risk playing a diminished role as attention shifts from institutions and programs (where accreditation and assessment have traditionally focused their attention) to individual students.

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The world will still need a way to judge who has learned what (in the same way that Amazon.com and eBay customers need to know the quality of products and merchants). So what will replace accreditation? The outlines of an answer are just beginning to take shape. In fact, some of the answers have already been tried. Take high school Advanced Placement (AP) exams for example. Universities of all stripes routinely grant college credit for successful completion of AP courses upon presentation of satisfactory exams scores, a model not unlike the one recently proposed by the American Council of Educators (ACE) for accrediting MOOCs. Other approaches that should be tried include accrediting course repositories. That would require only accrediting the courses themselves, not the processes in which they are embedded, and letting the market place sort out the value of an individual curriculum. Crowdsourced ratings for courses already exist and as technology matures will be an increasingly accurate reflection of actual course content and quality. Community colleges, corporate training programs, and online schools like Western Governors University will have access to high quality online materials that can be packaged for traditional degree programs at reduced costs. Most importantly, the new ecosystem allows higher education to establish a market for quality. The business of running the nations colleges and universities is not on a sustainable path for reasons that have been vividly described elsewhere, and, while there are many fingers pointing in different directions, almost no one has focused on the unique role that accreditation and accreditors play. In the new ecosystem, value is king, and any approach to accreditation that does not draw a straight line from assessment to value on a certificate or diploma is doomed. References 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/education/consortiumofcollegestakesonlineeducationto newlevel.html?smid=plshare 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/brooksthecampustsunami.html?smid=plshare 3. This time is different: An example of a giant, wildly speculative, and successful investment mania, Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota School of Mathematics (http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/ mania01.pdf) 4. Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities, Richard A. DeMillo, MIT Press 2011 5. Is College Worth It? College Presidents, Public Assess Value, Quality and Mission of Higher Education, Pew Research Center, May 16, 2011 (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/HigherEdReport. pdf) 6. Failing: Results of New Tests of Financial Strength (http://innovateedu.com/2012/01/05/failingresultsof newtestsoffinancialstrength/) 7. What Will They Learn? (http://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/) 8. Where A is Ordinary: The Evolution of American College and University Grading 19402009, Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, Teachers College Record, 2012 (http://www.tcrecord.org/content. asp?contentid=16473) 9. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/fashion/sayingnotocollege.html?pagewanted=all 10. The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin, Penguin Books, 2004 11. Cf Reference 4. 12. The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as OnetoOne Tutoring, Benjamin S. Bloom, Educational Researcher Volume 13, Number 6, 1984, pp 416 13. Cf [4] Chapter 17 14. http://chronicle.com/article/MOOCsTakeaMajorStep/135750/ 15. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 34 Education Subtitle B Regulations of the Offices of the Department of Education, 668.10
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From Educational Institutions to Learning Flows Marina Gorbis, Devin Fidler, and Bettina Warburg-Johnson Institute for the Future
Introduction A combination of drivers is breaking learning (and education overall) out of traditional institutional environments and embedding it in everyday settings and interactions, distributed across a wide set of platforms and tools. As connective and mobile technologies spread, content proliferates and becomes increasingly available through open sources, and new modes of value creation emerge, we are moving away from the model where learning is organized around stable, usually hierarchical institutions (schools, colleges, universities) that for better and for worse have served as main gateways to education and social mobility. Replacing that model is a new system in which learning is best conceived of as a flow, where learning resources are not scarce but widely available, opportunities for learning are abundant, and learners increasingly have the ability to autonomously dip into and out of continuous learning flows. We have experienced early elements of the new system in our own daily lives. This probably sounds familiar: you are with a group of friends arguing about some piece of trivia or historical fact. Someone says, Wait, let me look this up on Wikipedia, and proceeds to read the information out loud from her mobile device to the whole group, thus resolving the argument. Such an event is a genuine learning moment. Everyone is motivated to learn something at that particular time, everyone is curious, everyone wants the information and gets it in a quick, easy, and socially embedded setting. If you multiply this kind of moment and add to the mix a rich ecology of content and easy access to others who can provide help, answer questions, and offer mentoring or support, you begin to see the outlines of a society and an economy that rest on rich learning flows. The transformation from educational institutions to learning flows is profound and disruptive, and no existing institution will have the luxury of remaining unchanged. Such transformation requires us to rethink all of the assumptions, structures, and principles that have worked thus far. It also raises a new set of questions and challenges that educational institutions, accreditation agencies, and our society as a whole will have to grapple with, such as: How should we motivate people to tap into ever-expanding learning flows? How will we assess competency levels and learning outcomes in the era of learning flows? What are the new regulatory mechanisms needed in the era of learning flows? Who should fill this role? How should this be done? Before discussing specific implications of learning flows for accreditation, lets explore some key underpinnings of the new system and their potential evolution over the next five to ten years. The Rise of Content Commons Wide availability and easy access to content is what enables learners to acquire knowledge, information, and ideas in a highly distributed and continuous fashion. Learning becomes a flow when learning resources are widely available. The commons is a concept used to describe resources that are owned in common or shared between or among communities and populations. While the term still encompasses physical resources, like the air or public land, it increasingly relates to the tidal wave of open digital materialstext, simulations, video and audio recordings, photographs, and learning toolsthat are becoming available to people around the world via the Internet. The total amount of information available to individuals is no longer fixed by material and physical constraints. Historically, books and broadcast media were limited by production costs and the constraints of physical
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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binding, recording, and storage technologies. Individuals could access additional content in libraries, of course, but even then available materials were extremely limited in quantity and type. Today, this constraint is quickly disappearing as shared and open content accumulates into a massive worldwide open resource. Information and content are also increasingly becoming commodities. While these commodities exist in raw formats (uploaded videos, blog entries, text), they are also being organized into highly complex and sophisticated packages that provide context, application, imagination, and explanation. This includes highly structured and media-rich Khan Academy video modules, compelling lectures, and various open online courses. The nature of this content is also changing in a number of ways, including becoming more immersive and engaging. Already, a combination of cheap editing tools, more media devices, and higher media literacy is enlarging the possibilities for communicating ideas and inspiring learning experiences. The TED Talks format, for example, has helped raise the bar for presentations worldwide and shows how powerful a well-designed, media-rich message can be. Commons materials will also be ever more specific and targeted. A traditional encyclopedia contains only a limited number of articles. Wikipedia contains a much larger and constantly growing set of articles. But even Wikipedia holds only so much specific information. To fill this gap, new communities are emerging that share information about much narrower and more focused topics, from the autumn mating cycles of certain butterflies to the geological history of a specific valley.

Learning becomes a flow as new tools and technologies go beyond growing the content commons and turn the whole world into a classroom, making learning possible anytime and anyplace.

Finally, content is getting integrated to communicate complex processes, not just simple information. In addition to traditional materials, people are creating and sharing an array of open-source software tools, mashups, and design templates. Moving forward, these shared resources will serve as a foundation for innovations that would not have been possible in the past. Embedded and Embodied Learning Learning becomes a flow as new tools and technologies go beyond growing the content commons and turn the whole world into a classroom, making learning possible anytime and anyplace. Think of a simple app on your iPhone, such as Yelp Monocle.1 When you point the phone in any direction, the phone displays Points of Interest, potentially interesting venues in a particular location, such as restaurants, stores, and museums. But this is just the beginning. Increasingly, along with restaurant and store information, we will be able to access historical, artistic, demographic, environmental, architectural, and other kinds of information embedded in the real world. This is exactly what a project from the University of Southern California and UC Los Angeles called HyperCities2 is doingit is layering historical information on the actual city terrain. As you walk around with your mobile device, you can point to a site and see what it looked like a century ago, who lived there, what the environment was like. Interactive tools are not limited to any one topic. Take the Smithsonians free iPhone and iPad app, Leafsnap3, as another example. After you take a photo of a tree leaf, Leafsnap responds by instantly searching a growing library of leaf images amassed by the Smithsonian Institution. In seconds, it returns a likely species name along with high-resolution photographs of and information on the trees flowers, fruit, and so forth. We are also able to query real people from around the world to help us learn in real time. Platforms such as Fluther4 allow anyone to post a question for the community to answer. Posts vary from relatively trivial relationship questions like How many days of silence mean that it is over? to complex math. Not only do we have access to question-and-answer platforms that help us learn, increasingly we also have access to world-class experts who can provide personalized advice and mentorship. Expert Insight5, founded by Brandon Adams, a
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PhD graduate of Harvard Business School, allows people to gain access to experts in multiple disciplines. Experts list their rates and availability, and those interested can select an hour or two from their chosen experts schedule and can pay online. Some of the experts are academics who also teach at colleges and universities, including Jeffrey Miron, senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. The movement of information into the real world from restricted physical settingsclassrooms and desktops will greatly increase occasions and opportunities for learning. It will indeed become possible to embed learning into the flow of everyday experiences, making it something we do continuously while walking, riding a bus, or sitting at home or in a park. Learning will potentially underpin every moment of our lives. Socialstructed Work As work itself becomes de-institutionalized and people are called on to contribute to flows of tasks based on their skills and abilities rather than degrees and certifications, learning will need to be a continuous process rather than limited to particular settings or periods of time. A decade ago, workers worried about jobs being outsourced overseas. Today, companies such as oDesk6 and LiveOps7 can assemble teams in the cloud to do sales, customer support, editing, research, and many other tasks. In fact, the new generation of digital platforms is changing the nature of work and jobs as we know them, necessitating a careful rethinking of how to pose the purpose of learning itself and the kinds of skills people will need in order to live productive and fulfilling lives. The era of stable 9-to-5 jobs in large companies may be undergoing a rapid demise. In its place we see the emergence of new forms of value creation. We call this process socialstructing and define it as the development of a form of value creation that involves microcontributions from large networks of people utilizing social tools and technologies to create a new kind of wealth. Socialstructing is affecting every domain of our lives, from manufacturing to consumption, from business to health care, from governance to education. People, not institutions, become the new nodes in the value creation system. Small bits of effort created by each node, when brought together, can create massive impactsproduce new health treatments, new collective works of art, new learning systems, and powerful new social movementsfor better and for worse. Microcontributions are a key feature of socialstructed creation. Such lightweight contributions can take different formsa hundred people coming together for a hackathon to create new products in bursts of inspired activity or people simply sharing some of their health data, which takes hardly any time at all. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Flickr, and many other stalwarts of todays digital economy are enablers and beneficiaries of such microcontributions. The launch of Amazons Mechanical Turk8 service embodies this type of work. Users can upload work and have it divided into very small tasks, to be tackled by thousands of anonymous workers. MIT and Stanford researcher Michael Bernsteins Soylent9 platform takes the tools of Mechanical Turk further by using them to orchestrate dozens of anonymous contributors to the platform in such a way that they can effectively co-author text documents in near real time. The next iteration of microcontributions can already be seen on sites like oDesk that now act like real-time global online staffing agencies. This type of online task routing has become still more granular and sophisticated as sites such as TaskRabbit10 allow people to hire others in their neighborhood who are looking for odd jobs. Not only are TaskRabbit workers not anonymous, they are actually screened via background checks. Currently, a new generation of platforms is creating software that automatically replaces many human management functions. MobileWorks11, for example, is working on code to match tasks with the exactly right person to complete them. What are the skills needed by people increasingly working in a world in which they can access contributions from thousands of people globallyor make contributions alongside thousands of people globallyaided by software and algorithmic task routing? This is the question every educational institution needs to be asking.
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Instant and Continuous Feedback and Assessment Learning flows are enabled by and require new forms of assessment that capture and analyze massive quantities of data and feed results back to the learner on the spot. An emerging tsunami of data from cheap digital systems and sensors is bringing the advantages of data analytics to a wide variety of new industries. These analytics are enabling new forms of automation in managing complex systems, such as municipal water, and opening new insights into complex processes, such as history and learning, letting learners know their levels of cognitive loads or how well they are mastering a particular task. This trend will intensify as every interaction, every encounter, every object becomes enveloped in the cloud of data. The proliferation of data streams brings with it the opportunity to develop new types of analytical insights. Longitudinal data, or data collected over a number of years, for example, allows for a better understanding of change in individuals or systems over time. Email analytics programs, for example, already allow users to evaluate their entire email history and to visualize changes over time. From Khan Academys monitoring of students progress in learning to sophisticated neuro-devices that track whether someone is paying attention (or her level of cognitive load), a new panoply of assessment tools provide learning feedback and analytics on a continuous basis.

The movement of information into the real world from restricted physical settingsclassrooms and desktops will greatly increase occasions and opportunities for learning. It will indeed become possible to embed learning into the flow of everyday experiences, making it something we do continuously while walking, riding a bus, or sitting at home or in a park. Learning will potentially underpin every moment of our lives.

A new suite of tools and technologies promises to move measurement and assessment from being heroic endeavors that measure maximum performance with targeted effort (for example, once-a-year tests, onetime visits, episodic assessment) into continuous, embedded, often invisible experiences that integrate not one but a complex ecology of indicators. These more multidimensional and deeper data streams provide an opportunity to improve feedback mechanisms and to adapt conditions in real time to best suit ones needs. Ultimately, it is the difference between measuring fuel with an old-fashioned dipstick or a dashboard with a real-time gas gauge. In addition to these types of quantitative measurements and feedback loops, we are seeing the growth of reputation markets. Ken Goldberg, a robotics and new media professor at the University of California, Berkeley, argues that we are moving from the age of information to the age of opinions. Enabling this move are the multitudes of platforms built for people to express opinions, share views, and review products, services, and other people. These platforms are becoming new avenues for providing feedback and assessment of an individuals skills. Your reputation as a seller on eBay, your LinkedIn endorsements, reviews of the quality of your work on oDesk, and the number of your Twitter followers are all becoming de facto markers of a persons reputation and, increasingly, levels of expertise. In a recent survey asking people who hire others through oDesk about criteria for their hiring decisions, the last on the list was possession of a college degree. The #1 criterion for hiring was the assessment of a persons previous performance on a similar or related task.12 These reputation and performance scores are increasingly being used instead of signals such as college degrees, attendance at Ivy League schools, or other proxies for assessing knowledge and competency levels. Conclusion: The Future of Accreditation The new economy of learning flows is making it necessary for educational institutions and accreditation agencies to act with foresightthat is, to understand the larger underlying forces that will be reshaping the learning landscape and to begin to prepare for the future as it unfolds. Specifically, with the changes outlined above, it is imperative to think through the new who, what, and how of accreditation. Who gets accredited? With the transition from institutional delivery of knowledge to learning flows
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enabled by a panoply of new content and learning tools, who needs to be assessed? Is it necessary to assess/ accredit institutions? Curricular materials (courses)? Individuals? All of the above? Can accreditation institutions develop flexible forms of accreditation to assess all of these levels, or will the niches be filled by new processes and platforms that lie outside traditional accreditation boundaries? We are beginning to see organizations offering alternatives to institutional accreditation: the American Council on Education is considering accrediting Coursera courses, and Purdue University uses Mozilla Open Badges with its own classroom apps to award digital badges. What gets accredited? What skills and abilities do our learning entities need to demonstrate they help learners develop, given that the new world of socialstructed work depends less on individual expertise and more on microcontributions by hundreds and thousands of workers and that smart software will increasingly let humans and machines work symbiotically to accomplish many tasks? It may be necessary for assessment and accreditation agencies to start assessing new kinds of skillssuch as collaboration, computational thinking, and the ability to work well with smart machines. How does assessment get done? Finally, in the world of big data, advanced analytics, and growing reputation markets, how can we move assessment from episodic, tour-de-force quantitative and qualitative encounters to a continuous feedback mechanism? And how can we ensure that this mechanism takes into consideration a complex set of factors to enable flexible adaptation and improvements in learning outcomes? We need to start thinking about assessment as a way to guide continuous improvement in learning outlines rather than rendering zero-sum judgments. Platforms such as Khan Academy are paving the way in providing feedback on performance and measuring a learners level of mastery rather than assigning grades. In the era of learning flows, accrediting agencies will need to think beyond ensuring that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality to laying the foundations for supporting and enriching the next-generation learning ecology. This involves broadening the array of objects of accreditation beyond institutions to courses, individuals, and learning tools. In the era of big data and content commons, accreditors will also increasingly be called upon to make the process more transparent, continuous, and driven by massive amounts of data. They will also be called upon to provide meaningful assessment that aligns with the kinds of skills and competencies that are relevant to learners in the new world of socialstructed work. References 1. Ben Parr, EASTER EGG: Yelp Is the iPhones First Augmented Reality App, Mashable, August 27, 2009, http://mashable.com/2009/08/27/yelp-augmented-reality/. 2. About, HyperCities, http://hypercities.com/about/. 3. Leafsnap: An Electronic Field Guide, Leafsnap, http://leafsnap.com/. 4. What is Fluther? Fluther.com, http://www.fluther.com/help/. 5. About Us, Expert Insight, http://www.expertinsight.com./pages/about-us. 6. How it Works, oDesk, https://www.odesk.com/info/howitworks/client/. 7. All About LiveOps, LiveOps, http://www.liveops.com/company. 8. Introduction, Amazon Mechanical Turk, https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome. 9. Michael Bernstein, Soylent: A Word Processor with a Crowd Inside, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=n_miZqsPwsc. 10. How TaskRabbit Works, TaskRabbit, https://www.taskrabbit.com/how-it-works. 11. How it Works, MobileWorks, https://www.mobileworks.com/. 12. Quentin Hardy, The Global Arbitrage of Online Work, New York Times, Bits section, October 10, 2012, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/the-global-arbitrage-of-online-work/.

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Thinking About Accreditation in a Rapidly Changing World Paul LeBlanc Southern New Hampshire University
Enormous change is underway in higher education driven by a perfect storm of crisis (around cost, access, quality, and funding), technological innovation and what that makes possible, the growing presence and influence of for-profit providers, abuses (of various kinds), opportunity, and workforce development needs in a global and technological context. Any one of those might fill an agenda for a commissioners retreat or small conference, but accreditors now have to wrestle with these various forces across a broad landscape of change and urgency. Historians of the period, possessing the clear sightedness that only time provides, will likely point to online learning as the disruptive technology platform that radically changed an industry that had remained largely unchanged since the cathedral schools of medieval Europe; football, beer-pong, and food courts notwithstanding. Many are looking to new technology-based or at least enhanced solutions to the problems of higher education and online learning has in many ways paved the way. While many non-profit institutions are just now catching up with online programs, often entering that market because of economic pressures, online learning is already well understood, well established, and well respected by those who genuinely know it. In fact, as Clayton Christensens The Innovators Dilemma predicted, the question of 15 years ago, How can we make online learning the equal of traditional delivered learning?, has been reversed and we know ask, How can we make traditionally delivered learning the equal of the best designed online learning? This is because disruptive innovations always start as inferior to incumbent models, but their technological core improves at a steeper curve than the incumbent model (which in our case has remained fundamentally the same and thus resisted productivity improvement, as explained in part by William Baumol) and they eventually surpass the incumbent:
Quality

Traditional Online

1995

2005 Time

2015

As Christensen also predicts, when traditional faculty teach online, they bring back to their traditional classrooms new pedagogical moves and technologies such that online education is actually helping to improve traditional delivery models. Accreditors have largely come to understand online learning and readily access it as part of any institutional review. State regulators are another story and the crazy quilt of 50 different state regulatory approaches, many of them built in anticipation of on-the-ground physical campuses and flavored with a protectionist bias, is actually impeding access to high quality online programs. But thats another sad story for another day. What we now see in higher education is a new wave of innovation that uses online learning, or at least aspects of it. The meteoric growth of the for-profit sector, the emergence of MOOCs, new self-paced competency-based programs, adaptive
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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learning environments, peer-to-peer learning platforms, third-party service providers, the end of geographic limitations on program delivery, and more all spring from the maturation of online learning and the technology that supports it. Online learning has provided a platform for rethinking delivery models and much of accreditation is not designed to account for these new approaches. Perhaps most importantly, this new wave of innovation This new wave of innovation relies on a disaggregation, a common phenomenon in mature industries, but one that higher education has relies on a disaggregation remarkably resisted for centuries. Indeed, one could argue within higher education, a that the core of the educational enterprise has always common phenomenon in mature been vertically integrated in the body of the faculty. That is, faculty members thought up new courses and industries, but one that our programs, developed syllabi, outlined learning objecindustry has remarkably resisted tives, curated the necessary content and learning for centuries. artifacts (mostly choosing books and chapters and articles), walked the proposed courses/programs through necessary approvals (governance), taught the courses/programs, advised students, stepped in when students needed help, administered assessments, and graded performance, and periodically revised the course/program. That was the way of the world until online technology entered the picture. Online learning has disaggregated the model and now various players perform various aspects of what was once the exclusive province of the faculty. For example: A faculty member might be hired as subject matter expert to develop a course, but never then teach it or be involved in it again; Faculty might be hired to teach a course that is already developed and handed to them with little room for them to change the course (common in large scale programs where standardization is important); Third party providers like Smart Thinking might provide student tutorial help; Students might turn to a peer-to-peer learning network like OpenStudy instead of their faculty when they run into trouble; Adaptive learning technologies might intelligently guide the students pathway through the learning content; The person assessing the students work might not be the faculty member teaching the course (as at Western Governors University); Self-guided learning models like Southern New Hampshire Universitys College for America (CfA) program have no faculty instruction at all. The great displacement of traditional faculty roles in the new delivery models, though we know that when technology enters a craft profession, the highly skilled and expensive craftspeople at the heart of that industry will see their world irrevocably changed. This will be much less true for faculty members in research, elite, and residential coming of age programs, but certainly true for those involved in the education of working adults and those who cannot afford the increasingly expensive residential college experience that so much shapes our myth of higher education, but represents less than 20% of all college students. Slightly more encouraging is that we will see new and different roles for faculty members not lucky enough to be situated in the research/elite/ residential sectors of higher education, even though they are not the ones that inspired many of them to enter academia. Disaggregation now plays out in other ways as well. Here are a few examples: Credentials. Part of the vertical integration in higher education was that colleges and universities fully owned the credentialing that came at the end of the educational process. We now see growing acceptance
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of prior learning assessment (PLA) at the front end of the learning process (though still largely under the control of the institutions, both CAEL and Kaplan are building businesses around PLAs), a proliferation of industry certifications now often pulled into the learning equation, and a lot of discussion of alternative credentialing, especially the notion of badges. MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) providers are sorting through what kinds of credentials they might offer and industry stalwarts like the American Council on Education (ACE) have signaled their willingness to work with them on assigning credits. Traditional higher education may be losing some of its monopoly on credentialing, if not in the critical arena of Title IV funding, at last among employers. Non-institutional Faculty. Faculty have always been somewhat independent contractors working within and thus affiliated with institutions. However, Sebastian Thruns 2011 departure from his home institution, Stanford, to create Udacity, a for-profit MOOC provider, may signal new possibilities for how faculty members are situated within the industry. For-profit StraighterLine has announced a model for self-employed faculty to teach courses setting their own price models and sharing the tuition revenue. Similarly, Udemy offers 5,000 courses in which the professor sets the fee and shares 30% of the revenue with the company. In yet another variation of this theme, Antioch University has announced that it will offer college credit for Coursera courses, a model that has an outsider faculty member offering an Antioch course (at least in terms of validation through credit) while Antioch provides advising and other learning support. While these new models are not likely to be impactful for some time, if at all, they reinforce the notion of learners grazing or assembling their learning from multiple sources and some of those sources may be newly independent faculty providers. What is the Institution? In the past, institutions largely managed all of their own activities with a few exceptions (food service, maybe maintenance, creation of marketing materials). Today, there is an enormous rush into the higher education services sector with massive for-profits like Pearson either investing in or acquiring for-profit companies that manage large parts of university activities ranging from its learning management systems (LMS) to marketing activities to admissions and financial aid processing to content and course development to tutoring. As cash-strapped institutions struggle to establish themselves in the new online marketplace, they are increasingly turning to other third-party providers for some or all of what they need and venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and traditional publishers (now re-inventing themselves as they see their print world disrupted) are pouring money into the opportunity. Examples include Pearsons recent $650m acquisition of Embanet and Compass Knowledge Group, John Wiley & Sons $220m acquisition of Deltak, and, in a reverse of this dynamic, Apollo Global Managements $2.5b acquisition of McGraw-Hills education division. Accreditors routinely ask institutions to demonstrate control and quality in areas that are increasingly being contracted out to for-profit providers. This expanded use of third parties poses interesting questions. Overall, accreditation has been based on a review of an integrated organization and its activities: the college or university. These were largely cohesive and relatively easy to understand organizational structures where almost everything was integrated to produce the learning experience and degree. Accreditation is now faced with assessing learning in an increasingly disaggregated world with organizations that are increasingly complex, or at least differently complex, including shifting roles, new stakeholders and participants, various contractual obligations and relationships, and new delivery models. There is likely to be increasing pressure for accreditation to move from looking only at the overall whole, the institution, to include smaller parts within the whole or alternatives to the whole: perhaps programs, providers, and offerings other than degrees and maybe provided by entities other than traditional institutions. In other words, in an increasingly disaggregated world, does accreditation need to become more disaggregated as well? MOOCs might be one such example. For all the attention that MOOCs have received this last year, I remain an intrigued skeptic. MOOC providers too much ignore that their principle attraction is their elite brand affiliations. If a local state college offers a MOOC it is more likely to be a SOOC (Small Open Online Course). But when MIT or Harvard or Stanford, brands built on saying no to almost all interested parties, offer free (!) courses to all, it is hardly a surprise that so many enroll. Their numbers are impressive, on one hand, and not very interesting or surprising, on the other. There are issues. MOOCs reify very traditional educational notions: sage-on-the-stage teaching, the traditional
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semester structure and three-credit-hour model, and a focus on content over learning. They are most deficient in the areas that adult learners need addressed to be successful: learner support, motivation, and persistence, the social aspects of learning, and the other, messy human aspects of learning. However, in their defense, MOOC providers are forging new ground and it is early in the development of the models. As disruption theory tells us, the early iterations of new models are often not very good, but the improvement curve is steep and fast and a lot of very smart people are working on MOOCs. Yet, already ACE is exploring providing transcript credit to MOOCs and is this not a kind of accreditation at the course level and thus disaggregated accreditation? More profound, if less discussed, is the emergence of competency-based Accreditation is now faced with assessing education (CBE). Our own [Southern learning in an increasingly disaggregated New Hampshire University] CBE world with organizations that are program, College for America (CfA), is the first of its kind to so wholly move increasingly complex, or at least differently from any anchoring to the three-credit complex, including shifting roles, new hour Carnegie Unit that pervades higher stakeholders and participants, various education (shaping workload, units of learning, resource allocation, space utilicontractual obligations and relationships, zation, salary structures, financial aid and new delivery models. regulations, transfer policies, degree definitions, and more). The irony of the threecredit hour is that it fixes time while it leaves variable the actual learning. In other words, we are really good at telling the world how long a student has sat at a desk and we are really quite poor at saying how much they have learned or even what they learned. CBE flips the relationship and says let time be variable, but make learning well-defined, fixed, and non-negotiable. In our CfA program, there are no courses. There are 120 competencies can do statements, if you will precisely defined by well-developed rubrics. Students demonstrate mastery of those competencies through completion of tasks that are then assessed by faculty reviewers using the rubrics. Students cant slide by with a C or a B; they have either mastered the competencies or they are still working on them. When they are successful, the assessments are maintained in a web-based portfolio as evidence of learning. Students can begin with any competency at any level (there are three levels moving from smaller, simpler competencies to higher level, complicated competencies) and go as fast or as slow as they need to be successful. We offer the degree for $2,500 per year, so an Associate Degree for $5,000 if a student takes two years and for as little as $1,750 if they complete in just six months (an admittedly formidable task for most). CfA is the first program of its kind to be approved by a regional accreditor, NEASC in our case, and is the first to seek approval for Title IV funding through the direct assessment of learning provisions. At the time of this writing, CfA has successfully passed the first stage review by the Department of Education and is still moving through the approval process. The radical possibility offered in the CBE movement is that traditional higher education may lose its monopoly on delivery models. In other words, if we can say with certainty what accounts for learning and how we know for sure that students have mastered that learning, then we should be much less concerned with how a student gets there. Accreditors have for some time put more stress on learning outcomes and assessment, but the CBE movement privileges them above all else. When we excel at both defining and assessing learning, we open up enormous possibilities for new delivery models, creativity, and innovation. Its not a notion that most incumbent providers welcome, but in terms of finding new answers to the cost, access, quality, productivity, and relevance problems that are reaching crisis proportions in higher education, CBE may be the most dramatic development in higher education in hundreds of years. For example, the path to legitimacy for MOOCs probably lies in competency-based approaches and while they can readily tackle the outcomes or competency side of the equation, they still face formidable challenges of reliable, trustworthy, and rigorous assessment at scale (at least while trying to remain free). Well-developed CBE can help undergird the badges movement, demanding that such efforts be transparent about the claims associated with a badge and the assessments used to validate learning or mastery, as the leaders of that effort know.
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The CBE movement may provide accreditors with a framework for rethinking assessment. It would shift accreditation to looking much harder at learning outcomes and competencies, the claims an entity is making for the education it provides and for the mechanisms it uses for knowing and demonstrating that the learning has occurred. The good news here is that such a dual focus would free accreditors from so much focus on inputs and organization and stakeholder roles and governance and allow for the emergence of all sorts of new delivery models. The bad news is that we are still working on how to craft well-designed learning outcomes and conduct effective assessment. Its harder than many think. A greater focus on outcomes and assessment also begs other important questions for accreditors: How will they rethink standards to account for far more complex and disaggregated business models which might have a mix of suppliers, some for-profit and some non-profit, and which look very different from traditional institutions? Will they only accredit institutions or does accreditation have to be disaggregated too? Might there by multiple forms of accreditation: for institutions, for programs, for courses, for MOOCs, for badges, and so on? At what level of granularity? CBE programs are coming. College for America is one example, but other institutions have announced efforts in this area, major foundations are lining up behind the effort (most notably Lumina and Gates), and the Department of Education appears to be relying on accreditors to attest to the quality and rigor of those programs. While the Department of Education is moving cautiously on this question, accreditors might want to think through what a world untethered to the credit hour might look like. Might there be two paths to accreditation: the traditional institutional path and the CBE path with the former looking largely unchanged and the latter using rigorous outcomes and assessment review to allow support for more innovation than current standards now do? This last point is important: accreditors need to think about their relationship to innovation. If the standards are largely built to assess incumbent models and enforced by incumbents, they must be by their very nature conservative and in service of the status quo. Yet, the public is in many ways frustrated with the status quo and unwilling to support it in the old ways. Frankly, they believe we are failing and the ways they think we are failing depends on who you ask. But never has the popular press (and thus the public and policy makers) been so consumed with the problems of traditional higher education and intrigued by the alternatives. In some ways, accreditors are being asked to shift or at least expand their role to accommodate these new models. If regional accreditors are unable to rise to that challenge they might see new alternative accreditors emerge and be left tethered to incumbent models that are increasingly less relevant or central to how higher education takes place ten years from now. There is time. As has been said, we frequently overestimate the amount of change in the next two years and then dramatically underestimate the amount of change in the next ten. The time is now for regional accreditors to re-engineer the paths to accreditation and in doing so they can not only be ready for that future, they can help usher it into reality.

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Changing Ecology: Towards Accreditation for Institutions Offering Courses, not Degrees Sebastian Thrun Udacity
Executive Summary Udacity suggests to WASC that they develop a path for accreditation of institutions that specialize on courses, but that do not offer degrees. This request is the result of a number of developments. Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, are now reaching millions of students. Udacity fills specific gaps, such as enhancing college readiness, improving students success rate in colleges. And while none of the MOOC providers offer entire degrees, their contribution to higher education is already substantial. Today, Udacitys courses fall partially outside the accreditation system and partially within accreditation through academic partners (San Jose State University), yet they have gained employer acceptance. Thus far, WASC and other regional accreditors have not established guidelines that establish procedures and metrics for the educational effects of our activities. In providing an accreditation path, WASC would establish a framework for MOOCs to help students in a well-understood way. Given that millions of students are now participating in MOOCs, we believe that an urgency exists in developing such frameworks. It is now a reality that MOOCs are being taken for credit; and we are just witnessing the tip of the iceberg. It is only natural that WASC take a leadership position and define criteria and methods for MOOCs to qualify for academic credit. Context In recent years, student mobility has increased dramatically. About 30% of California students who finish a degree dont receive the degree at the place they started college. Additionally, a significant number of students fail to get all the way to a degree, yet they take and successfully pass individual courses. In the California State University System (CSU), 58% of all students are not ready for college. On top of this, there has been a recent explosion of large open online classes, or MOOCs. These classes are largely offered by top universities and companies like Udacity, but in most cases without credit. Yet, the quality of instruction and the rigor of examination rivals that of traditional online classes used in many for-credit degree programs. These classes could easily be leveraged into degree programs if the providers were accredited. In some instances, MOOCs are being accepted for credit. San Jose State University (SJSU), in a partnership with Udacity, is accepting MOOCs for credit starting in January 2013. The MOOCs provide new learning environments for students. SJSU and Udacitys approach is to offer lower division level college classes and remedial classes as MOOCs so as to offer students opportunities for better placement in college and to reduce their time in college. We hope that this approach particularly helps disadvantaged students who have less access to alternatives (e.g., AP classes). MOOCs and Student Access MOOCs provide an enormous opportunity to make higher education more accessible. Consider the following: MOOCs already reach millions of students. Udacity, in its short 12-month history, has already issued well over 100,000 certificates. MOOCs can make education significantly more affordable. In our SJSU program, we are charging $150 for up to five credits. These costs include extensive advising services. MOOCs fit much better into a busy and mobile lifestyle of many working people. They can be taken at the students own pace, at home, and on the move.

This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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 MOOCs can be taken over the summer, when most campuses are in recess. This time is often not spent productively by many students, but MOOCs now provide an opportunity for students to learn. MOOCs are a playground for new pedagogy. Udacity MOOCs stress student exercise and skills ahead of lectures. While most of online education has aimed to replicate the in-class experience, Udacity is constantly experimenting with new, better ways to teach more effectively (see the recent Time Magazine Cover article on Udacity, by Amande Ripley). These aspects render MOOCs significantly more accessible than traditional online learning. MOOCs for College Readiness There exists two roles of MOOCs; one for matriculated students and one for non-matriculated students. It appears that EdX and Coursera are leveraging MOOCs for credit for matriculated students (using the flipped classroom model), whereas Udacity and SJSU is targeting non-matriculated students who are seeking to get into college or community college. In California alone, we have 472,000 waitlisted students in community colleges that the traditional system is unable to serve; many of them are not matriculated. Further, about 60% of the students entering the CSU system fail to meet the basic college readiness tests and, as a result, have to engage in remedial education. The numbers of the community college system are even worse. 70% fail to meet basic math and English requirements. These numbers will likely get worse as funding for high schools is drying up, and as those systems increasingly attract international students. Udacity seeks to help these students. In partnership with Udacity, SJSU is now offering college credit to students that aim to enter the CSU system. This is a winning combination. Many students dont have access to AP classes, but would like to improve their college placement and reduce the time they spend in college. The CSU system is eager to reduce the total time to graduation and to increase its graduation rates. And, the State of California wants to increase the throughput of the system and graduate more students. Udacity and SJSU are filling this gap using MOOCs. We exploit the fact that MOOCs are significantly less costly than other online alternatives and the savings are passed onto the students taking those MOOCs. The California Faculty Association has endorsed the initial pilot collaboration, which is presently underway. Outside the for-credit system, Udacity has already issued in excess of 100,000 course completion certificates within just one year, which is more than most major universities accomplish within a year. Many students who take our MOOCs perform at Stanford levels. This is an important fact, as MOOCs are already changing the educational landscape. MOOCs for Job Readiness A key role played by Udacity MOOCs is enhancing job readiness. The basic problem is that most universities move at a very slow pace when it comes to adapting their curricula to the needs of industry. In contrast, industry is evolving at an increasing speed. For most sectors of employment, what is needed in the workplace today was only created in the past 5-10 years. Yet colleges turn over faculty every 30 years or so. This mismatch causes major problems for graduates; a gap that Udacity MOOCs are now increasingly filling. At Udacity, several employers have financed the development of MOOCs, specifically with an eye towards finding employable talent. About half a dozen companies (Google, Microsoft, Autodesk, and others) are in the process of developing MOOCs with Udacity. Over 350 companies throughout several major industries (tech, manufacturing, finance, start-ups) accept Udacity certificates. None of these companies require proctored exams, college credit, or place an emphasis on accredited degrees. Instead, they are simply interested in talent, and Udacity certificates have found widespread acceptance. Udacity will be fine without any accreditation. However, there exists an opportunity to integrate these MOOCs into college curricula. Imagine a MOOC taught by Google engineers on how to program at Google. Such a MOOC would provide matriculated students with enormous opportunity to round out their education with a

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class that provides them with valuable skills; skills they would not be able to acquire in other classes. The Common Denominator: Accreditation for Courses, not Degrees The missing key element is accreditation for institutions that offer courses without degrees. In an increasingly hybrid and mobile world, there are now entities like Udacity that build valuable courses, but there is presently no approach to assess the educational value of these courses. Instead, individual universities are accepting these courses for credit in an ad-hoc manner. The problem is that there are no procedures for ensuring quality and learning outcomes with MOOCs. This is particularly problematic as MOOCs are increasingly being accepted for credit. Udacity believes that SJSU, and other institutions like Antioch and Colorado State are the tip of the iceberg. Soon we will see a swath of other colleges and community colleges accepting MOOCs for credit following the SJSU lead. Udacity believes its best role in the education sector is that of support and access enhancement. We proudly help high school students to become better prepared for college, and we increase college students job readiness. In this role, our expertise will be in developing individual courses, not degrees. We intend to assist existing educational institutions in their educational efforts. The logical next step is a pathway to accreditation that provides a framework to develop individual courses. When accreditation was conceived, neither online education nor MOOCs existed. Instead, the dominant mode of education was through brick-and-mortar institutions. This has changed. Udacity is a serious institution that aspires to define best practices in specific courses. A pathway to accreditation would enable us to define procedures and metrics that will enable us to leverage our efforts into the existing higher education landscape.

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AASCUs Red Balloon Project George L. Mehaffy American Association of State Colleges and Universities
The Red Balloon Project, launched in the summer of 2010, seeks to assist the 415 member institutions that belong to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) with meeting the challenges of a new century. In particular, the Red Balloon Project invites AASCU institutions to reimagine undergraduate education in the face of three dramatic challenges: declining state public funding, increasing national expectations for more and better prepared college graduates, and rapid technological change. The Red Balloon Project was named in honor of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)s 2009 Red Balloon contest. The contest, which tested social networking, celebrated the 40th anniversary of DARPAs invention of the Internet. The challenge posed by the contest was to find 10 bright red weather balloons, located in various places across the continental United States. The winning team, from MIT, found all 10 balloons in eight hours and 52 minutes. For me, the Red Balloon contest was both a metaphor and analogy: a metaphor for the way knowledge is now collaboratively discovered, aggregated, and disseminated; an analogy for the way faculty members, as well as groups of institutions, will have to work together in this new age in order to solve difficult problems. The Red Balloon Project has four different dimensions. First, the Project has launched an awareness campaign, with Red Balloon presentations and discussions on more than 40 AASCU campuses. Second, AASCU has redesigned its two annual academic affairs meetings to focus on transformative projects and programs underway nationally or on individual campuses. Third, AASCU has begun work on several national initiatives, including the development of a series of national blended courses and a data analytics project. Finally, individual AASCU campuses have begun their own Red Balloon transformative projects, which AASCU highlights for other campuses. In this paper, I want to identify seven major areas of transformation that will have to be addressed for AASCU institutions to remain competitive in the complex and rapidly changing environment of the 21st century: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Learning Outcomes Course Redesign Data Structures Boundaries Faculty Roles Cost

The gold standard for the 21st-century will be learning outcomes. A number of recent studies, including the Arum and Roksa study, Academically Adrift, highlight the failure of institutions to promote adequate levels of learning outcomes. While accreditors have been concerned about outcomes since the 1980s, this new competitive age will require institutions to be much more explicit about designing and measuring learning outcomes. In a world of unbundled and rapidly proliferating courses offered by many more providers, the only way to distinguish the good from the bad will be by measuring learning outcomes. Fortunately, the massive open online courses (MOOCs) are stimulating much more work in learning outcomes. For example, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) is now working with the Council on Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) to provide credit for students who have taken MOOCs. Other competency efforts, like Western Governors University, will also drive the focus on learning outcomes.
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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A second large area of focus for institutions will be on course redesign to achieve better learning outcomes. From Carol Twiggss 10+ years of course transformation to the recent rise of MOOCs, the world of course structure is being transformed. At its heart, the redesign process challenges the artisanal, cottage-industry approach of everyone designing, delivering, and assessing their own individual courses. We see exciting new collaborative approaches in the work of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, new more intentional designs in the science classes of Carl Weiman, and a range of experiments from flipped classes to partnerships with for-profit providers such as 2tor and Academic Partnerships. Blended learning has also captured substantial attention as a new approach to course design. In the networked world of the 21st century, faculty will increasingly be designing courses in collaboration with others. Lurking just ahead will also be smart systems that personalize learning for individual students. Personalized learning systems will take many faculty out of the traditional central role of designing and delivering courses, changing forever faculty workan issue that Ill address in more detail at little later. A third area of focus will be on data and learning analytics. Institutions confronted with an array of options and new technologically supported strategies will have to insist on data as evidence of success. Fortunately, the world of data and learning analytics is advancing very rapidly, and institutions will be able to connect the vast stores of data they already collect with the data students generate in the courses they take, particularly the click data from online programming. Blended While accreditors have been and online programming are going to be especially concerned about outcomes since productive areas in which to deploy data and learning the 1980s, this new competitive age analytics. Already we are seeing hints about the power will require institutions to be much of data and learning analytics to inform faculty about student progress, to provide students with comparative more explicit about designing and data about their performance, and offer institutions measuring learning outcomes. In granular level insights into issues such as future course a world of unbundled and rapidly needs, student performance, and a host of other data proliferating courses offered by elements for analysis and reporting. Programs such as South Orange Countys SHERPA Project, the Degree many more providers, the only way Compass project at Austin Peay State University, to distinguish the good from the and the Course Signals project developed at Purdue bad will be by measuring learning University are providing national leadership for the outcomes. development of robust data and learning analytics systems. As institutions focus on learning outcomes and develop the data collection and analysis strategies to describe those outcomes, they will be forced to confront legacy structures that may no longer serve them well. For example, a substantial amount of the failure in our education occurs in the first two years. That is the place where institutions spend the least amount of money in the cross-subsidy business model that is widely used throughout American higher education. Most institutions, for example, require students to undertake general education courses, often a battleground for departments wanting to generate credit. The first-year curriculum, in particular, requires a number of introductory courses, many of which have little relationship to students lives. In the Red Balloon Project, we are urging that the first year be redesigned as a problem- centered curriculum, focused on the issues and concerns of first-year students. That model still requires academic rigor and academic activities such as written papers and research, as well as perspectives informed by disciplines, but grounds the work in issues relevant to first year students. But beyond the structure of the first year, we anticipate challenges to the concept of majors, minors, and indeed the concept of the degree. While some advocate for the elimination of the traditional college degree by substituting badges and other forms of certification, we suspect that a more likely scenario will be that the college degree of the 21st century will be formed of various forms of certification that move away from a reliance on credit hours and courses.
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The challenge that universities will confront about structures such as the design of the first year or the concept of a degree will be exacerbated by what is becoming a rapidly permeable set of traditional boundaries in higher education. For example, today most courses have a discrete beginning and end. Yet researchers have found that in some online courses, students continue to work together as a learning community long after the course officially ends. That phenomenon of the continuation of the learning process suggests that the concept of the course as a bounded and time- specific event may not be the best way to organize learning. Randy Bass has suggested that we consider a post-course approach to higher education. Similarly, students have begun asking uncomfortable questions, such as why the university is organized by semesters. In the future, I suspect that other boundaries will also begin to be challenged. Who are instructors, for example? If someone who has fewer qualifications produces greater learning outcomes, should that individual be recognized as equal to the individual with more qualifications? How will institutions begin to address a whole series of questions about legacy boundaries? And how will accreditation, for the purpose of assuring quality, provide support for experimentation and innovation? As institutions evolve rapidly, so too will faculty roles. The traditional model that faculty will be held accountable for three traditional areas of workscholarship, teaching, and service will have to give way, I suspect, to a more highly differentiated set of faculty roles. In the future, some faculty may be researchers, but not teachers, and some faculty who are teaching may only be designing courses, but not delivering them. The sudden rise of MOOCs creates the specter of substantial parts of the undergraduate curriculum being shifted to external providers, while challenging resident faculty to provide a new set of essential learning activities that cannot be provided by external providers or technology solutions. As Cathy Davidson, a professor at Duke, famously observed: if we can be replaced by computer screens, we should be. In fact, in the world of teaching in the 21st century, everything that can be automated or offered as a technology-based solution should be provided that way, forcing faculty into new and potentially powerful roles as they engage with students in new ways and in new settings. Finally, AASCU institutions, like all other institutions, must confront the challenge of cost. Student debt, at more than $1 trillion, now exceeds credit card debt in the United States. One out of every five families in America has education debt, and that debt burden threatens the well-being of both individuals and the country. Universities and colleges must address costs if access, one of the core commitments of AASCU institutions, is to be realized. Yet ironically, despite the record high debt level of students, at no time in the nations history has there been more access to free educational materials, courses, and programs. A number of institutions have announced initiatives to offer free or dramatically reduced-cost textbooks and other learning materials. The Hewlett Foundation has spent more than $110 million on open educational resources (OER), and the recent rise of MOOCs increase the availability of free or less expensive courses. It is estimated that there are 15,000 free courses now available, yet few institutions use those free materials to increase access, improve learning outcomes, or lower costs. Some institutions are also addressing the cost issue by reducing majors to 120 credit hours, increasing the frequency of offerings of key courses, and providing incentives for full time enrollment and timely graduation. As institutions confront this rapidly changing landscape, accreditation must become a vehicle that encourages change, not reification of traditional and legacy practices. Accreditation has traditionally tested two dimensions of institutions: their delivery of quality programs and their capacity to continue to deliver that same quality of programming in the future. The rapidly evolving landscape of higher education in the 21st century, with its ability to challenge every practice and policy, requires accreditation organizations to focus as much on the future capacity of the institution as on its current practices. The accreditation process must embolden institutions to become innovative, to take risks, indeed even to fail, as they make the transformation from teaching to learning organizations. Institutions and the organizations that accredit them must avoid the aging disease of hardening of the categories. Experimentation and innovation, a reliance on data and outcomes, and an openness to change must become the hallmarks of all institutions in this new age.

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References 1. Red Balloon Project Website: http://www.aascu.org/Red_Balloons_Project.aspx?LangType=1033 2. Challenge and Change. George L. Mehaffy. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 47, no. 5 (September/October 2012). http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/challenge-and-change

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The New Ecology of Higher Education: The Changing Faculty Adrianna Kezar University of Southern California
Many aspects of the broader ecology shape faculty roles including new providers, technology, increased accountability, new research on learning, and the like. In this paper, I review the most significant changes to faculty roles and responsibilities, starting with the wholesale change in the nature of the faculty, which has significant implications for accrediting agencies. Increase in Contingent Faculty and Impact on Student Learning Perhaps the most dramatic change has been a radical shift in the nature of the faculty from largely tenured to largely non-tenure-track (NTTF). More than two-thirds of the faculty at non-profit institutions nationally are now off the tenure track. Certain types of institutions such as baccalaureate institutions that used to have few NTTFs now have 40-50%. Part-time faculty still make up the majority of these positions, comprising 50% of instructional faculty, but full-time non-tenure-track roles are also growing rapidly. Many community colleges have 80% or more part-time faculty. Many ascribe these hiring patterns to state budget declines and the competing demands to increase access while also keeping college tuition affordable. Yet, there is evidence that funding for instruction has declined as other parts of campuses budgets have expanded, including many costs that might be argued are less central to colleges and universities missions. As institutions have markedly shifted their faculty model, they have not necessarily changed campus policies and practices to ensure that support is provided to maintain a high standard for faculty performance or student outcomes ranging from first year transition and performance, retention, student performance in future courses, graduation, and transfer. Part-time faculty routinely do not have access to an orientation, professional development opportunities, basic materials and supplies for instruction, input into curricular decisions, sample course materials or syllabi, and information about departmental and institutional learning goals. They also may not have office space, but could benefit from having shared office space and mentoring opportunities, particularly if they are new to teaching. Full-time non-tenure-track faculty need to be considered with regard to these policies. They need to be included in curriculum development and governance, and involved more deeply in opportunities for professional renewal and development. Campuses often do not evaluate the types of support they have in place to help faculty perform to their highest capabilities. Additionally, campuses would benefit from re-evaluating the practices that hamper faculty performance (e.g., last minute hiring) and students ability to build relationships with their instructors (e.g., turnover associated with rehiring new faculty each semester). A large and growing body of research has emerged demonstrating that the poor faculty working conditions and policies are negatively shaping student outcomes. For example, Ehrenberg and Zhang (2005) examined institutions with large numbers of NTTFs and compared them to institutions that utilize fewer of these faculty members. They identified lower graduation rates at institutions that used more NTTFs. Jacoby (2006) also examined graduation rates, but focused on individual faculty, rather than institutions, and found that as students took more courses with part-time faculty, graduation rates decreased. Carrell and West (2008) found that students who take courses with adjuncts perform significantly worse in follow-up courses as compared to students who took most of their courses with tenure-track faculty. Furthermore, Eagan and Jaeger (2009) and Jaeger and Eagan (2009) found that increasing students exposure to part-time faculty (i.e., taking more courses with them) in the community college sector negatively affected the likelihood that students would later transfer to four-year institutions. In addition to outcomes like graduation, transfer, and future performance, studies of NTTFs instructional practices suggest that part-time faculty use less active learning, less student centered teaching approaches, and are less likely to engage students through service learning, educational innovations, and culturally sensitive teaching approaches all associated with higher degrees of learning (Baldwin & Wawrzynski, 2011; Banachowski, 1996; Jacoby, 2006; Umbach, 2008). Full-time non-tenure-track faculty utilize
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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teaching practices that are more similar to tenure-track faculty. Also, part-time faculty members have fewer contact hours (e.g., office hours) with students (Benjamin, 2003). Student-faculty interactions are highly correlated with positive student outcomes. For even more details about the impact of non-tenure-track faculty working conditions on student learning, please see the data resources and summaries of existing research available at: http://resources.thechangingfaculty. org. There is also a summary of the types of practices that need to be put in place to support learning. Accreditation agencies should respond to the changing nature of the faculty and examine how current accreditation processes assess the hiring and support of NTTFs. Continued Unbundling of Roles While faculty roles have continually been unbundled for over a hundred years, this process continues today, but Accreditors need to be aware that in new ways. Up until the 1900s, faculty were responsible unbundling of the faculty role is for campus administration such as scheduling, regislikely to continue as it has been tration, and admissions. Additionally, faculty were the for at least the last 100 years, but, primary advisors for students and were involved in student affairs until the 1920s, when the student affairs throughout this time period, that and academic advising professions began to develop. it has never been guided by any Disciplinary specialization meant faculty were no longer sound research or philosophy. experts across the humanities and sciences, but became focused on increasingly narrow disciplines. Since accredAttempting to get institutions itation has been in place, faculty roles have become more to think about their reasons for specialized, narrow, and have been unbundled even unbundling faculty roles and the more. In the 1960s, the development of new institutional types such as the community colleges led to the rise of pros and cons will be important. faculty who were hired only to provide instruction with a very limited, if any, role in scholarship. In the last 20 years, research only roles have become prominent on many campuses. Lastly, new for-profit institutions have further unbundled faculty roles taking curriculum design and assessment of learning out and focusing faculty almost exclusively on providing instruction. In fully unbundled roles, typical faculty responsibilities might be divided among six or seven other employees. And while advocates of unbundling describe how these processes can be integrated and connected, there is little evidence to suggest that this actually happens in practice. There is plenty of evidence that once a process is fragmented on a college campus, coordination is unlikely to occur (Kezar & Lester, 2009) Thus, unbundling is not a new phenomenon and it has never been guided by any educational philosophy; it has almost always been a response to growing size. Yet, unbundling is receiving some additional attention today and raising more concerns than in the past. We have no idea what the outcomes have been for making advising a specialized role and fragmenting it from the content of students studies or what the effects are of fragmenting assessment of learning from instruction. Research has never guided practice in these areas and is likely needed to better understand how changes such as these shape learning. Accreditors need to be aware that unbundling of the faculty role is likely to continue as it has been for at least the last 100 years, but, throughout this time period, that it has never been guided by any sound research or philosophy. Attempting to get institutions to think about their reasons for unbundling faculty roles and the pros and cons will be important. Connection of Research on How Students Learn to Definitions of Faculty Role Another important trend for which there is a growing body of research, particularly from cognitive science, pertains to how students learn and which forms of instruction are best suited to achieve certain student outcomes. Research identifies the following practices as key to learning: Building on students prior knowledge; Actively involving students in the learning process;
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Providing opportunities for review, feedback, and synthesis; Integrating information through synthesis to encourage deeper learning; Helping students to see how materials are relevant and connected to their passion; Facilitating metacognition, or the ability to reflect on the learning process; Providing a learning environment that is safe and where students are supported and able to learn free from discrimination; and, Experiential learning opportunities and facilitating the ability to apply knowledge in real world settings (Zull, 2011). Faculty roles and responsibilities should be strongly aligned with this research on learning. Currently, accreditation standards make no reference to aligning faculty roles or responsibilities to research about strong instructional practices. Also, many of the new for profit providers (and increasingly traditional higher education) models of teaching and roles for faculty violate principles of this learning research. Accreditors will need to consider whether they will question these approaches. For example, faculty who only teach a single course at an institution and have no idea about what students have learned in prior courses will be limited in their ability to build upon students prior knowledge from previous courses. Many of the technology-oriented teaching approaches include very limited, if any, student activity or engagement in learning. Well-designed approaches for using technology in instruction can follow many of the principles related to learning that were described above, but this is not typical. Accreditation can be used to guide institutions to more carefully integrate the principles from research into how faculty roles and responsibilities, as well as learning environments, are defined, which can shape instruction. Technology Reshaping Faculty Roles? With content so readily available through technology, many suggest that faculty are no longer content providers or distributors of knowledge. However, this overstates and oversimplifies information delivery. Technology (e.g., internet, websites, on-line resources) provides an overwhelming amount of information with little organization, sense of context, or significance. Faculty members will still need to shape the nature of curriculum; this organized and meaningful information will still need to be delivered to students in some way. Lectures will likely increasingly be videotaped so that faculty class time can be spent on discussion, questions, and highlighting key knowledge from the information delivered. Technology allows for some rethinking of content, distribution, and delivery, yet does not fundamentally alter the need for information to be organized, explained in context, and given significance. Faculty should be encouraged to maximize learning by making class time more interactive. As noted above, while many campuses are unbundling curriculum development from delivery, this is more a way for maintaining quality control because of their dependence on an unstable, part-time faculty model where faculty are turning over all the time. It is not a necessity of technology changing the way information should be organized or delivered. Furthermore, with the growth of technology on campuses, there may not always be accompanying professional development opportunities that help faculty to learn to use technology effectively. Accreditors might consider whether technology is being used in ways that facilitate student learning, whether faculty receive appropriate training, and whether technology might be used to increase access and affordability. New Providers and Faculty Policies New for-profit providers see faculty as instructors and less as content experts, therefore they may have a sociology faculty member teaching a business class or psychology class. There may be no policies about faculty having content or instructional expertise, and when they do exist, they may not be followed. Quality issues emerge when faculty expertise is removed from the process of instruction. Some new providers operate as if all faculty are interchangeable and expertise is not important to either curriculum development or instruction. Reviewing qualifications of faculty may not be enough to determine the measure of quality among these institutions, as it is important to understand how those faculty are being used and deployed. Furthermore, new providers may rely heavily on student evaluations for rehiring each semester. This encourages faculty to not provide academic challenge, grade honestly, and reduce the number of course readings and assignments. This is also happening at traditional higher education campuses with the growth of contingent faculty. Accreditors will need to evaluate faculty polices that can adversely shape student learning and a quality education.
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Assessment, Standards, and Accountability As Peter Ewell points out, standards for learning are becoming a reality for higher education. This will mean engaging faculty in projects like the Degree Qualifications Profile, which outlines five key areas of learning for all undergraduate degrees, establishing standards of knowledge. Accreditation processes will need to investigate whether faculty are knowledgeable about standards for their campus and their disciplines or field more systematically. Specialized accreditors typically focus on the issue of discipline specific standards, but as overall undergraduate standards are formed, regional accreditors are likely to become more involved in enforcing common standards. Assessment will be critical for understanding if students are meeting standards. Where faculty are still responsible for assessment, accreditors will need to understand whether they are prepared for and meaningfully engaged in assessment of the standards. If faculty are not responsible, then the accreditation process will need to try to map how assessment of learning outcomes is being accomplished (e.g., through an institutional research office) and the way it is coordinated with faculty work. In conclusion, in the last 20 years, the faculty role has devolved through the growth of contingent faculty, which has been exacerbated by economic strain and the new for-profit provider model. It is largely not designed in a way that supports student learning and academic quality well among the majority of faculty positions at almost all institutions in the United States. Accreditors need to take leadership so that further declines in quality do not occur across the higher education enterprise. Implications of These Changes for Accreditation The major implications of these trends are for a re-examination of campuses practices as they relate to faculty. With accreditation reviews focusing largely on the work of tenure-track faculty, the growth of NTTFs and their poor working conditions have gone largely unnoticed. Therefore, a different process is needed to better attend to and understand the roles and responsibilities of all members of the faculty on campuses today. 1. Clarify faculty hiring/composition standards. Accreditors may want to more critically examine the type of faculty hired and deployed at institutions to identify if the faculty composition is effective in meeting the institutional mission and goals. While many accreditors, including WASC, New England, and Middle States, mention hiring and deployment as part of their standards (e.g. employing a faculty with substantial and continuing commitment to the institution), it is unclear how an institution argues they have the right amount of stable and committed faculty and how accreditors would determine whether this standard is being applied. While a particular number of NTTFs or quota should not be developed, it would be helpful to encourage full-time employment patterns where possible. A few accreditation agencies include in their standards statements that, Institutions should avoid undue dependencies on part-time faculty and graduate student appointments. Yet, the academy has become overly dependent overall as a sector. Given this reality, the accreditation process must now consider the non-tenure-track faculty as the norm and reposition accreditation within this reality. Some accreditation agencies call for an open and orderly process of recruitment and hiring (New England Association). With non-tenure track faculty, recruitment and hiring is often haphazard and no search committees are used. Instead a department chair often hires some one they know. Therefore, more attention is needed in the standards about hiring processes similar to those applied in New England, as these practices have degraded in recent years and are not aligned to EEOC policies. 2. Add Non-tenure Track to wording referring to Faculty in Standards. Perhaps by specifically adding the term non-tenure-track to the standards wherever faculty are mentioned, it would call attention to the issues faced by faculty who are off the tenure track. A few accreditation agencies do specifically mention part-time faculty throughout their standards in order to draw the attention of accreditation teams to the faculty as a multi-tiered group. Yet, few note full-time non-tenure track so this group would be left out of consideration. Thus a definition of non-tenure track should also be added to standards. 3. Examine Policies and Practices to Support NTTF. Accreditors can examine the policies and practices in place on campuses for their alignment with policies and practices that support student learning. While the current accreditation standards note that recruitment, workload, incentives, evaluation be aligned with
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the institutional purpose and maintain appropriate and sufficient faculty development, these activities are largely missing for non-tenure-track faculty. Therefore, specific attention needs to be given to having institutions demonstrate that these policies and practices exist for all faculty appointments. Furthermore, accreditation agencies may want to consider asking institutions to be more comprehensive in their review of policies. A self study could be more thoroughly carried out as it relates to the faculty by using a guide created by the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, available at http://www. uscrossier.org/pullias/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/DELPHI-PROJECT_NTTF-ON-OUR-CAMPUS_ Web.pdf. 4. Be aware of negative practices and ask institutions to be accountable for not having these in place. Accreditation agencies might not only consider the policies and practices in place to support faculty, but also those that threaten faculty performance and quality. Specific attention could be placed on the late scheduling of courses, matching faculty expertise to the course content, few course allocations that force faculty to teach at multiple institutions, and collaboratively scheduling courses with faculty to maximize or reduce conflicts with their teaching times at other institutions.

1. Clarify faculty hiring/composition standards 2. Add Non-tenure Track to wording referring to Faculty in Standards 3. Examine Policies and Practices to Support NTTF 4. Be aware of negative practices and ask institutions to be accountable for not having these in place 5. Make explicit statements about policies for NTTF needing to be in place 6. Accreditation teams should be expected to meet 5. Make explicit statements about policies for with NTTF NTTF needing to be in place. Consider being 7. Add an NTTF to accreditation teams more direct in defining expectations with the accreditation standards as it relates to NTTFs. 8. Encourage campuses to more carefully consider A strong example is from the Middle States the way they are unbundling faculty roles Commission on Higher Education (2006), 9. Institutions should be encouraged to align their which includes the following language in their practices with research about instruction and standards: learning For institutions relying on part-time, 10. Consider encouraging or requiring campuses to adjunct, temporary, or other faculty on timeaddress new areas in their self-study process
limited contracts, employment policies and practices should be as carefully developed and communicated as those for full-time faculty. The greater the dependence on such employees, the greater is the institutional responsibility to provide orientation, oversight, evaluation, professional development, and opportunities for integration into the life of the institution.

Implications for Accreditaiton

6. Accreditation teams should be expected to meet with NTTF. The standards for many accreditation agencies do outline clearly that faculty need support and should be intentionally hired and deployed, thus it may be that the standards can only minimally impact what happens and that the processes are what really need to change. A major way to change the process is to ensure that accreditation teams meet with all groups of faculty on campus. In fact, given non-tenure-track make up the majority of faculty on most campuses these days, they should be provided an equal voice on campus and given attention in the accreditation process. 7. Add an NTTF to accreditation teams. Accreditation teams should consider including a non-tenure-track faculty member as a team member when visiting campuses with large numbers of non-tenure-track faculty. These individuals would need to be paid to participate, which might require a change in policy to promote this kind of involvement. 8. Encourage campuses to more carefully consider the way they are unbundling faculty roles. As faculty roles continue to be unbundled, accreditors should encourage campuses to more formally articulate their logic
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and intentions of shifting faculty roles. Unbundling has gone on with almost no evidence about its value or harm. Additionally, accreditors should encourage research (which does not yet exist) on this topic, which is sorely needed in order to understand how unbundling faculty roles has shaped educational quality. Based on prior research, unbundling with the hope of integration of practice is also unlikely. 9. Institutions should be encouraged to align their practices with research about instruction and learning. In the past, we had limited research about what enhances learning making it difficult to direct policies or practices or provide advice on faculty roles. Given that we now have more definitive research, accreditors should encourage campuses to consider this research as they make decisions on policy. 10. Consider encouraging or requiring campuses to address new areas in their self-study process. A. The types of faculty that are hired and justification for appropriateness of those hires; B. Policies and practices in place for faculty (including all appointment types) and appropriateness; C. Alignment of instructional approaches or faculty role with new research on learning; D. Alignment of faculty expertise with instruction; E. Use of technology to enhance learning and training provided; and, F. Ways that faculty understand institutional standards for learning and their role and training for assessment. While accreditation agencies have tried to allow institutions flexibility to reshape their faculty as needed to adapt to changing circumstances, the result has been a rapid shift with limited, if any, planning and support for the new faculty. The work of standards, assessment, and using high impact teaching practices is largely carried out by a shrinking tenure-track faculty. We will be unable to meet the goals of responding to external demands if the full faculty, including non-tenure track faculty, is not part of the accreditation process and if there is not intentional planning around faculty roles and responsibilities. References 1. Baldwin, R. & Wawrzynski, M. (2011/forthcoming). Contingent Faculty as Teachers: What We Know; What We Need to Know. American Behavioral Scientist. 2. Banachowski, G. (1996). Perspectives and perceptions: The use of part-time faculty in community colleges. Community College Review, 42(2), 49-62. 3. Benjamin, E. (Ed.). (2003). Exploring the role of non-tenure track instructional staff in undergraduate learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 4. Bettinger, E. & Long, B. (2006). The increasing use of adjunct instructors at public institutions: Are we hurting students? In R. Ehrenberg (Ed.) Whats happening to public higher education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press for the American Council on Education. 5. Bettinger, E. & Long, B. (2010). Does cheaper mean better? The impact of using adjunct instructors on student outcomes. Review of Economics and Statistics, 92(3), 598-613. 6. Bland, C., Wersal, L, Vanloy, W., Jacott, W. (2002). Evaluating faculty performance: A systematically designed and assessed approach. Academic medicine. 77(1), 15-24. 7. Carrell, S. & West, J. (2010). Does professor quality matter? Evidence from random assignment of students to professors. Journal of Political Economy, 118(3), 409-432. 8. Eagan, M. K., & Jaeger, A, J. (2009). Effects of exposure to part-time faculty on community college transfer. Research in Higher Education, 50, p. 168-188. 9. Ehrenberg, R. G., & Zhang, L. (2005). Do tenured and tenure-track faculty matter? The Journal of Human Resources, 45(3) 10. Jacoby, D. (2006). Effects of part-time faculty employment on community college graduation rates. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(6), 1081-1102. 11. Jaeger, A. & Eagan, M.K. (2009). Unintended consequences: Examining the effect of part-time faculty
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members on Associates degree completion. Community College Review, 36, p.167-194. 12. Kezar, A & Lester, J (2009). Redesigning higher education for collaboration. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. 13. Umbach, P. D. (2007). How effective are they? Exploring the impact of non-tenure track faculty on undergraduate education. The Review of Higher Education, 30(2), 91-123. 14. Umbach, P.D. (2008). The effects of part-time faculty appointments on instructional techniques and commitment to teaching. Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Jacksonville, FL. 15. Zull, J. (2011). From brain to mind. Sterling, VA: Stylus press.

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The Nexus of For-Profit, International, and Accreditation Denise DeZolt, PhD Laureate International Universities
This concept paper seeks to address three interrelated aspects of the emerging ecology of higher education. Specifically, I present a point of view on how the for-profit sector, in its totality, is a significant part of the changing ecology; followed by consideration of how the international portion of the private sector may be a model for the emergent international university. I conclude with thoughts on how accreditation may situate itself in this emerging context. The ecosystems model in Figure 1 provides the framework that informs this concept paper. It begins with the student at the center of a series of nested systems. Regardless of educational models and missions, institutional tax structure, management and control, workforce needs, or country of origin, students are at the core of our educational enterprises. This is where we encounter them in their personal contexts, influenced and affected by factors within their immediate spheres of influence. With varying degrees of preparedness and motivations, students then enter into their higher education experiences within an academic infrastructure, much of which is shaped by social, geopolitical, cultural, and economic influences. These factors are influenced by, and influence, commitments to academic quality and integrity as well as conditions for participation and access. It is within these nested systems that for-profit, internationalization, and accreditation are shaped by higher education.

Figure 1: Student in Context

Speaking of, Not the Voice of, the For-profit Sector Speaking of the higher education for-profit sector writ large is akin to speaking of the non-profit sector of large research institutions, small private colleges, and community colleges as a single entity. Not a sensible, nor an easy task. Thus, it is with this caveat that I provide a point of view on the matter of the for-profit sectors role in the current and emerging ecology in post-secondary education. From a historical perspective, disruptive innovations such as the emergence of land grant institutions, community colleges, and online education have shaped
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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the higher education landscape. No one innovation has led to the demise of another; rather, individually and collectively, they have yielded multiple pathways and greater access for those who aspire to the pursuit of higher education. Similarly, the disruptive force of the for-profit sector in higher education has and will continue to provide its unique contributions, challenges, and opportunities. In the United States, this sector, and criticism of it, dates back to the late 18th century. Over the past several years, the for-profit sector has been under great scrutiny from accreditors, the public, and the federal government (For Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student, 2012). Challenges and criticisms range across an array of factors such as recruitment practices, graduation rates, employability of graduates, and cohort default rates in many institutions in the for-profit sector. Painting a broad brush stroke across the whole sector does not allow for consideration of the variability within the sector, nor would that same approach work if applied across institutions in the non-profit sector. The report in fact points out for-profit institutions whose students are faring well and whose models focus not only on front-end recruitment but also on on-going student support. Higher education is well positioned now to learn from those mission driven for-profit institutions that are committed to transparency, quality, and accountability. Yet, the onus remains on those institutions to share their practices and their stories in appropriate venues in order to reshape the discourse about the sector. Access, Student Focus, and Student Service Although the for-profit sector does not focus solely In order to meet President on serving non-traditional students, it does allow for Obamas goal of 60% of the greater access to a segment of the population whose needs may extend beyond the focus of traditional higher population having some form education. Many students enrolling in for-profit instituof postsecondary education, we tions are from underrepresented groups and working will need all types of institutions adults. In order to meet President Obamas goal of 60% of the population having some form of postsecondary that are prepared to meet education, we will need all types of institutions that students at their point of greatest are prepared to meet students at their point of greatest need or interest and to provide need or interest and to provide support services and a curricular experience that builds relevant competencies. support services and a curricular Quality for-profit educational institutions recognize experience that builds relevant that the return on the initial investment in enrolling competencies. students is highly dependent upon providing the appropriate investment in support services to facilitate student success. Fully understanding student needs, being nimble enough to leverage and scale services based on data with a dedicated focus on retention, and student learning has the potential to be a hallmark of service in the sector. As student expectations change, it is becoming commonplace for non-profit institutions to adopt or adapt the for-profit, customer-focused model e.g. updated facilities, innovative teaching models (flipped classrooms, famous guest lecturers), or online courses to accommodate student schedules and manage course leveling. Scalability, Flexibility, and Innovation For-profit institutions have the flexibility to invest resources in program development that focuses on documented professional marketplace trends, competencies, and employability of graduates, allowing them to satisfy accreditation and government regulation. For quality institutions in the sector, it is also part of typical academic operations and sound business principles. For-profit institutions are often early adopters of emerging technologies, creating new opportunities for interaction among faculty, students, and staff. The Internet, social media (e.g., Twitter, and Facebook), and MOOCS, were unknown entities during most of the lives of the previous generation (Dutta & Bilbao-Osorio, 2012). Advances in technology have allowed educators to envision program and course offerings in ways that were inconceivable in the past. In some institutions in the for-profit sector, as in their non-profit counterparts, components of global citizenship are built into these technologically advanced academic experiences, preparing graduates for their roles as participants and perhaps even leaders in their diverse worlds.
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Transparency and Accountability The enhanced scrutiny of the for-profit sector has brought with it heightened focus on financial efficiency and public accountability, particularly for publicly traded institutions. Quality for-profit institutions have embraced these realities through greater transparency and accountability to their students and the public more broadly. In the learning process, a number of institutions in the for-profit sector have reworked their outcomes assessment process and other tools for assessing the needs and successes of their students. With enhanced regulatory and accreditor requirements, institutions in the for-profit sector in particular are increasingly reporting on program specific costs and outcomes, allowing for more well informed enrollment decisions that fit student needs. The Lumina Foundation in its recently published strategic plan (Lumina Foundation, 2013) identified both financial support to enhance affordability and the need for innovative academic business and financial models as essential to meeting the higher education demands in the next 10 years. Those models have a greater likelihood of succeeding when conducted with transparency and accountability across all institutions regardless of tax status. Some for-profit institutions have found that greater accountability and transparency has brought with it enhanced credibility and provided a strong pathway to continue to build the best suited support for their students. These same innovations in accountability and transparency are now being examined more seriously in the non-profit sector as public demand for demonstration of value in higher education continues to increase. The International University Just as leading governments, business, and organizations have recognized that globalization makes international engagement a necessity, so too has the higher education community. In 2011, academics, representatives from the for-profit higher education sector, several participants from a variety of quality assurance entities, the Council for Higher Education (CHEA), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), gathered to consider the synergies of for-profit and quality in the international arena. The group found that There is a large unmet demand for higher education in many countries. For-profit institutions have an important role to play in meeting it and in advancing the reform of higher education. Further, it concluded that the for-profit sector can deliver education in the public interest. Accreditation and quality assurance are important services to the public and are helping to make governments more comfortable with a variety of business models in higher education. It is important to pursue the dialogue about for-profit education within the academy as well as with governments. (Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2011. Pp. 5-6). CHEA has recently formed its International Quality Group (CIQG) designed to address key quality issues in global higher education. Although international university models continue to emerge, higher education may well be on a transformational cusp in its understanding of a truly global academic experience (Hawawini, 2011). Universities have identified themselves as international or globalized when they can assert one or more of the following components: an international student population, cross border movement of students and faculty, global research initiatives, a branch campus in another country, curricular innovation with a focus on internationalization, or global offerings of online courses that bring together a diverse array of students. Another approach to the international university is one that contextualizes higher education in both local and global arenas and is part of a network of institutions. Rather than branding an international university under one name, this model emphasizes the importance and attraction of a global education and ensures its quality through a network of institutions. They hold the highest levels of quality assurance, maintain their own missions, operations, governance structures, and purposes, yet may be grounded in certain professional verticals with consistent student goals and quality indicators. The model allows for leveraging of technologies that are not tied to country but can be customized to meet specific needs. This model should be of particular interest for educators, accreditors, and policymakers around the world. Such a university network can provide students direct and immediate access to scholars and researchers around the world and allow for more international and cross-cultural experiences for students and faculty. This approach has the added benefit of considering innovative approaches to solving global problems along with redefining structures for global education and global impact, especially with real world societal issues.
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Accreditation, For-profit, and International Accreditation finds itself at a historic moment, poised to envision new possibilities and demonstrate its contribution to the universal value of higher education. Is the future of accreditation primarily about compliance and gatekeeping or about maintaining its historical voluntary participation in a process of continuous improvement? Or is there a third movement that combines the requirements and benefits of both and extends innovations within a realm of safety and support? Accreditors will need to shift the discourse from monitoring to flexible, trustworthy standards and processes geared toward promoting innovation, change, and successful models for educating people across the globe through varied modalities of learning, even while addressing the compliance issues. For regional accrediting bodies to fully understand and embrace the accreditation of international institutions it may be necessary to have units of accrediting bodies focused on education issues and accreditation policy. This may involve a robust exploration of international education issues and standards by country; an adoption of emerging practices gleaned from a more global analysis; increased flexibility to offer accreditation based on those best standards. Further, it may need to consider different types of degree offerings, faculty models, control and governance structures, and portability of credits and degrees that will likely not neatly align with what may be the norm in the US.

Regardless of the quality assurance framework being applied, it needs to be used fairly and equitably, independent of an institutions tax status, using reasoned, consistent standards of transparency, disclosure, and accountability across higher education institutions. In fact, quality for-profit institutions recognize the value of such frameworks in enhancing their integrity as well as profitability, which typically can then be reinvested in their institutions regardless of geography. The for-profit sector needs to have a seat and be a voice at the accreditation table on policy, standards, practice, decision-making, and innovation. Imagine for a moment accreditation (domestic and international) that is relational, evidence-based, with a shared commitment to quality (of which compliance may very well be a part), agnostic as to tax status. Couple this with a shared spirit of inquiry and risk-tolerance with institutions so that they are free to explore innovations that yield an exceptional educational experience for all students. This could just be a major disruptive force in global higher education. References 1. Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2011). Exploring the future of international for-profit higher education and quality assurance: Where are we now and where do we go from here? Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.chea.org/default.asp?link=5 2. Dutta, S. & Bilbao-Osorio, B. (Eds). (2012). The global information technology report 2012: Living in a hyperconnected world. Insight Report. Switzerland: World Economic Forum. Retrieved from http://www3. weforum.org/docs/Global_IT_Report_2012.pdf 3. For Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success. (2012). Retrieved from www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/for_profit_report/Contents.pdf
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Accreditation finds itself at a historic moment, poised to envision new possibilities and demonstrate its contribution to the universal value of higher education. Accreditors will need to shift the discourse from monitoring to flexible, trustworthy standards and processes geared toward promoting innovation, change, and successful models for educating people across the globe through varied modalities of learning, even while addressing the compliance issues.

4. Hawawini, G. (2011). The internationalization of higher education institutions: A critical review and a radical proposal. Faculty and Research: A Working Paper. INSEAD Working Paper Collection. Retrieved from http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/search_papers.cfm 5. Lumina Foundation. Strategic Plan 20132016 (2013). Retrieved from http://www.luminafoundation.org/ newsroom/news_releases/2012-01-10.html

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New Ecology of Higher Education in Asia-Pacific: Implications for Accreditation Molly N. Lee UNESCO
Introduction According to Ewell (2010), the new Ecology for higher education includes new patterns of participation, new kinds of providers, a new paradigm of teaching and learning, constrained resources, external demands for resources, external demands for transparency, and a global higher education system. The new ecology is further analyzed by Neubauer (2012) and he identifies a list of elements of the changing ecology. The elements are: Changing characteristics of learners Emergent trends impacting the learning process Shifting methods and expectations of engaging content Determining content Changes taking place within higher education organizations Changes in the framework of higher education Changes in credentialing Changes in policy

Using both these conceptual frameworks, this paper aims to analyze the range of distinctive responses to the changing ecology in the Asia-Pacific context, focusing on instances of where they appear and how they play out. Changing Patterns of Participation The patterns of participation in higher education have been greatly affected by demographic shifts in various countries. Many developing countries in the region have expanded their higher education systems to meet the increasing social demand for higher education brought about by population growth, the democratization of secondary education, and the growing affluence in these countries. In many developing countries, there is an excess demand for higher education. On the other hand, the developed countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia are experiencing excess supply of places in their higher education institutions because the number of students in the 17-24 age cohort is declining due to low birth rates in recent years. In expanding the higher education systems, many governments are also widening access to higher education to accommodate first generation students from disadvantaged groups such as rural populations, the poor, women, and minority groups. In Asia, most of the higher education systems are located in urban areas, thus making it difficult for young people from the rural areas to gain access to higher education. To overcome such regional disparities, the common practices are to locate more higher education institutions in rural areas, to introduce special quotas for rural and minority students, and to provide distance education programs. Many governments also provide scholarships, stipends, and other forms of financial aid to assist students from low income families to further their studies in higher education. While female students are under-represented in countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Laos, and Cambodia, they are over-represented in other countries such as Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. In countries where gender equality in terms of participation in higher education has been achieved, there is still the issue of equality in educational attainment. Young women are less likely than young men to choose STEM as a field of study at both the undergraduate and graduate level. The diversity of learners in higher education institutions is further compounded with the inflow of international students due to the increase of cross-border higher education in the region. Large numbers of international students go and study in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Malaysia. Besides international students, universities with excess supply of places offer programs for adult learners, lifelong learners, and non-degree seekers.
This is one of a series of concept papers commissioned by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, to inform the redesign of its accreditation process.
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This is particularly the case in mega-universities that offer open distance learning programs to working adults as second-chance students as well as adults who seek recurrent education so as to fit into the changing work place brought about by both technological and organizational changes. New Kinds of Providers Different types of higher education institutions with different missions have evolved to meet the needs of the diverse learners. The different types of institutions include community colleges, polytechnics, technical institutions, university colleges, universities, and others. Governments are no longer the sole provider of higher education in their respective countries. There are many private providers, many of which are for-profits and some are not-for-profits. The for-profit providers have different modes of ownership such as individual proprietors, private companies, family business, stock companies, and government-linked companies. On the other hand, non-profit educational institutions were set up by foundations, philanthropic organizations, faith-based organizations, and community-based organizations. Foreign providers either set up branch campuses or franchise their programs to local higher education institutions. Distance education providers can be public or private, domestic or foreign, media companies or multinational companies. Some multinationals have also established corporate universities for their own employees. New Paradigm of Teaching and Learning The new paradigm of teaching and learning is partly brought about by harnessing the potential of ICT in higher education. Virtual universities use e-learning platform to offer their distance learning programs. Traditional universities offer blended-learning in their campuses. The roles of faculty members are being unbundled into course design, content delivery, assessment, and mentorship, especially for those who teach twinning programs or external degree programs. Faculty members are developing and using internet-based resources such as open educational resources (OER) to enhance their courses. The university curricula are constantly influenced by developments from the West such as competency-based learning and mastery of skills. The university curricula are also influenced by the professions and industries resulting in the vocationalization of the curricula in the form of modular curricula. Industrial training and service learning have emerged as essential parts of many university programs. In addition, there is the greening of the university curricula and campuses. With the different pathways to learning, recognition of prior learning and credit transfer become part and parcel of the new paradigm. New Modes of Financing Higher Education With the rapid expansion of higher education and the rising unit cost, many governments are faced with fiscal constraints and the pressure to seek other sources of funding and to restructure their higher education systems. The restructuring of higher education in region involved the privatization of higher education, the corporatization of public universities, the implementation of student fees, and the formation of strategic partnership between the public and private sector in the provision of higher education. While private higher education has been a long tradition in countries such as USA, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Philippines, it is relative new in other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China. In the newly established private sectors, the governments liberalize and deregulate the educational policies to allow private higher education institutions to be established to absorb the increasing demand which cannot be met by the public sector due to budgetary constraints. The corporatization of public universities is a move to allow public universities to operate like business organizations by charging student fees, seeking research grants and consultancy, franchising educational programs, renting out universities facilities, and investing in other business ventures. The move to recruit full-fee paying international students is another strategy to counter the budget cuts in the public funds. New Forms of University Governance and Management As higher education systems expand, they become more bureaucratic and regulated so as to ensure consistency of treatment in various areas pertaining to the governance and management of higher education institutions.
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Many public and private universities have adopted corporate managerialism in their attempts to improve their accountability, efficiency, and productivity. Management techniques from the corporate sector such as mission statements, strategic planning, total quality management, ISO certification, right sizing, and benchmarking are being institutionalized in higher education institutions. In general, the relationship between the state and higher education institutions are constantly being redefined with the state demanding more accountability and higher education institutions insisting on more autonomy. The trend is an increase in institutional autonomy in return for more accountability. The institutional autonomy of private universities and corporatized public universities has increased in terms of governance structure, academic matters, financial management, staff management, leadership appointment, and student intake. At the same time, higher education institutions are increasingly being subjected to public accountability. Universities in many countries are subjected to more internal and external quality control. In all cases, some forms of quality assurance agencies or accreditation bodies have been established to perform these tasks. Emergence of National Quality Assurance and Accreditation Systems The emergence of national quality assurance and accreditation systems can be attributed to the concerns around the potential decline of academic standards against the background of massification in higher education. There are international variations as well as convergence among the various national quality assurance agencies in the Asia-Pacific region. The concepts of quality and quality assurance have different meanings in different contexts. The purpose and functions of quality assurance agencies can vary in different countries. Some quality assurance agencies are established by the ministries while others are set up by the universities themselves. In some countries quality assurance of higher education are voluntary, but it is compulsory in other countries. The methodologies used in different quality assurance agencies are also varied. The focus of what is to be assured can be on research or teaching and learning or both. The reporting can be confidential or made public. Despite these international variations, it is possible to draw some common elements in the practice of quality assurance across the Asia-Pacific region. Most countries used the three stage peer-review approach, which includes self-evaluation, site visit, and report. The criteria employed in external evaluation usually include inputand process-characteristics and learning outcomes. The approaches to quality assurance can be accreditation, assessment, or audit. It must be noted that not all the countries in the region have their own quality assurance agencies or national qualification frameworks. Countries such as Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are still in the process of developing some functional bodies to take care of these two specific responsibilities in the higher education sector. With the increasing mobility of students, academic programs, and labor force across national borders, the issue of qualification recognition is very pertinent. The UNESCO Regional Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees in Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific was adopted in 1983 and revised in 2011 with the aim of information sharing in the recognition of foreign higher education qualifications. The main objective of the Regional Convention is to promote international cooperation, information sharing, and networking at the expert level. Under the terms and conditions of the Regional Convention, countries that have ratified the convention will need to establish national information centers, develop national qualification frameworks, and implement the practice of issuing Diploma Supplements. Concluding Remarks The ecology of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region is changing rapidly due to globalization. In the era of globalization, the development of universities is influenced by global trends. However, much of the new ecology that has emerged in the region is the result of interaction between global influence and national responses. The impact of globalization on higher education has resulted in two concurrent but opposing streams. One is homogenization and the other is particularization. In fact, the impact of global influence on university reforms is very much mediated by the local, socio-political, and economic context. What usually emerges is a hybrid of local variations of educational policy ideas that have originated from various metropolitan centres.
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The Changing Ecology of Higher Education and Its Impact on Accreditation March 2013
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