New on WCET Frontiers
Policy
Regular and Substantive Interaction Update: Where Do We Go from Here?
Published by: Lindsey Downs | 11/8/2022
What is “Regular and Substantive Interaction”? Congress created a distinction between the definitions of “distance education” and “correspondence education” for purposes of federal financial aid eligibility. The distinction is that distance education courses include “regular and substantive interaction” (or RSI) […]
Practice
2021 Top WCET Frontiers Blog Posts
Published by: ewalton | 12/16/2021
WCET staff–thank you for your on-going support of the WCET Frontiers blog. Over the holidays, we wanted to offer you the chance to review posts that you may have missed but had been popular with your peers. Rather than evoking […]
Policy
Regular and Substantive Interaction Refresh: Reviewing & Sharing Our Best Interpretation of Current Guidance and Requirements
Published by: Lindsey Downs | 8/26/2021
On July 1, 2021, the Department of Education released the final set of proposed regulations stemming from the 2019 Negotiated Rulemaking process (the Distance Education and Innovation Regulations). As part of these regulations, the definition of “distance education” in Chapter […]
Practice
2020 Top 10 Frontiers Blog Posts
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 12/18/2020
It’s that time again – let’s take a look at 2020’s Top 10 Frontiers blog posts based on views by you, our readers! Thank you for your support of WCET Frontiers through your subscriptions, comments, sharing, and guest authoring! 2020 […]
Practice
Did Your Course Go Digital Due to COVID-19? Playbook Advises on Regulations When Making the Switch
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 11/4/2020
The spring 2020 term saw an unprecedented response to an unprecedented challenge as virtually every U.S. higher education institution offering face-to-face instruction rapidly switched to remote instruction, many in as little as one to two weeks and some in a […]
Practice
Surprise! Newly Released Final Regulations
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 8/26/2020
On April 1st, the Department of Education released the final set of proposed regulations stemming from the 2019 Negotiated Rulemaking process (April Fools!). Back in April, WCET published three blog posts outlining the proposed regulations on April 3rd, April 6th, […]
Practice
Avoiding a “Road to Nowhere:” What We Must Do This Fall
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 6/22/2020
In 1985 The Talking Heads released “Road to Nowhere.” That song, and that metaphor, have been on my mind a lot lately as I think about where higher education is going in the fall and beyond. Photo by Illiya Vjestica […]
Practice
New Regulations Review #1: Regular & Substantive Interaction
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 4/3/2020
Much to everyone’s surprise, the Department of Education finally released the last set of regulations from last year’s negotiated rulemaking for public comment on April 1st (and it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke—we checked). This post will examine the […]
Practice
Not Fooling – A Third Package of Proposed Regs Has Arrived
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 4/1/2020
**Update: On 4/2/2020, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it amended the public comment period timeline. The text below has been updated to reflect this update.** The third package has arrived! In the midst of managing rapid conversion of […]
Policy
Continuing Our Regulatory Odyssey: Final Accreditation Regulations
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 11/22/2019
Earlier this year, the Department of Education engaged in negotiated rulemaking around several issues including state authorization and reciprocity, accreditation, distance education and innovation, regular and substantive interaction, competency-based education (CBE), TEACH grants, and faith-based institutions. Despite all odds and […]