New on WCET Frontiers
Practice
Congratulations! You are a Best Ranked School! But…
Published by: WCET | 1/16/2019
In the media and in communications to your PR staff, there will be lots of hype this week about ranking online programs. In the past, we have been critical of such rankings on the basis of the quality of their […]
Practice
Count All Students! Outcome Measures for Non-Traditional Institutions
Published by: WCET | 4/12/2018
Should we count all students when analyzing higher education, or only some of them? It’s not surprising that when you include all students, you get different results from that analysis than when you don’t. We think all students should be […]
Practice
Count All Students! New Outcome Measures Now Include Non-Traditional Students
Published by: WCET | 4/10/2018
There is new improvement to the U.S. Department of Education’s Graduation Rate statistic. And we should all be using it. Institutions with large non-traditional student enrollments (e.g.: community colleges, online colleges, inner city universities, military-serving institutions) have not been well-represented […]
A Review of the Department of Education’s New College Scorecard Website
Published by: WCET | 9/13/2015
Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Education released its long-awaited College Scorecard. Originally envisioned as a way to help the Department in determining whether institutions should remain eligible to offer financial aid, the focus is now on student-as-consumer information. […]
Goodbye Lake Wobegone: Proposed Teacher Prep Regulations and Distance Ed
Published by: WCET | 12/12/2014
December 12, 2014 It was a quiet week in Lake Wobegone… …and then new Teacher Prep regulations were released. On December 3rd, the U.S. Department of Education released proposed new accountability regulations for teacher preparation programs. Public comment will be […]
Ratings and Rankings Game, Part 1: Postsecondary Institutional Ratings System
Published by: WCET | 2/12/2014
February 12, 2014 Hooray! College football in the United States is finally doing away with the Bowl Championship System (BCS) to anoint a national champion. Meanwhile, a mania remains for ratings and ranking systems of collegiate performance in academics, financial […]
U.S. News on Their Rankings of Online Colleges: In Their Own Words
Published by: WCET | 2/2/2012
The developers of the US News and World Report’s Top Online Programs rankings invited WCET members to ask questions regarding the implementation, methodology, survey questions, and future plans. We thank Bob Morse and Eric Brooks of U.S. News for extending […]
Reviewing US News Release of Honor Rolls of Online Education
Published by: WCET | 1/10/2012
The moment has arrived. The ‘mother of all rankings,’ also known as the US News and World Report rankings, have birthed their newest baby where they list the “Top Online Programs.” Rather than an overall institutional ranking they have created […]
To Enter the “Ranks” or Not…
Published by: WCET | 9/1/2011
At the end of July, I moderated a webcast for WCET with Bob Morse and Eric Brooks from US News and World Report regarding their forthcoming ranking of online education. The purpose of the webcast was to answer the questions […]