The press launch for the eLearn Accredit project, was held in London in June 2002. This is an event to bring together some of the organisations interested in the objectives of the project, and to encourage other organisations and individuals to become involved in the project.

For more information about the press launch, or for copies of the press release, please Contact Us.

Your ideas are very important to this process. The eLearn Accredit project is about bringing the best ideas together. If you have any suggestions to make, any ideas to add, any people who you think ought to be included, please Contact Us.

Press Launch:

London - June 13th 2002

Summary

The project was launched today (13 June 2002) in London, at the AGM of the Open and Distance Learning Quality Council (UK based), with the support of the Distance Education and Training Council (US based) and the European Association for Distance Learning (European based), and many others.

Full details can be obtained from Andrew Brown at eLearn Accredit
[andrew.brown@elearnaccredit.org or telephone UK (0)7779 021464, or through www.elearnaccredit.org ].

The eLearn Accredit project

When you sign up for a course over the internet, how do you know what you’re getting? A project launched today in London will explore the next steps in the development of international quality standards for online learning. eLearn Accredit, with backing from across the UK, US and Europe already, will bring together organizations involved in eLearning at all levels, from all over the world, to explore the steps ahead in the development of standards which will help all of us to make better study choices online. The launch provides a platform to invite other organizations from all over the world to get involved in the eLearn Accredit project and to contribute to the development of the discussion.

Whilst there may be some concerns about whether online education can ever replace face-to-face education, there is no doubt that online education can claim to achieve everything which traditional distance or open learning achieved, perhaps faster, perhaps with greater interaction and monitoring, perhaps with a greater range of activity and supervision opportunities. How do we assess which of the myriad of options offered to us from all over the world is worth having?

When choosing our university or school, we might have looked to its general reputation – the equivalent of a brand name. But this has not been sufficient for some time. Today, we look to league tables and quality assessment bodies to give us guidance. And with an ever-increasing demand for lifelong learning and professional development, often from new education providers (not just our universities and colleges), even these standards do not provide sufficiently complete information. When your education options are online, your choice is worldwide. So how do you know that you are getting something worth having?

The eLearn Accredit project will explore how we get simple, meaningful standards which will help us with our choices of online education options.
Andrew Brown, Director of the eLearn Accredit project, said:

“This is a very exciting new initiative. eLearn Accredit will be the first time that so many organizations involved in the development of quality standards in online learning from all across the world, from all education sectors, have all come together, to share expertise and ideas in the same forum. This is a real opportunity to identify clear standards which really will be helpful to students, people like you and me, in identifying our online study choices.

“The eLearn Accredit discussion forum will involve separate, specialist discussion strands for each education sector, because there are different issues to address in language learning and in business education, for example. But the discussion strands will be reporting to each other on progress and new ideas, as a way of ensuring that each sector learns from the very best practice of every other sector.

“The eLearn Accredit project involves an online conference in the autumn, followed by a physical conference in the spring of 2003. Participation in the online conference will be free of charge – you can register to listen in, or contribute your ideas, by visiting the eLearn Accredit website. We will not be charging for participation in the online debate, because we want to ensure that participation is as full and as free as possible. Our objective is to include as many people, as many organizations, and as many of the best ideas, as we possibly can, and so we have removed all the barriers. No national barriers. No geographical barriers. No sectoral barriers. No financial barriers. All the best ideas can be shared, so that we produce the best outcomes for users – future online students.”

The way forward

We can’t rely on old reputations or luck. Does your local University provide good online learning opportunities? Very possibly, but it is not good enough to conclude, even if your local University or College is top of the table in traditional face-to-face learning, that it will be top of the table in delivering education online. And even the old brand names don’t help us when it comes to newer education fields, such as professional development or lifelong learning.

The way forward is to agree on international standards for the delivery of online learning. To help us to make our study choices, we need to have a clear marque which indicates that each course we consider meets minimum criteria. We need a clear standard which is easy to understand, internationally, across all education sectors.

In theory, anyone could qualify to use the marque, if they were good enough, which is important: we need to allow space for variety and for new developments. The criteria for the standard, or quality marque, would not be the same for all sectors, of course, just as your local supermarket doesn’t apply the same selection criteria to everything which they stock. But when we shop at our favourite supermarket, we do know that someone has made a selection as to what ought to be included in the range, and judged that they are good enough to receive the generic brand name. In the same way, the standard would be equally high for online education opportunities for pre-school as for higher education, but each based on different criteria, the criteria relevant to that sector.

This is not a simple thing. We need much more discussion about what is possible, and what would add this sort of value for the consumer. To be simple enough to be useful, it must rule out some learning opportunities as being unsatisfactory. But it must not be so complicated or restrictive that it becomes a strait jacket on good providers.

eLearn Accredit provides the environment in which the discussion can take place.