Transparency by Design is intended to assert the strengths of adult serving colleges and universities and online higher education:  that we are outcomes-based and data rich.  It is also our hope that demonstrating learning outcomes may help states in their struggle to figure out how to deal with adult-serving, online institutions that operate across state borders – that they will recognize those institutions that are committed to quality and will work with us to encourage other similar institutions to participate in Transparency by Design.

Recently, Alan Contreras of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization authored an interesting commentary on the vast array of degree providers in the United States and the differences in types of degrees offered.  He rightly identifies the complexity of what he refers to as “tiers” of providers.  And he calls on the states to develop shared nomenclature and classification of degrees by type.

I certainly empathize with Alan about his deep and abiding concern with diploma mills and unscrupulous providers.  But, I am not certain I can embrace his call for classification of degree by type.  Where will degrees developed for adults and for online delivery fit into such a scheme?  My suspicion is that they would not go to the top of the list.  And that would not be due to lack of quality but, rather, a classification scheme that Alan says starts with the “elites” institutions.  This seems to me to be one more example of the disproportionate emphasis that we place on a traditional view of higher education that too often ignores the other 85 percent, those students who don’t come to campus for full-time study directly out of high school.

Isn’t a transparent, public accounting of learning outcomes a better way to address quality than another classification scheme?  Doesn’t it make sense to ask schools what learning outcomes they intended to deliver, and how they measure whether their graduates achieved those outcomes?  Isn’t that what demonstrating quality is all about?

Let me know what you think.

Mike