Quality Assurance of Distance Education Programs

With the expansion of educational opportunities through distance education technology, quality assurance becomes a major issue. Distance education is not a window for profit-making; it is a window of opportunity provided for specific purposes and populations. Although based on many similar standards as “traditional” higher education, special consideration is required to reflect the uniqueness of distance education programs. This paper will focus on quality standards for distance education programs at the institutional, program, and course level. The paper will integrate available quality standards with principles from six sigma. Therefore, it will focus not only on the input and output of distance education programs but also the process of offering, delivering and evaluating these programs.