1. Credit For Professional Training

In some cases credit may be awarded directly for job training based on the precedent that has been established by the online college or university.  Credit could also be awarded to individuals with certificates or licenses in the following areas: aviation, law enforcement, insurance, real estate, Emergency Medical Technician.

2.  Credit Recommended By The American Council On Education (ACE)

If an online learner has been awarded with a certificate or license that is recognized by ACE (e.g. Dale Carnegie), depending on the institution, he or she may be eligible for credit .

3.  Credit For Life Experience

There are a number of accredited and reputable online institutions that have a definitive program designed to reward students who have accumulated years of experience in a particular area.  Normally there is a portfolio process that the student must go through that demonstrates his/her proficiency in that area of study.

4. Credit For Military Training

Undergraduate credit may be awarded for courses completed by military service schools if this credit is recommended in the Guide to the Evaluation of Education Experiences in the Armed Forces (ACE). The ACE Guide is used to determine the equivalency of military training to college credit.

5.  Credit By Examination

CLEP (College Level Examination Program) offers a unique opportunity to gain college credit for the knowledge a student has acquired. CLEP is comprised of thirty-four tests covering a variety of subjects. Formal study, private reading, on-the-job experience, non-credit courses, business training, television/radio courses, travel, and superior high school courses are just a few ways knowledge is acquired that may be applied within CLEP testing.

The DSST program (Dantes Subject Standardized Tests) provides the opportunity to earn college credit based on what a student learns outside of the traditional classroom. Approved by ACE, the DSST program enables students to use knowledge they have acquired to accomplish their educational and professional goals

Organizations have started to examine which training methods can amplify methods of performance, motivation, collaboration and a lifelong commitment to learning. With technology changing as rapidly as it is, skills and knowledge have a short shelf life. There is always pressure to stay up-to-date with training and education throughout a career. No longer is a college education the end of it. Learning has now become a lifelong process.

Learning is such a competitive advantage for employees and employers. . For a business to be successful, it depends on its employees, who to be successful themselves, need quality training. By developing employee skills, corporate executives understand that those skills are the key to keeping a competitive lead in the global marketplace.

Today’s labor market is tight and demands on employees are ever increasing. Companies are exploring advances in online technology to train their employees and they are looking for ways to do it inexpensively. One of the best ways to do that is through online courses.

The acceptance of online degree programs is on the rise. Many corporations are hiring applicants into strategic management and executive positions who hold degrees from colleges and universities that have online degree programs. Many of these companies provide tuition reimbursement to their employees too.

The online education community continues to grow as people make the decision to obtain their degrees online. As increasing numbers of professionals receive their degrees and professional training on the Internet, those employers who are uncertain of online degrees will need to reevaluate their position. These programs are gaining strength in the education industry, as technology becomes more sophisticated and the demand grows.  Today, students enrolled in wholly online programs total almost 2.2 million. 

For some people they have no other choice than to earn their degree online. They have busy work schedules, family responsibilities, and they just can’t stop working and go to a brick and mortar university. Their time is valuable and online learning can give them the opportunity to work and go to school at the same time.

As time goes on and the acceptance of online degrees increases among employers, they will find that people who have taken online schooling have indeed, a lot to offer. These people have to adjust their time and schedules to make time for their schooling. They in effect, become great organizers and multitaskers – and what employer isn’t looking for those traits in a potential employee? It takes a lot to achieve time management skills. Students at online colleges and universities have to excel in time management. Their commitment to their education is unmatched.

For years, the fake “diploma mills” that some people would get degrees from set a course of negativity in motion. But times have changed. Employers are coming around to seeing the importance of online education. They are rethinking the importance of online learning. They see it as a distinct advantage.

1.  The successful traits of an online learner are similar to the successful traits of an adult learner in traditional educational settings. 

2. That success is dependent on vibrant communication among the learner, his or her peers and the instructor and can be faciliated through phone, email, or a learning management platform.

3.  Communication with the online learner must be part of a personalized, customized evaluation of that learner by the institution.

1.  The Idea Of Online Education Is Relevant — Execution On the Idea Is Not:  Sitting around the table with your spouse or friend, sipping on a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee (my favorite) for 30 - 60 minutes, coming up with all the right reasons why earning your degree online is a good idea is EASY.  In fact, it’s fun and energizing with absolutely no commitment.   But overcoming those obstacles and objections that most face in this pursuit, and laying out a step by step plan that’s chock-full of hard deadlines, in my twenty years of experience in distance education, is where most fall short.

2.  We Have A Warped Sense Of Time:  We continue to be fooled with the notion that we will have more time next month or next year than we do today.  And then guess what — when next month or next year roll around our calendars are just as packed as ever.

3.  Consume Rather Than Produce:   It is much easier and less risky to consume rather than produce.  You can consume all the information on the pros/cons of study through an online vs. a traditional school but never produce one thing.  Why is that?  Because there are some that are too risk averse.  You see, it is risky to produce a college application.  It is risky to produce an application for financial aid.  It is risky to produce an enrollment in that first class.

2010 will soon be upon us and thousand of well intentioned people will make their “new years resolutions” — to have a do -over.  For some their ”do-over” will be to lose weight or start working out at a gym, others will seek to do something of significance, and still some will want to reconnect with distant family and friends.   A major do-over for many will be to reengage with what I call “lifelong learning.”  For some this will mean completing the education they once started and doing so via online learning.

One of the most encouraging things about new years is the word “new.”  We get an opportunity to “do-over”

When it comes to your educational goals for 2010 don’t fall into the trap of “I can’t.”  The word “can’t ” is the antithesis of the word “new.”  It’s so destructive.  It cripples motivation, denies reality, and ultimately diverts responsibility.  I know, from personal experience, that people “can” meet and exceed their educational goals.  Of course, I am a propenent of doing so by online distance education. 

You can do it!

Officials of For-Profit Colleges See Department’s Proposed Rule Changes as ‘Aggressive’

By Jennifer Gonzalez

Washington

Any thoughts that the U.S. Department of Education planned only to tweak existing regulations that affect for-profit colleges and other higher-education sectors were dashed on Monday when the agency released a draft of proposed revisions to a panel of negotiators. Many people in higher education, especially those in the for-profit sector, were taken aback at the substantial changes proposed, with some calling the move “aggressive” and “surprisingly strong.” The panel, whose members include federal officials and representatives of institutions and associations affected by the regulations, has been charged with re-examining 14 rules in a process known as negotiated rule-making.

Among the department’s proposed changes are eliminating the 12 “safe harbors” adopted in 2002 to clarify a ban on incentive compensation for student recruiters. The safe harbors specify types of compensation plans that do not violate the ban. Other proposed changes deal with assuring the integrity of “ability to benefit” testing procedures, defining a high-school diploma, and determining how institutions ensure gainful employment for their students.

Ripples in the Markets

By far, the most significant change to come from the department is the proposal to eliminate the safe harbors.

Consumer advocates and admissions officers from traditional colleges have urged the department to do away with the safe harbors, arguing that the exemptions, which allow colleges to pay enrollment-based commissions under certain circumstances, encourage recruiters to sign up unqualified students. Officials of for-profit colleges and lobbyists favor keeping the safe harbors, saying they provide much-needed clarity on whether specific types of payments are in compliance with the law.

Trace A. Urdan, an education-industry analyst with Signal Hill, an investment firm, said the for-profit sector was not expecting such a strong move from the department on incentive compensation.  As a result, he says, stock trades were off on Tuesday for some for-profit education companies. Bridgepoint Education, which runs Ashford University and the University of the Rockies, was affected the most, with a 4.2 percent drop in its share price. Other companies were off between 2 and 4 percent. Mr. Urdan said there was talk that perhaps the department’s strong move was part of a negotiating tactic.  “Most industry folks don’t believe that the safe harbors will entirely go away,” he said.

Options on Gainful-Employment Rule

Another area of concern was the department’s consideration of changes in a rule that requires for-profit institutions to show that a percentage of their graduates find “gainful employment.” Mr. Urdan said he found those potential changes more disturbing, and he characterized it as “overreaching” of the department to get involved in how colleges price various programs. The department decided not to provide draft regulatory language on gainful employment at this time.

However, department officials are considering two options for determining whether institutions are complying with that rule.  One would require a college to show a “reasonable relationship” between the price a student is charged for a specific program and the “value added,” which the department suggests could be defined as the difference between the salaries in that field earned by the average graduate of the program and the average high-school graduate. Another option would be to look at whether a student’s starting annual income was adequate to cover student-loan obligations for the program “while still having an adequate amount available to meet living expenses.”

Mr. Urdan said that the department should not be inserting itself into the business of setting prices. Instead, he said, that is the role of the market. “I don’t know where this will end up,” he said. “I continue to feel this is a real overreaching by the department and goes beyond the intent of Congress. Price controls were discussed and rejected.”

Validating High-School Diplomas

In another area, the department’s suggestion that institutions be required to keep listings of high schools in three categories related to the established validity of their diplomas also did not go over well. Harris N. Miller, president and chief executive of the Career College Association, which represents about 1,400 institutions, most of them operated for profit, said the onus should be on the federal government, not the institutions. The government, he said, is the one entity that can keep a list of legitimate schools.

The department also proposed new measures regarding the administration of “ability to benefit” tests. Students who do not have a high-school diploma or a GED, and have not completed high school through home schooling, have to pass an ability-to-benefit test to qualify for federal student aid. The department has proposed requiring publishers of ability-to-benefit tests to establish a process to identify and follow up on test-score irregularities. A test publisher would be required to decertify test administrators if it determined that test had been administered improperly. Last summer the Government Accountability Office said in a report that officials administering such a test at one college had given out answers and changed answers for students.

David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, said the proposed changes on ability-to-benefit testing seem to address the egregious abuses and violations that have occurred in the past.  “We are hopeful that these changes, if implemented, will have teeth,” he said.

The negotiating panel met last month for the first of three sessions and will begin its next weeklong session on Monday. A final decision on any revisions in the rules is not expected until next year.

Have you ever thought how much the commute to your college class actually costs you?  If you are one of the thousands of adult learners who commute to day or evening classes, you might want to take a minute and do some cursory calculations.   When doing your calculations try to include those “hidden casualities.”  Here are some considerations:

1.  Actual commute to class (meets 2 or 3 times weekly) represents a 30 mile roundtrip.  Cost of gas and vehicle maintenance must be part of this equation.

2.  Time “suckage” associated with that commute due to sitting in “parking lots” called highways.  Remember, time equals money.  The unpredicatiblity is another factor since there are no consistent routines with the commute to class.

3.  Parking and ancillary fees associated with the commute.

4.  Lost wages because you have to “beat the rush” to class.

5.  What ill effects will the stress associated with the commute have on you today, this week, next month, next year?

6.  How does the commute and those evening classes negatively impact your family and the relationships that mean the most to you?

With all the advances in online education, the “zero commute” option is a viable alternative to earning your degree and enhancing your life.  What you are doing to improve yourself through earning your degree is hard enough.  Don’t add things that will make that journey more difficult.

Before getting re-connected to Jack Welch through JWMI, Dr. Kerr was formerly the Chief Learning Officer at GE where he and Welch first collaborated. More recently, he is a senior advisor to Goldman Sachs, where from 2001-2006 he was a managing director and their Chief Learning Officer.

His academic credentials include being on the business school faculties of Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Southern California where he was dean of the faculty and director of the Ph.D. program. He is also a former president of the Academy of Management, the world’s largest association of academicians in management.

As an author, Dr. Kerr’s writings on leadership and “on the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B” are among the most cited and reprinted in the management sciences. His most recent book is Reward Systems (Harvard Business Press, 2009).

He is also the chairman of the board of the Fisher Island (Florida) Day School, under the relentless supervision of his son, Zachary.

In person, Dr. Kerr is soft-spoken, warm, and approachable. When asked a question, he responds in a rational rambling stream of consciousness of related ideas from which the listener has to distill the answer. But he does clearly answer the question. It’s also clear that he’s intimately familiar with Jack’s ideas and methods.

About his involvement with JWMI, Dr. Kerr said, “I wanted to work with Jack again, especially on a project that will have such a significant impact on thousands of students, from working men and women in mid-career, to entrepreneurs, veterans and people reentering the workforce. Classes will be small, students and faculty will get input from Jack, and the curriculum will be current and relevant to today’s news.”

When asked what he hoped to accomplish in this new role, Dr. Kerr explained, “The main motive I have is really to protect and extend Jack’s legacy. He did a lot for me. I worked for him for about seven years in GE and I was his consultant before then, so I’ve worked for him a long time. Additionally, he reaches about 30 students a semester in a class he teaches at MIT; and he really wants to reach out to a far broader audience to make a difference in people’s lives. JWMI gives him that larger forum.”

“Jack’s desire,” continues Dr. Kerr, “is to give people a chance to be successful in their careers; to equip them with unique tools that they won’t find anywhere else. He wants to help people, such as the working single mother trying to get ahead, the soldier who is just getting out of the military and wants a business career; these are the kinds of students we see Chancellor University attracting with JWMI.”

Dr. Kerr continues, “People are asking if Jack’s really going to show up and be involved in these programs. The simple answer is yes! It’s almost annoying how much he’s bugging me and others working on the JWMI curriculum. And I’m glad he’s that involved. It shows he’s sincere and passionate about JWMI’s success. Jack has two speeds; full and off. He doesn’t get halfway interested in anything. When he’s interested, then he’s just over the top with being involved.”

Asked about his vision for JWMI, Dr. Kerr answered, “Well, one year from now, if we want to be taken seriously, we’ve got to show we’re grounded. My father’s an artist and he talks about how Picasso was a great artist before he became a modern well-known artist. Some think you can just scoff at tradition and cut corners, but it just comes out as bad art. So a year from now, you know, we need to walk before we run, we have to maintain our accreditation in good standing, and we’ve got to have a firm, quality masters program; it’s got to be solid.”

“Three years out,” he continues, “once the programs are more mature, we can do all kinds of riffs around that. We will be an exemplary brand online, as well as on ground. Maybe years ago, there was justification for people to be undistinguished online, but the technology now is so wonderful. Shame on us if we can’t get it right. The online field could really use a high quality MBA, and that will be us; and it will have a distinct Welch flavor.”

Describing the uniqueness of the Welch program, Dr Kerr stated, “This won’t be just a traditional MBA, but a Welch MBA. He was a chemical engineer, he didn’t study business, so he’s come up with 50 things maybe that are at an angle through or even contradictory to what we think we know about business and is taught in the conventional MBA. Students will still be exposed to the same material included in a traditional MBA, but they will have the advantage of the insight and wisdom of Jack Welch. Since Jack is still learning, it will be fresh insight that he injects into the classes.”

When asked how JWMI can benefit Cleveland and the N.E. Ohio region, Dr. Kerr said, “Let’s be honest; this won’t have the impact that, say, a new manufacturing plant opening would. However, Chancellor University is already a positive force given its long history in Cleveland and the fact that it is thriving and growing. Beyond that, local residents will be able to take advantage of on-campus learning, as well as the online learning. They can attend at the MidTown Campus or the Mentor Learning Center.”

“But beyond this,” Dr. Kerr concluded, “there will be the prestige and recognition that JWMI can bring to the area just by being based here in Cleveland; it has the potential to become iconic, kind of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or Cleveland Clinic. And those in N.E. Ohio will have unusual access to this rich resource.”

Also, as it relates to enhancing and improving online student’s learning experiences, in a recent Eduventures (www.eduventures.com) survey, respondents indicated that enhanced discussion boards and virtual lab simulations are technologies that faculty and online course designers will require in the next three to five years.  I also feel that other technologies that embrace the social networking forums will be key in the coming years.  

And don’t rule out this new phenomenon called Second Life (www.secondlife.com), which is the 3D online virtual world.  I am still trying to understand the “education regions” within Second Life, but it is certainly a platform favored by many institutions and instructors.

The start of classes had been delayed due to Jack Welch’s recent bout with discitis, a rare but curable infection of the spine. Mr. Welch has fully recovered and is currently working with Chancellor University officials to finalize coursework and curriculum.

“I’m thrilled about the launch of the program in January; everything has really come together,” Jack Welch said Tuesday. “A terrific team of highly respected academics and experienced practitioners has contributed to courses that do exactly what we envisioned – offer an MBA that is relevant, powerful, and unique, filled with real-world utility and infused with a management philosophy I deeply believe in.”

Chancellor continues to add to the leadership and academic teams, most recently with Steve Kerr who led GE’s Leadership Development Center in Crotonville, N.Y., and the executive education program at Goldman Sachs. Kerr has also been on the business school faculties of Ohio State University, the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California, where he was dean of the faculty and director of the Ph.D. program. As executive director of the Jack Welch Management Institute, Kerr will work with Welch and the faculty on all aspects of the academic program.

“I wanted to work with Jack again, especially on a project that will have such a significant impact on thousands of students, from working men and women in mid-career to entrepreneurs, veterans and people reentering the workforce,” said Kerr. “Classes will be small, students and faculty will get input from Jack, and the curriculum will be current and relevant to today’s news. I think the Jack Welch MBA will be unlike any other business degree in the marketplace.”

Chancellor University joined forces with Jack Welch, the “Manager of the Century” and a lifelong educator, to launch a unique MBA program aimed at giving students around the world and at every career level the tools to transform their lives and businesses.

The Jack Welch Management Institute will take a progressive approach to business education. Its curriculum will offer students innovative coursework designed for a global business environment, with instruction on topics from leadership, people management, and career development, to strategy and finance, but it will be supercharged with Jack Welch’s winning business practices and principles and refreshed weekly with online video updates from Jack Welch on breaking business news and topics.  Classes will be offered online and at Chancellor University’s Cleveland campus.  For more information about the Jack Welch Management Institute, or to enroll in the program, go to www.jwmi.com.