Transparency by Design

Access to Learning: RoadTransparency by Design is a groundbreaking initiative, conceived by the Presidents’ Forum, to assist adult learners in becoming educated consumers of higher education and lead universities and colleges toward greater accountability and transparency.

The initiative’s members comprise a consortium of regionally accredited, adult-serving, distance education institutions. In 2008, the initiative chose WCET, a division of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, to provide quality assurance on the standards of data reporting jointly developed by the charter institutions.

In late 2008, Lumina Foundation for Education provided a grant to WCET to fund the development of the Transparency by Design initiative and the student-centered website, College Choices for Adults. The Transparency by Design initiative supports Lumina Foundation for Education's mission to ensure that 60 percent of Americans are college-educated by 2025.

In August 2009, WCET launched the website, College Choices for Adults, which gives adult learners new information to accelerate and better inform their decision making process. In order to align their personal and professional goals with their educational opportunities, adults seek to answer the question, "What will I learn?" This information, in the form of program-level learning outcomes, measurements and results, has been difficult to find in the past but is the focal point of the initial release of this website. Transparency by Design initiative member institutions have populated the College Choices for Adults website by providing this information on select programs and their institution-wide information. The website will continue to grow over time, adding new features, new data (such as progress rates and student satisfaction data), and new institutions and programs.

All Transparency by Design institutional members have pledged to uphold the Principles of Good Practice for Higher Educational Institutions Serving Adults at a Distance. The Principles were developed to ensure that higher education courses and programs for adults learning at a distance are of high quality and readily accessible. The Principles are founded on best practices in distance higher education and address the unique needs of adult learners. The Principles define parameters of excellence; promote transparency of higher education institutions delivering distance learning programs; and foster dialogue to strengthen and improve the quality of programs and services. The Principles facilitate continuous improvement of adult higher education programs delivered at a distance by establishing benchmarks of quality.

If you represent a regionally-accredited, adult-serving distance education institution seeking to improve access to information for adults learning at a distance, please visit the Join Transparency by Design page for more details. Questions can be addressed to Russ Poulin, Project Director of Transparency by Design (303-541-0305; rpoulin@wcet.info) or Cali Morrison, Project Coordinator of Transparency by Design (303-541-0234; cmorrison@wcet.info).

Charter Member Institutions


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