Accreditation can involve the difference between obtaining a certificate that is true or a certificate that is without value. Accreditation is actually a formal analysis of an education program to certify that it provides all of the principles expressed by the bureaus that give accreditation. At this time there are 6 accrediting bureaus that are recognized by the National Board of Education. These 6 agencies comprise:
New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)
North Central Association of Schools and Colleges (NCASC)
Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges (MSASC)
Southern Association of Schools and Colleges (SACS)
Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WACS)
Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges (NWCCU)
Why is accreditation paramount?
Accreditation is a manner to certify that students be trained the same type of material regardless of the respective school they enroll in. Accreditation is also a manner of assuring prospective employers that the student has received a high quality schooling and has proficient abilities that are pertaining in the contemporary marketplace.
Other types of accreditation
Apart from academic accreditation, there is another type of accreditation named 'specialized accreditation'. Specialized accreditation most oftentimes is granted to an individual division or academic plan within a larger university or institute. This might be, for example, a College of Medicine which is a division of a larger school, or solely a solitary specialized program of study within the school like a teacher recognition plan that's taught by an institute.
Normally, an institute that bears a specialized accreditation also bears an academic accreditation by one of the aforementioned six accreditation bureaus.
If you're speculating on pursuing a calling in one of the fields that usually have specialized accreditation plans at hand, which encompass plenty of health and medicine programs, commercial art and design, theology, engineering, culinary arts, accounting and law, make sure to see if the distance education plan you're speculating on participates in this sort of accreditation. That way you'll have a better advantage of achieving a well-paid position when you finish school.
How to verify a distance learning program's accreditation
It might amaze you to learn there is an accreditation organization whose job it is to accreditate all other accreditation organizations. That's the schooling trade's process of making sure that no fake accreditation organizations surface to stake diploma mills and low-quality colleges.
This group is the Council on Higher Education Accreditation and they operate a web address at Only acknowledged accreditors and accredited colleges are permitted to be registered on this web address.
If the distance learning course that you're speculating on enrolling claims to be accredited and either that institution or the society that accreditates it is not registered on the web address, you should probably investigate further as something is undeniably askew.
Online Learning And Teaching
With the various innovations in communications networks hitting the world, it is interesting to note that the traditional means of imparting knowledge in schools and colleges or institutes of higher education have also been impacted to a considerable extent. This new method of learning which has been introduced is popularly referred to as e-learning or online learning. Increased used of the internet and various forms of multimedia technology has facilitated the growth of online learning and it is estimated that currently the online education industry is worth about 38 billion euros approximately. In the United States itself, 3.5 million students are enrolled in online degree courses. In order to aid the various higher educational institutes in spreading knowledge and information as well as in interacting with the students. These are certain tool s which provide extensive course management options and are known as Learning Management Systems or LMS. There are various such software tools available in the market which plays a very significant role in the spread of online education thus aiding the students in attaining the online degree. Moodle is a free software, a learning management system providing a platform for e-learning and it helps the various educators considerably in conceptualizing the various courses, course structures and curriculum thus facilitating interaction with online students. Moodle was devised by Martin Dougiamas and since its inception, its primary agenda has been to contribute suitably to the system of e-learning and facilitate online education and attainment of online degrees. Moodle actually stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment and statistics reveal that about 14million consumers are engaged in about 1.4million courses propagated by this learning management system.
It is to be noted that while Moodle presents certain common features present in almost all similar e-learning tools, there are also certain plug in options that it provides. The various common features of Moodle as an e-learning platform are blogs, chats, database activities, glossaries, support systems enabling the functioning in multiple languages, content management and most importantly constant and regular examination and assessment. The current infrastructure facilities adopted by Moodle enable it to support a plethora of plug-in options like graphical themes and content filters, enrollment and authentication processes as well as resource and question patterns. Any operating system that supports the usage of PHP allows the usage of an e-learning platform like Moodle and some of the systems where Moodle can perform without any alterations include Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Unix, NetWare etc.
Both Carl Street & Robert Baird Baird are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Carl Street has sinced written about articles on various topics from . ? 2007 Carl Street, PupBrothers.comSign up for your FREE Online Education newsletter at
Best Cheap Wireless Router Many users can also use the hardware at the same time, all without causing any technical problems