Upcoming Webinars
Archived Webinars
In August 2023, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“Proposed Rule”) and took public comments about, a proposal to amend 25 C.F.R. Part 35, the regulations governing nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in state and local government services and implementing title II of the American with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Such services would include the provision of distance education.
The proposal is to establish specific requirements, including the adoption of specific technical standards, for making accessible the services, programs, and activities offered by State and local Government entities to the public through the web and mobile apps. The proposal would make the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) the ADA title II compliance standard for local and state governments.
When finalized, the standard would apply to websites and mobile apps. Governments would have two to three years for compliance, based on population size served. There are limited exceptions permitting inaccessible content, including archived content, preexisting documents made available prior to the effective date, third party posted web content, linked third party content
The Proposed Rule has far-reaching consequences beyond public institutions of higher education. The regulation will serve as template for potential future regulations or course of conduct at private institutions that own or operate places of public accommodation covered by title III of the ADA. The Proposed Rule, therefore, is an opportunity to prepare for direction of travel on website accessibility, and potential reduce current and future risks.
This one hour webinar reviewed the Proposed Rule, the new compliance standard, DOJ’s continued uncertainty about how to measure compliance, exceptions, what we expect for the future from DOJ in terms of additional efforts to regulate in this area for private entities. and how public and private institutions of higher education may want to prepare now.
Click here to watch a recording of the webinar!
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Join Dr. Caulyne Barron as she offers insights to define and describe assigning credit to comply with DEAC’s Standard III.F. In this webinar, you’ll review DEAC standards and other critical documents to define academic units of measure. Using real world examples, attendees will be able to distinguish between engagement and preparation and apply best practices for estimating time on task. The session focuses on developing internal processes and emphasizes ways to document institutional practices that are immediately implementable in the course development and review cycle.
Let your data tell a story about your institution and your amazing students. This webinar illustrates strategies on optimal data presentation for reporting and institutional effectiveness. Topics include turning raw data into actionable information, understanding audience and intent, creating benchmarks and KPIs, dashboarding, tracking data, creating meeting summaries, and the power of visualizations. The session is presented through the lens of a DEAC-accredited institution’s institutional effectiveness strategies and implementation.
The one-hour webinar is now available on demand.
Data-informed conversations impact just about everyone who is involved institutional success and improvement. Effective strategies for gathering data in ways that faculty, administrators and staff members can use in their everyday work and contribute to these important decisions – whether they are data people or not – are central to demonstrating outcomes and to understanding what’s working at an institution and what’s not.
Within this webinar, Dr. Raymond Rodriguez focused on a high-level overview of why institutional effectiveness assessment is necessary; principles of educational assessment; the role of assessment in teaching and learning, differentiating diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments; differentiating evaluation, measurement, and assessment; and what constitutes evidence of the achievement of student learning.
This ninety-minute webinar is available on demand.
In his previous webinar, Foundations of Institutional Assessment, Dr. Ray Rodriquez offered a high-level overview of why institutional effectiveness assessment is necessary; principles of educational assessment; the role of assessment in teaching and learning, differentiating diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments; differentiating evaluation, measurement, and assessment; and what constitutes evidence of the achievement of student learning.
DEAC and Dr. Rodriguez offered a follow-up to this webinar that took a deeper dive into answering the most basic question on institutional effectiveness: How do we know we are fulfilling our mission? How do we know our students are learning and growing? How do we document that we are achieving our institutional mission? How can we fully unleash our institution’s potential? Discussions and strategies on how to develop and organize your evaluation, assessment and improvement initiatives and effectively use data for institutional improvement were continued and deepened. These functions are key to institution research, academic program review, learning outcomes assessment, accreditation, and much more.
The one-hour webinar is now available on demand.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is becoming an increasingly important priority for higher education. Informed DEI practices can provide institution leaders with deeper insights into how students, faculty and staff are experiencing the learning environment and help develop strategies to support a safe, inclusive and thriving academic experience at all levels within the institution.
There are many dimensions to DEI. With so many issues and so many opportunities to implement DEI initiatives, where do you start? How do you define a DEI goal? This webinar offered a framework for listening to the voices of your stakeholders and building DEI initiatives that included how to:
1. Develop a strategy to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion in a way that uniquely reflects institution mission;
2. Gather data and measure outcomes to improve program effectiveness across all demographic groups; and
3. Create a leadership development strategy to improve the effectiveness of the institution in serving underrepresented groups.
This one-hour webinar, is available on demand.
DEAC’s accreditation process is extensive, comprehensive and rigorous. Passing the DEAC readiness threshold requires considerable time and resources. While many applicants who clear the readiness threshold go on to achieve initial accreditation, this outcome is never a certainty. It is important to fully comprehend all aspects of the institutional readiness assessment before deciding to apply to DEAC. This one-hour webinar offered a comprehensive overview of the DEAC readiness assessment process, which begins when an institution submits its initial Self-Study Report (SER).
Dr. Leslie Urofsky, DEAC’s Academic Review Specialist, and Ms. Mary Adams, President Emeritus, American Sentinel University, reviewed and discussed the purpose, procedures, outcomes, and challenges involved in this crucial gatekeeping step toward achieving DEAC accreditation. This webinar is designed to help applicant institutions understand what happens once the SER has been submitted as well as the “deemed ready” and “deemed not ready” findings. Attendees were provided with strategies and insight on how best to use the feedback report generated by the readiness evaluation and prepare for the next steps.
This one-hour webinar is available on demand.
As educators we are used to evaluating information—papers, student questions, research articles. But viewing outcomes assessment through the lens of continuous quality improvement is remarkably difficult at first and we tend to make it so hard. DEAC accreditation standards, however; are quite clear: to be effective, outcomes assessment plans need to document, monitor and analyze student outcomes data to improve the student learning experience and inform institutional effectiveness.
This webinar addressed the fundamentals of outcomes assessment such as terminology, purpose, and processes, and offered suggestions for each development step along the way, leaving participants with an understanding of outcomes assessment in general, how to design an outcomes assessment plan that meets their institutional needs as well as how to use the data collected not only for continuous improvement but to meet the requirements for DEAC accreditation.
In recent years, many states have enacted various laws to protect students from unfair lending practices. While there are many lending options that can provide affordable institutional loan programs, there are many complexities to managing private lending that necessitate a deep understanding of compliance with state laws on lending practices. Understanding such regulations and the underlying reasons behind these rules can help institutions to better serve students and increase access and affordability for those who may otherwise be left behind. Furthermore, it is not as complicated as it may seem.
This webinar, which featured presenters from TFC Tuition Financing, discussed various regulations, including Truth in Lending Act (TILA) that institutions must adhere to when offering payments plans to students. Learn more about how proper and compliant financing programs present a win-win opportunity for students and their institutions.
The one-hour webinar is available on demand.
The Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) was pleased to host Dr. Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, the President of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), for a candid conversation about higher education policies, politics and leadership, as well as her long standing focus on student success, education quality, equity, and diversity. DEAC is very proud to be a CHEA-recognized accrediting organization.
Dr. Jackson-Hammond has been a member of the higher education community for over 30 years. Her professional career has included tenured and administrative positions in universities throughout various regions of the United States: University of Louisiana Monroe, California State University Dominguez Hills; Delaware State University; University of North Carolina Charlotte, Winston-Salem State University; and Coppin State University. Most recently, Dr. Jackson-Hammond completed her tenure as president of Central State University in Ohio.
She is a sought-after thought leader on accreditation, multicultural diversity and inclusion. Jackson-Hammond has served on many national boards including the Fulbright Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES); the Thurgood Marshall College Fund; NCAA Division II Presidents Council; American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. She has appeared several times on Capitol Hill providing testimony regarding the status of 1890 Land-Grant institutions.
This one-hour webinar is available on demand.
