Accredited Online School - Tidewater Tech

LOOKING FOR A GOOD ONLINE SCHOOL?

People looking for a good online educational experience are wise about being cautious and choosing carefully. Like all things about the Internet, there is a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly out there. However, there are a lot of excellent accredited online degree programs available which will not only give you as good a quality of education as a traditional campus, but will also give you the flexibility of studying from home and choosing when to study, learn and complete your lessons.

So how do you find that excellent educational experience and distinguish it from a lesser one? All top-quality online degree programs will have the following as essential components of their school:

• Fully accredited.

Accreditation by a recognized, national educational authority in the US is an essential. Most “degree mills” and other dubious institutions cannot provide this, or will provide a bogus accreditation from a foreign country. All reputable schools will be very open about their accreditation. Accreditation also shows you that the school is regularly audited for admissions, financial aid and education policies and practices.

• Fully-qualified instructors.

As a requirement of accreditation, all online instructors at an accredited school will need to have minimum qualifications and relevant life experience in order to teach the classes offered.

• Student Interaction and class size.

Top quality online schools will have created and structured their classes to ensure that the learning experience is much more than just reading a book and listening to an online lecture. This is done by means of discussion boards, chat sessions, group projects and other online collaboration tools, such as students being able to readily email the instructor and each other. Another aspect of a quality accredited school will be limiting the size of a class online, just as a brick and mortar school would. In theory, an online school could put hundreds of students in one class to save money on instructors, but that would cease to be a class. Ask the program you’re thinking of joining what their maximum class size is, and you’ll get a good idea if they are committed to providing quality education. A maximum class size of 25 would show that commitment.

• Communication, openness and contactability

If an online school is easy to reach by phone, open about school policies and procedures and has a copy of its procedures available in a catalog then you have an idea that this is a real institution which cares about your success. More dubious educational institutions are usually difficult or impossible to contact. Good open communication between you as the student and your school in the form of advisors and support will be crucial to your success in the long term.

• Quality ongoing support

A top quality online school program will be committed to providing you as the student with the following kinds of support which will be essential throughout your academic studies: preparation and orientation, academic advice for the course of your studies (available by phone as well as email) and placement studies to help you in job searching after you graduate from school. In addition, the best schools will have technical support to help you with problems that may occur with your computer, the essential vehicle for doing your classes online.

Dominic Christison
Dean of Academics
Tidewater Tech Online