Higher Education Opportunity Act

The HEOA provides an updated definition of distance education, replacing "telecommunications" with "distance education" to read, "the use of one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor, either synchronously or asynchronously."

"The Conferees expect institutions that offer distance education to have security mechanisms in place, such as identification numbers or other pass code information required to be used each time the student participates in class time or coursework on-line.  As new identification technologies are developed and become more sophisticated, less expensive and more mainstream, the Conferees anticipate that accrediting agencies or associations and institutions will consider their use in the future.  The Conferees do not intend that institutions use or rely on any technology that interferes with the privacy of the student and expect that students' privacy will be protected with whichever method the institutions choose to utilize."

Application of Standards in reaching Accreditation and Compliance

Requires institutions that offer distance education or correspondence education to have processes in place through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education or correspondence education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the course or program and receives the academic credit.

Secure Login and Pass Code

ETSU meets compliance by each student who registers for a course, let alone a Distance Education course using our administrative system, has a specific identification number which corresponds with a specific username for that student.  That username is assigned a specific password set by the student.  These accounts\usernames are Active Directory\LDAP in nature and act as a way to authenticate a student as the one who registered for the course.