Benchmarking with Industry Standards

Best Practices

Professional Studies continually benchmarks its operations with ‘industry’ best practices using established criteria. To date, Professional Studies has benchmarked its programs/operations with ten published standards and principles for degree programs for adults and/or military personnel. Those standards include:

  • Quality Scorecard – Sloan Consortium
  • Veterans and Military Programs and Services – Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS).
  • Principles of Good Practice for Higher Education Institutions Providing Voluntary Distance Education Programs to Members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their Families – Distance Education and Training Council (DETC).
  • Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs – Originally developed by WCET and later adopted by the Regional Accrediting Commissions.
  • Sloan Consortium’s Five Pillars – Lorenzo, G. & Moore, J.C. “The Sloan Consortium Report to the Nation: Five Pillars of Quality Online Education”, 2002.
  • Principles of Good Practice in Adult Degree Completion Programs – North Central Association of Colleges and Schools/Higher Learning Commission (NCA/HLC).
  • Best Practices in Adult Learning – Council for Experiential Learning (CAEL);
  • Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education – Compiled in a study supported by the American Association for Higher Education, the Education Commission of the States and the Johnson Foundation.
  • Principles of Good Practice for Alternative and External Degree Programs for Adults –American Council on Education and the Adult Higher Education Alliance.
  • Assessment of Student Academic Achievement: Levels of Implementation – NCA.