IRL's Seven Principles of Learning The Institute for Research on Learning (IRL)
http://www.newhorizons.org/tech_7irl.html

Seven Standards of Good Practice for Undergraduate Education
http://www.pbs.org/adultlearning/als/frn/standards.htm

"In 1987, Chickering and Gamson outlined "seven principles of good practice for undergraduate education," which have been widely accepted as measures for judging the effectiveness of classroom teaching. At the Telelearning '97 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, presenters and participants in one session, "Standards of Good Practice for Teaching via Distance Learning," discussed how to apply these seven principles plus an eighth one added by the presenters. In small groups, participants then developed specific suggestions for advancing the standards in teaching distance learning courses."

The Flashlight Program's "Implementing the Seven Principles
http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html

"Since the Seven Principles of Good Practice were created in 1987, new communication and information technologies have become major resources for teaching and learning in higher education. If the power of the new technologies is to be fully realized, they should be employed in ways consistent with the Seven Principles. Such technologies are tools with multiple capabilities; it is misleading to make assertions like "Microcomputers will empower students" because that is only one way in which computers might be used."

The TLT Group's Overview of the Flashlight Program, 1999 - "Spotting an Elephant in the Dark"
http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/elephant.html

The FlashlightTM Project is developing a constellation of survey items, interview questions, cost analysis methods, and other resources that educational institutions can use to study and steer their own uses of technology. The first of these products, the Current Student Inventory and its Evaluation Handbook, are now available.

Assuring Quality in Distance Learning - A Preliminary Review
http://www.chea.org/Events/QualityAssurance/98May.html

"The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) commissioned The Institute for Higher Education Policy to investigate the emerging topic of quality assurance in technology-mediated distance learning programs in higher education. Distance learning is growing rapidly, not only as a supplement to traditional institutions and programs, but also as a replacement for those institutions and programs. Policymakers at both the federal and state level are displaying a keen interest in developing a level playing field in public policies affecting distance and campus-based higher education. Further, distance learning is seen by many as a transformative vehicle for increasing the pace of change and reform in higher education. For these and other reasons, analysis of quality assurance is an essential topic for national, state, and institutional policy development."

Quality on the Line - Benchmarks for Success in Internet-Based Distance Education
http://www.ihep.com/quality.pdf

Released in April 2000 and prepared by The Institute for Higher Education Policy, this study was commissioned by the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest professional association of higher education faculty, and Blackboard Inc., a leading Internet education company. The report examines case studies of six colleges and universities that provide Internet-based degree programs and identifies 24 benchmarks considered essential to ensuring excellence in Internet-based distance learning. The benchmarks are divided into seven categories of quality measures currently in use on campuses around the nation. These benchmarks distill the best strategies used by colleges and universities that are actively engaged in online learning, ensuring quality for the students and faculty who use it.

"Impacts of college-level courses via Asynchronous Learning Networks: Some Preliminary Results"
Starr Roxanne Hiltz, New Jersey Institute of Technology
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/issue2/hiltz.htm

ABSTRACT: New Jersey Institute of Technology has been delivering college courses via an Asynchronous Learning Network (ALN) system called the Virtual ClassroomTM for a decade, using various media mixes. Currently, two complete undergraduate degree programs are available via a mix of video plus Virtual Classroom, the B.A. in Information Systems and the B.S. in Computer Science. This paper presents preliminary findings about impacts on students, and touches on some issues and potential impacts for faculty, individual universities, and the structure of higher education. Overall ratings of courses by students who complete ALN based courses are equal or superior to those for traditional courses. Dropout or Incomplete outcomes are somewhat more prevalent, while grade distributions for those who complete tend to be similar to those for traditional courses. For both students and faculty, more startup time devoted to solving the "logistics" of ALN delivery seems to be required at the beginning of courses. ALN delivery is not just a "different" way of doing the same thing, however; it is likely to change the nature and structure of higher education."