Student authentication and the Higher Education Opportunity Act

Madison, Wis.—May 28, 2009 — Hundreds of distance education administrators breathed a collective sigh of relief when Fred Lokken said that the vast majority of schools are currently in compliance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act’s new rules on student authentication. During a live broadcast titled How the Higher Education Act Affects Your Online Courses, Dr. Lokken, who helped draft a portion of the HEOA legislation, explained that the recently-completed committee work had raised a lot of concerns among his peers. It could easily have turned into a very tricky, expensive problem.

Instead, for now, institutions must simply "verify the identity of a student who participates in class or coursework” by using, at the option of the institution, methods such as:
• A secure login and pass code;
• Proctored examinations; and
• New or other technologies and practices that are effective in verifying student identification.”

“Clearly, an undercurrent of the discussion is the assumption that fraudulent activity is occurring in online courses,” he says. “Sadly, there is no definitive national data to confirm or refute this assumption. We know that distance education programs are vigilant in monitoring for fraud and dishonesty–and based on the realities of the HEOA–programs will have to redouble efforts going forward to ensure course and program integrity.”

So, while compliance is not an immediate issue, long-term course and program integrity certainly is. Lokken believes that we need to begin to collect national data and develop best practice standards that will address academic integrity issues.

If you missed the seminar and would like to purchase it for your institution, you can order the program in CD or print transcript format, both of which include the presenter's handouts.

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For more information please contact David Burns, Publisher, Magna Publications, Inc., at 608-227-8109, or dburns@magnapubs.com.