APUS to be honored for quality online education

APUS recognized for collecting student data

The American Public University System (APUS), one of the nation's foremost distance learning organizations, will be honored with an award from the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) for its commitment to excellence in online education.

Sloan-C is a an organization composed of colleges and educators dedicated to fostering the integration of online education into the mainstream. The Ralph E. Gomory Award for Quality Online Education will be presented to APUS officials at the 15th Sloan-C Annual International Conference in October.

In addition to providing quality education to its students, APUS is being recognized for its efforts to collect information on student learning at the end of their courses of study. This dataset is useful in determining retention rates, managing enrollment, and determining learning outcomes.

"The consortium recognized American Public University System primarily for its excellence in collecting analytics across the enterprise - from managing enrollment and retention to assessing outcomes in student learning and faculty satisfaction," said Dr Burks Oakley III of Sloan-C.

Although APUS will he recognized with an award, Sloan-C recognizes the validity of other online colleges and universities. Recently, it released a study in which it discussed learning outcomes from a cross-section of online colleges that were better than those from traditional colleges.