Pursuing Regulatory Compliance For Digital Instruction In Response To Covid-19: Policy Playbook
The spring 2020 term saw an unprecedented response to an unprecedented challenge as virtually every U.S. higher education institution offering face-to-face instruction rapidly switched to remote instruction, many in as little as one to two weeks.
Such a shift massively disrupted the lives of students, faculty, staff, and administrators alike as institutions worked to redesign courses and provide faculty with a crash course in teaching remotely. Institutions struggled to resolve challenges ranging from the technological to the pedagogical to the administrative. For faculty and academic administrators new to teaching online, this rapid shift was often overwhelming and disorienting as they tried to simultaneously master unfamiliar technology tools, federal and state regulations, online student support systems, and pedagogical approaches.
Institutions, especially those with little distance education infrastructure, focused their resources and efforts on meeting the pedagogical and technological challenges to the utmost extent possible as they sought to complete the term remotely. Addressing the complex web of federal, state, and accreditation regulations governing distance education was a secondary concern for many institutions, and even the schools knowledgeable of this regulatory landscape were hard pressed to keep up with the growing numbers of waivers and regulatory interpretations governing distance education issued by the Department of Education beginning on March 5, 2020.