Creating the 2013 Best Online Bachelor's Programs rankings required two steps. Step one was compiling a list of schools offering bachelor's degree programs online—including programs that enroll full-time first year students as well as those that typically admit new entrants with credits toward a degree. Step two was collecting data from these schools.
To complete step one, U.S. News & World Report sent statistical questionnaires to 1,767 regionally accredited for-profit, private, and public institutions that granted bachelor's degrees. Respondents were asked to identify whether in academic year 2012-2013 they would be offering bachelor's degree programs through Internet-based distance education courses.
U.S. News defines a distance education program as follows (along the same lines as the U.S. Department of Education's definition):
A program for which all the required coursework for program completion is able to be completed via distance education courses that incorporate Internet-based learning technologies. Distance education courses are courses that deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor synchronously or asynchronously. Note: Requirements for coming to campus for orientation, testing or academic support services do not exclude a program from being classified as an online bachelor's degree program."
U.S. News made repeated attempts to survey institutions and determine whether they meet this new definition. Between the start of data collection in late July 2012 and the fall 2012 closing date, 939 institutions (53 percent) replied. Among them, 237 (25 percent) said they would be offering an online bachelor's degree program in accordance with the definition, while the rest said they would not.
To complete step two, U.S. News collected additional statistical information from the same questionnaire on the 237 schools with online programs, and this information was scored as outlined in the table below. (Note: All student and faculty statistical data are of July 1, 2011 - June 30, 2012 cohorts, while the remaining data are of policies, services, and technologies in place at the time of the questionnaire completion in the summer and fall of 2012.)
| Student engagement (50% of ranking) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking indicator | Category weight (percent) | Scoring process | |
| Best practices | 27 | Up to 1.5 points each for 18 different factors: short answer exams have unique login passwords, are non-duplicated, and have random order questioning; policies of instructors tracking, reviewing, and providing feedback on student participation; frequencies of instructors tracking, reviewing, and providing feedback on student participation; school tracks students after graduation; collaborative coursework; formal copyright policy; anti-plagiarism policy; American Disabilities Act policy; certified instructional designers; students sign ethics statement; instructor response timeframe; instructor office hours. | |
| Graduation rates | 27 | A school’s graduation rate divided by the highest value among all schools. The length of time allotted for graduation is based on the most typical progress toward degree completion of new entrants. | |
| Assessments | 14 | A school that administers at least two out of nine learning outcomes assessments to students and makes publicly available the results from at least two assessments receives the full score. Partial credit is awarded to schools that administer fewer exams and have fewer publicly available results. | |
| Class size | 14 | A school’s mean class size and maximum class size, relative to the 20th percentile values among all schools. | |
| Retention rates | 9 | A school’s mean re-enrollment rate of its new entrants divided by the highest value among all schools. | |
| Time to degree deadline | 9 | A school receives the full score if it requires a student with 75 percent of credits applied to his or her degree to earn the remaining 25 percent within 1.5 times the amount of time the student would earn those credits if he or she did not drop or skip any courses. Other schools score progressively lower the longer their relative time to degree deadlines. | |
| Faculty credentials and training (25% of ranking) | |||
| Ranking indicator | Category weight (percent) | Scoring process | |
| Ph.D. faculty | 35 | Schools employing at least 50 percent of faculty with terminal degrees receive full score; schools with below 50 percent receive a score based on their percents of faculty with terminal degrees multiplied by 2. | |
| Tenured faculty | 20 | Percentage of Ph.D. faculty who are tenured or are tenure-track faculty. | |
| Financed training | 13 | School receives full score if it supplies or fully finances formal training for new instructors in distance education teaching practices. | |
| Hours of faculty training | 13 | The number of hours a school requires training for instructors to teach distance education courses, divided by the 80th percentile largest value among all schools. All schools with values above the 80th percentile receive the full score. | |
| Continuing faculty education | 7 | School receives full score if it requires continuing formal education on online teaching practices for instructors. | |
| Peer review | 7 | School receives full score if there is a formal system of peer review for instructors. | |
| Faculty who have more than a B.A. | 5 | Percentage of faculty with a master’s degree or higher. | |
| Student services and technology (25% of ranking) | |||
| Ranking indicator | Category weight (percent) | Scoring process | |
| Student indebtedness | 50 | Half of the weight is a school’s mean student debt at graduation compared with the median such value among other schools; the other half is the percentage of a school’s graduates with debt compared with the median such value among other schools. Only schools with below median debt levels for either were awarded scores. | |
| Technologies accessible to students | 28 | Two points each for the following: PC compliant; Apple compliant; application for tablet computer; application for smartphone; remote access to the following: live streaming audio, live streaming video, recorded audio, recorded video, software-based readers, bulletin boards, simulations, online chat rooms, visual software. | |
| Services available to students | 22 | Two points each for remote access to the following: academic advising, bookstore, 24-7 tech support, financial aid services, digitized library, live librarian, local area network, mentoring, live tutoring, writing workshops, career placement assistance. | |
Corrected 1/28/13: An earlier version of this article did not correctly define the scoring process for the “technologies accessible to students” ranking indicator. Earlier, on 1/16/13, the article was updated to include an expanded definition of Unranked programs.
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