ASCILITE and UNE are pleased to announce the launch of Institutional TELAS – an institutional accreditation program based on the TELAS Framework. Developed by Associate Professor Chris Campbell and Associate Professor Elaine Huber from ASCILITE and Professor Steven Warburton and Sarah Thorneycroft from UNE, Institutional TELAS represents the first credential of its kind in the sector, allowing institutions to gain sector-recognised assurance as a provider of quality online learning.
The TELAS Framework is a validated standards framework that articulates evidence informed criteria to assess and evaluate the quality of online learning. This framework has been developed over a period of several years, in consultation with a wide range of key stakeholders and practitioners from the tertiary education sector. The launch of Institutional TELAS offers a new level of engagement to the higher education community, adding to the learning package accreditation already offered by ASCILITE.
The institutional accreditation program is a longitudinal engagement with three components that can be undertaken independently, or integrated with institutional initiatives such as LMS transition or digital uplift:
- Initiation phase, which allows the program and framework to be tailored to the institutional context
- Assessment phase, where a sample set of courses or units are assessed against the tailored TELAS framework as representative of the institution overall
- Capability building, to enhance organisational maturity with the TELAS standards
The Institutional TELAS program will be piloted initially in partnership with UNE, to further develop and refine the program before rolling out more broadly. The pilot will run for approximately 18 months, aligning with UNE’s Project Uplift initiative. ASCILITE and UNE will be sharing the progress of the pilot with the community at the ASCILITE 2023 Conference, and through our other channels – keep an eye out for updates on this exciting new initiative.