Clarion Academic Consulting

Introduction

DEAC’s accreditation standards describe what an institution must be able to demonstrate in order to earn and maintain accreditation. In 2024, DEAC announced revised standards that took effect January 1, 2025, reorganizing the framework from twelve standards to fifteen to improve clarity and reflect evolving expectations in distance education.

For institutional leaders, the main implication is straightforward: planning, documentation, and evidence must now align with the revised standards framework, not with earlier versions of the handbook or inherited internal crosswalks. Institutions that continue to rely on earlier outlines risk building self-evaluation and evidence collections that do not map cleanly to the current review structure.

• DEAC Accreditation Process

Why the standards changed

DEAC’s 2024 notice explains that the Commission revised the accreditation standards after review, comment, and consideration of developments in distance education, institutional effectiveness, and regulatory expectations. The resulting fifteen-standard structure is intended to clarify requirements and align them more closely with current practice in areas such as planning, academic achievement, student services, and fair practices.

The change from twelve to fifteen standards does not represent a complete break with DEAC’s prior expectations. Many underlying requirements are continuations or refinements of longstanding expectations around mission, governance, academic quality, and consumer protection. The practical change for institutions is the way those expectations are grouped, labeled, and referenced in reviews and Commission actions.

The 15-standard structure: core themes

While institutions must always rely on the official standards text, the revised framework can be understood in several core themes that run across the fifteen standards:

• Mission and institutional effectiveness: clarity of mission, planning, data-informed improvement
• Governance and administration: board oversight, leadership roles, and decision-making
• Academic quality and student achievement: program rigor, outcomes, and continuous review
• Curriculum and learning resources: design, currency, and support for distance learners
• Faculty and academic leadership: qualifications, oversight, and development
• Student services and support: advising, technical support, accessibility, and responsiveness
• Policies, recruitment, and fair practices: honest communication, admissions, refunds, and complaint procedures

For each standard, DEAC expects institutions to demonstrate both the presence of appropriate policies and evidence that those policies are implemented consistently and reviewed regularly.

What “must be able to prove” looks like

Institutions sometimes treat standards as statements they can affirm in narrative. DEAC’s handbook and application materials instead frame standards as expectations that must be demonstrated with evidence. For each standard and its related components, institutions should expect to show:

• Written policies and procedures aligned with DEAC language
• Evidence of implementation, such as minutes, reports, schedules, and training records
• Outcomes data, where applicable, such as student achievement, completion, and satisfaction
• Cycles of review, including analysis, actions taken, and follow-up results

In other words, your institution must be able to trace each standard from policy to practice to documented results. A single policy document without operational evidence or review history will rarely be sufficient on its own.

Mission, planning, and effectiveness

Under the revised standards, DEAC emphasizes the relationship between mission, planning, and institutional effectiveness. Your institution is expected to have a clear mission appropriate to distance education and to use planning processes that are informed by data and lead to measurable improvements in programs and services.

Evidence in this area typically includes strategic plans, annual planning documents, key performance indicators, assessment reports, and records showing how data from student outcomes, surveys, or evaluations informs decisions. The documentation should demonstrate that planning is ongoing and linked to resource allocation, program changes, and quality initiatives.

Governance and administration

DEAC’s framework requires documented governance structures, including a governing board with appropriate oversight responsibilities and administrative leadership capable of ensuring that the institution meets its obligations to students and regulators.

Your institution should expect to provide organizing documents, board bylaws, board minutes, descriptions of leadership roles, conflict-of-interest policies, and evidence that governance bodies receive regular information about academic performance, finances, and compliance. For distance education institutions, DEAC also expects that governance and leadership are actively engaged with the specific demands of online learning.

Academic quality and student achievement

The standards continue to require institutions to define, monitor, and improve academic quality and student achievement. This includes clear program objectives, appropriate academic rigor, and defined measures of student learning and program outcomes.

Institutions typically need to show program descriptions, course outlines, assessment plans, sample assignments and evaluations, and data on completion, retention, licensure, or employment outcomes, as applicable. They also need evidence that faculty and academic leadership review these results regularly and use them to guide program improvements.

Curriculum, delivery, and learning resources

DEAC’s standards require that curriculum is appropriate in content and level, that instructional materials and technologies support learning, and that students have access to adequate learning resources.

You should expect to document curriculum development processes, review cycles, faculty involvement, technology infrastructure, library or learning resource arrangements, and support for accessibility needs. For distance education, evidence that course design supports regular and substantive interaction and that delivery methods are reliable and secure is especially important.

Faculty, academic leadership, and staffing

The standards continue to expect that faculty are appropriately qualified for the subjects they teach and that there is sufficient academic leadership to oversee programs. Your institution will need to document faculty credentials, hiring criteria, evaluation processes, training in distance pedagogy, and policies on workload and supervision.

Academic leaders should have documented responsibility for curriculum, assessment, and faculty oversight. Evidence often includes organizational charts, position descriptions, meeting records, and examples of how leadership decisions have shaped program quality.

Student services, recruitment, and fair practices

DEAC’s standards address how institutions recruit students, set expectations, support them, and treat them fairly. Your institution must communicate honestly about accreditation status, costs, outcomes, and program requirements, and you must have policies for refunds, complaints, and resolution of issues.

Evidence may include marketing materials, website content, enrollment agreements, catalogs, refund policies, complaint logs, and records of responses. For student services, institutions should demonstrate advising processes, orientation materials, technical support, and other supports tailored to distance learners.

Building an internal standards crosswalk

A practical first task for your institution is to create a standards crosswalk that reflects the revised framework. This internal document should list each standard and related components, identify responsible owners, cite existing policies and evidence, and note gaps.

This crosswalk becomes the backbone of the self-evaluation and evidence mapping process. It also helps leadership see which standards are already well-supported and which require policy development, system changes, or additional documentation. 

• Accreditation and Compliance

How Clarion Academic can help

Clarion Academic can support institutions by translating the revised standards into institution-specific requirements, developing or updating internal crosswalks, and mapping existing documentation to the new framework. This work will help your institution align its internal materials with DEAC’s current standards before you begin formal self-evaluation or submission.

If your institution needs to update or create a DEAC standards crosswalk aligned to the 2025 framework, Clarion Academic can help you build a clear, evidence-focused map of responsibilities and documentation.

Need help aligning your institution to the current DEAC standards?

Clarion Academic supports institutions with standards crosswalk development, evidence mapping, and accreditation compliance planning aligned to DEAC’s revised standards effective January 1, 2025.

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