Dive Brief:
- Educational technology company D2L will now serve the demand for competency-based programs with a new addition to its Brightspace learning management system.
- Campus Technology reports the new offering provides support for institutions interested in developing CBE programs and expands access to a wider community of peers working on the same problems.
- The University of Wisconsin system was D2L’s first client for the new offering, which helps institutions adapt traditional courses to a competency-based model and build a strategic plan on which to structure their work.
Dive Insight:
More than 600 institutions in the United States have competency-based options or are developing them. CBE gives nontraditional students a faster pathway to their degrees by letting them take courses at their own pace. If they have prior knowledge on a topic, they can skip over certain lessons.
A recent audit report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Inspector General has prompted some schools to put the brakes on their efforts as disapproval of the Higher Learning Commission’s accreditation of CBE programs indicates there is not yet support from regulators for the new course design.