A survey of state policies for online teacher certification courses and programs

For more than a decade, public, private, and proprietary institutions have been developing online degree and teacher certification programs. More recently, online teacher certification (OTC) courses and programs have begun to emerge. This study investigated the extent to which state departments of education are developing new policies in response to the increase in OTC offerings. State directors of teacher certification were asked to complete a survey about OTC. While the majority of 33 respondents expressed more awareness about OTC offerings in public and private institutions than in proprietary institutions; overall, respondents reported a lack of information about OTC offerings in their states. Almost half of the respondents expressed "great" or "considerable" concern about the quality of OTC courses and programs. Three recommendations for further research are suggested.