Accreditation and Afflilations

Accreditation can be termed as a validation of online and traditional education institutes against pre determined standards set by the Education Board. Accreditation gives an idea of the educational standard of the institutions. Affiliation on the other hand is the process in which some big University allows a smaller institution or college to teach courses complying to the standards of he University. The exam papers are checked and marked by the University and the degree is issued by the University to the student upon completion of the course. This is how colleges offer degrees of graduate and post graduate level.

The terms Accreditation and Affiliation are often unknown to students. Some students, unaware of their importance, don’t take much notice and some times suffer a lot through fraudulent institutions. Frauds over the internet are inevitable. Committing a fraud is quiet easier as the person is not present in real. Students should thus confirm every detail before enrolling for a course and paying the fees. Checking the accreditation and affiliation at the time of registering is very crucial to the student. Because some institutions take fees, give classes and tests as any other normal institution would do, and issue a degree at the end to the student. The student thinks he has finally achieved a degree that'll boost his career only to find out that the degree is bogus and has no value more than a piece of scrap. Such incidents ruin the entire work career of the student. He tends never to trust online institutions again.

Being a little careful and observant may avoid such situations. The most important factor to check before enrolling at any institution online or local is to check its accreditation or affiliation. In case of online institutions student visit the website of the institution. First browse around to find the link that provides information about the accreditation of the institution. Accreditation details should be very clear. Anything that is complicated of difficult for you to understand may be misleading. The best thing to do is to note down the name of the accreditation agency, look out the number in the telephone directory, call them up and confirm if they had accredited the institution or not. You may even email the agency to get the details. This step is extremely important, even if you are sure about the accreditation. There is no harm in re-confirming as it may save you from some bad situations in the future.

An online database of institutions and there accreditations can be found at CHEA's Institutional Database website at http://www.chea.org. This is an easy way to check an institution's accreditation online by entering its name or state. If the required institution is out of the United States, the website's international database of institutions may help you in getting the required information.
An institution that is fair in its dealing would just simply and clearly mention the name of the accreditation agency along with the date and address. Some institution providing wrong information often use the terms that sound like accreditation but mean different. Some examples could be "pursuing accreditation", "chartered", "licensed or registered", "recognized", "authorized" or "approved."
Not being accredited does not always mean a fraud institution. Some institution fairly imparting education may not be accredited maybe because they are innovative than the current standards. New standards may have to be set for institutions like them. In such cases it is advisable to search for students who are either currently studying or have studies in the past to get an idea. Therefore when you decide about your online education it is more important to keep the nature of your degree in mind than to check on the accreditation. An Online MBA or Graphic Design degree should preferably be taken from an accredited Institution, whereas a simple word processing certificate wont matter even if acquired from a non accredited institution.