DISTANCE LEARNING

Miami Regional University offers a variety of distance learning opportunities designed to provide students with flexible, accessible and high quality education. The university’s online courses and programs are delivered through a secure learning management system and are developed to meet the same academic standards and outcomes as traditional on-campus offers. Distance learning supports students who balance education with work, family or geographic constraints, allowing them to progress towards their academic and professional goals with greater convenience. Faculty provide structured instructions, regular feedback, and virtual engagement to ensure meaningful interaction and success.

Academic Equivalency

The academic content, requirements, activities, and performance expectations for Miami Regional University online courses is comparable to that of courses delivered onsite. Faculty assigned to teach distance education courses must have qualifications comparable to instructors teaching similar courses onsite.

Equivalent Student Support and Activities

All Miami Regional University online students receiving instruction through distance learning shall receive equivalent access to the student support services offered onsite. These include, but are not limited to, admissions, academic advisement, student support, library services, financial aid, student accounts, career services, and other programs, resources, and services offered to onsite students.

Application of University Policies

All university policies and procedures, including but not limited to those published in the University Catalog, Faculty Handbook, Student Handbook, website, syllabi, and other relevant policies apply to distance education students, courses, programs, faculty, staff, and activities to the same extent they apply onsite.

Student Identification

The same documentation required for identification of students enrolling in onsite programs must be provided by students enrolling in online programs. For online courses, students submit required documents via a secure shared file. The university maintains these documents in a secure environment for verification as needed.

Student Identification and Online Examinations

The institution uses Respondus lockdown browser with monitoring for online exams. The student identification procedure is as follows: The instructor administering an exam can see each student on camera to verify identity and then monitor testing. Prior to taking the exam, students are required to perform a webcam check with the Respondus services to ensure their camera is working and to show their photo ID to the camera. This is the second form of ID verification. Students are directed to "Hold your identification to the camera and select "Take Picture"(Only use the type of identification indicated by your instructor)."

The lockdown browser is available to students through the University’s LMS. The entire session is video recorded and includes footage of the student taking the exam in its entirety. The instructor and/or assigned proctor can view/analyze the video later to ensure there was not any suspicious behavior exhibited.

For live online courses (no exam), the professor verifies student ID via webcam imaging supported by the collaboration tool. The session may also be recorded.

Students enrolled in programs not using the Respondus Lock Down browser must undertake several steps when submitting scholarly work to ensure that the same student who participates in and completes the program receives the credits. Students submitting written assignments must follow the required two-step process specified by their program or course. Written assignments are also submitted through the plagiarism detector software Turnitin.

Student Privacy

To maintain privacy, the student portal allows students to reset or change their passwords as needed. The University provides comprehensive information technology (IT) support to distance education students. Students engaged in distance learning at Miami Regional University are afforded the same privacy rights and protections applied to all student records.

Only students who are actively enrolled at Miami Regional University are provided access to distance learning courses. The learning management system and online collaboration services can only be accessed with a valid student account. The university assigns all students a student ID. All students receive individual secure login credentials.

Students bear responsibility for maintaining the security of their student IDs and username and password information. Students who suspect that their secure information may have been compromised are responsible for notifying the university. Students are also responsible for notifying the university should they observe another student’s secure information being compromised. Students must report issues related to compromised secure information via email to helpdesk@mru.edu.

When using online collaboration services, students should be aware that those applications can access and utilize a computer’s or device’s audio and/or video systems for class participation. These services also may allow audio and other information sent during the session to be recorded, which may be discoverable in a legal matter. Students should be mindful during these sessions not to share personal information or images, or have sensitive electronic content visible or accessible to others.

Sometimes students will find or be provided links to other websites that may be useful to them. The university cannot make any representation or guarantee regarding, and is not responsible for, third party sites, their content, or their security. Additionally, tools and content used in conjunction with Moodle Open LMS may install cookies on a student’s computer. This third-party content may result in cookies from the issuer of the content. Please note these third-party sites have privacy policies that are separate from Miami Regional University. The university is not responsible for the content and acts of such linked sites. Miami Regional University suggests that students review the privacy and security policies of the company websites for each link.