The requirements for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) course approval for "non-traditional" courses have changed effective August 1, 2010. These new NCAA regulations affect all schools that provide online and print (correspondence courses). These changes are only for Division I schools at this time, but Division II and III are expected to adopt these rules soon.

Keystone is recommending that all students seeking NCAA approval meet the new requirements, no matter into which Division their targeted school falls.

Some key points of the new NCAA regulations:

• Approved courses must include regular, ongoing teacher interaction for the purposes of evaluation, feedback and instruction.
• Student work must be available for review by NCAA.
• Students must be able to document that they spent sufficient time (hours working on the content), over a sufficient period (number of weeks) to master the course content. NCAA has stated that a full credit course, completed in less than eight weeks, will not be accepted.
• Students must complete all course content. Students are not allowed to “test out” of sections of the course. A course taken as "credit recovery" for a previously failed class must include substantially the same amount of work and content as the original failed course.

The Keystone program:

• Currently Keystone core courses are approved by NCAA for Initial Eligibility through July 31, 2010.
• Keystone online full and half credit core courses will continue to be approved by NCAA (no change).
• Starting August 1, 2010 Keystone print (correspondence) courses will NOT be on the list of approved core courses.
  • Students currently enrolled in print courses need to have them turned in by July 21 to assure the work is graded and final grades posted by July 31.
  • Students finishing print courses after August 1, 2010 will need to work with NCAA to request individual approval on a course-by-course basis. There is no guarantee that NCAA will approve these requests.

These changes will affect how ALL students who are applying for NCAA approval document the work they have completed with Keystone. We recommend that students taking our online courses adhere to the following guidelines:

• NCAA may ask for evidence that the student interacted with the teacher throughout the course.
  • Students should keep a log of, or copies of, interactions with teachers (email threads, log of phone calls, message center threads, discussion board threads...)
• Students need to show that they spent a reasonable amount of time, over a reasonable period of time on their courses. As a guide, for a full credit course, students need to demonstrate that they took a minimum of eight weeks to finish a course and need to have evidence that they turned in assignments throughout the time they were enrolled, not all at once at the end of the course.
  • Students should keep copies of the grade book with course evaluation dates showing the course work was spread over time.
  • Students taking courses with weighted and un-weighted assignments should keep copies of all "quiz yourself" assignments.
  • Students should print copies of all work submitted as well as drafts of writing that were prepared prior to final submission.

For a list of currently approved core courses go to the NCAA Eligibility Center website and enter Keystone's CEEB/ACT code 390363; https://web1.ncaa.org/hsportal/exec/hsAction?hsActionSubmit=searchHighSchool

We are happy to help. Questions regarding Keystone’s recommendations regarding NCAA course eligibility should be directed to student services at 1-800-255-4937.