Operating across jurisdictions

Ross Woods, 2018

Different states and countries have different laws about higher education activities. Online education is seldom problemmatical, but local meetings have different legal statuses.

Scenarios

Institutions face many possible scenarios and combinations, some of which are nearly indistinguishable:

  1. The institution may establish a branch. In all known cases, a branch in a jurisdiction other than the institution’s home address must have some kind of registration with local authorities. Branches normally have the following characteristics:
    1. They are physical locations with a street address.
    2. They operate under the name of the institution.
    3. Instructors regularly give face-to-face teaching. (Students are often full-time.)
    4. The institution’s accreditors may audit them on site.
  2. The institution may not hold groups of any kind, but can provide on-line teaching and support, and give individual local mentoring.
  3. The institution may not have online students nor hold groups of any kind. (The jurisdiction is closed.)
  4. Temporary groups meet occasionally and not usually at a fixed location. Students are never fulltime. Consider these variations:
    1. The institution may freely hold temporary groups. No permit is required as long as it does not set up a branch.
    2. The institution may hold temporary groups as long as they are open to the general public. It is not a branch because groups are open to non-students. (This is especially useful for conferences.)
    3. The institution may set up a temporary group. No permit is required but it must inform the relevant local authority.
    4. If the institution sets up a temporary group, it must obtain a permit as a branch, even if it is not a branch.

Other factors

Consider these other factors:

  1. Practicum is permissible. There are no known cases where it is not.
  2. Some governments have required registration of all research projects.
  3. In some church-based colleges, teaching is an internal activity of the church and needs little or no separate registration.
  4. Individual local mentoring is almost always permitted. In some jurisdictions, group mentoring is treated as group instruction and requires a permit.
  5. Place of online service is also an issue. In most jurisdictions, online services are deemed to take place at the point of provision, i.e. at the institution’s location. In a few others, online services are deemed to be given at the point of reception, i.e. at the student’s location.