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If your school's students take online AP courses through an online or distance learning course provider, such as a virtual school, those courses may only be listed as AP courses on students' transcripts if those providers have qualified through the AP Course Audit to label their courses "AP."
To list online AP courses as part of your school's official AP offerings, your school will be able to indicate through the AP Course Audit Web site which authorized online or distance learning courses you are offering to your students. These courses will then be included in your school's profile in the ledger of authorized AP courses made available in November 2008.
Like AP courses offered at brick-and-mortar schools, online or distance learning AP courses will be reviewed through the AP Course Audit process. Instructions for online providers submitting materials appear below. Online or distance learning AP course providers who have not already participated in the AP Course Audit should complete the contact form at the link below.
 Submit Online/Distance Learning Provider Contact Information
Instructions for Selecting an Online or Distance Learning Provider
Instructions for Online or Distance Learning Providers Offering AP Courses
Virtual School Partnerships and Content Providers
AP Science Courses and Alternate Approaches to the Hands-on Lab Requirement
Instructions for Selecting an Online or Distance Learning Provider
Through the AP Course Audit Web site, principals and AP Coordinators will be able to indicate which authorized online/distance learning courses your school is offering to its students. To do so, principals or AP Coordinators should sign in to the AP Course Audit web site, navigate to the "Add Online or Distance Learning Course" page, and select the authorized courses your school offers. These online AP courses will then be included with your school's other authorized courses in the ledger sent to colleges and universities.
If your chosen online AP course provider does not appear on this list, it could mean that the provider has not yet submitted their course materials, or they are still under review. Contact your online provider for more information. You can also submit your provider's contact information to the AP Program through the link below. The AP Program will then mail the provider's instructional leader detailed information about how to submit AP Course Audit materials for review.
Submit Online/Distance Learning Provider Contact Information
IMPORTANT: AP Biology, Chemistry, and Physics courses can only be labeled "AP" if they include a laboratory component. If your online or distance learning course does not have an approved virtual or hands-on lab component, those courses will not appear in this list. All hands-on labs require the presence of a science educator to supervise the students during their laboratory work. For more information on lab requirements, visit the link below.
AP Science Courses and Alternate Approaches to the Hands-on Lab Requirement
Instructions for Online or Distance Learning Providers Offering AP Courses
The College Board recognizes the important service that online and distance learning providers provide to students and schools, and the AP Course Audit represents an opportunity to promote much greater awareness of these organizations' AP courses. All online or distance learning providers that wish to label their courses AP, and appear as authorized AP course providers, must participate in the AP Course Audit.
Online and distance learning providers which are known to the College Board have received instructions for submitting course materials. Included in those instructions are temporary usernames and passwords you must use to activate your AP Course Audit Web site user account. Once your account is activated, you will see instructions for uploading and submitting syllabi. You may only submit one syllabus per AP course. If your organization has not received instructions, please submit your contact information at the link below.
Submit Online/Distance Learning Provider Contact Information
For AP Biology, Chemistry, and Physics courses, the online course provider submitting audit materials should clearly identify the delivery mode for each lab as hands-on, virtual*, or a combination of the two. For those courses offering virtual laboratory components, the review panel will need access to those labs. Please indicate clearly on your syllabi how the review panel members can access your online labs (e.g., URLs, passwords, etc.). Please note that not providing proper access to your virtual labs will delay the review of your courses.
*For the purpose of the AP Course Audit, the College Board considers a virtual lab to be an interactive experience during which students observe and manipulate computer-generated objects, data, or phenomena in order to fulfill the learning objectives of a laboratory experience. These objectives are derived from the lab learning goals identified in the National Research Council's America's Lab Report (2006, National Academy of Sciences). Neither virtual nor teacher-led demonstrations should be considered lab experiences in and of themselves, though these elements may enhance the course's primary laboratory component.
AP Science Courses and Alternate Approaches to the Hands-on Lab Requirement
Virtual School Partnerships and Content Providers
The College Board is aware of some virtual schools that license their content from other virtual schools. The decision as to whether or not the "licensee" of that content should participate in the AP Course Audit is entirely up to that virtual school. Your decision should depend on whether or not you wish your virtual school's name to appear in the list of authorized course providers. Keep in mind that brick-and-mortar schools that wish to associate your courses with their school's profile will be looking for your name in the list of authorized providers, and not, perhaps the name of the virtual school from which you license content.
Online content providers, such as makers of virtual labs or curricular packages, cannot participate in the AP Course Audit. Such lab or curricular materials may subsequently be reviewed as part of an online or distance learning provider's course, but stand-alone materials cannot be submitted to be evaluated as independent products. The AP Course Audit process is designed to review AP courses in their entirety, so only schools (whether brick-and-mortar or virtual) can submit course syllabi for review.
AP Science Courses and Alternate Approaches to the Hands-on Lab Requirement
Each of the AP Biology, Chemistry, and Physics courses includes a requirement for a lab component. As with each curricular requirement in every AP course, this requirement was established through careful deliberation of the respective courses' Development Committees and was confirmed through a national review of each course's requirements. The College Board unequivocally supports this requirement, just as it unequivocally supports the concept of flexibility in AP course delivery.
Some schools elect to develop their AP Biology, Chemistry, and/or Physics courses with lab experiences that are virtual or through a combination of virtual and hands-on investigations. Such schools may request authorization to label these courses AP if this approach to the lab requirement nonetheless provides a college-level lab experience for their students. These lab experiences will be evaluated by an independent panel of college faculty, who will evaluate these labs against a standard set of criteria derived from the lab learning goals identified in the National Research Council's America's Lab Report. These criteria are:
- enhancing a mastery of subject matter necessary to succeed in a subsequent course;
- developing the scientific reasoning necessary to succeed in a subsequent course
- understanding the complexity and ambiguity of empirical work to a degree sufficient to succeed in a subsequent course
- developing practical skills necessary to succeed in a subsequent course
- understanding the nature of science to a degree necessary to succeed in a subsequent course
- cultivating interest in science and interest in learning science necessary to succeed in a subsequent course; and
- developing teamwork abilities necessary to succeed in a subsequent course
Using these criteria as their guide, reviewers will conduct a standardized evaluation to determine whether these approaches to the lab requirement prepare students for successful enrollment in sophomore-level college science courses.
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