Telecourses differ in fundamental ways from regular college courses; i.e., faculty are not the only ones involved in telecourse design and production; colleges are not the sole funding agencies for their production; and telecourses are designed to be marketed, rather than to be offered by a single institution. These differences mean that traditional practices for setting and maintaining academic standards may not apply to telecourses. At the Coast Community College District (CCCD), standards for telecourse production are established through: (1) market research to outline curricular dimensions and current teaching practices on campus and nationwide; (2) definitions of course requirements, content parameters, and level; (3) prepared course descriptions; (4) a course team, including academic advisers and an instructional designer, to achieve quality productions; and (5) quality control procedures. Despite these thorough procedures for maintaining standards, telecourses have been under attack in California. Concern has been expressed at various levels; i.e., by CCCD faculty, by the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges, by the colleges during accreditation self-studies, and by the Board of Admissions of the University of California. A flaw in the criticisms of telecourses arising in the CCCD is the tendency to compare telecourses with regular courses in terms of the amount of time students spend in the classroom or viewing telecourses, rather than in terms of what students have learned. (HB)