The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not the principles of assessment in online education are reflected in the assessment activities used by the developers and administrators of actual online distance courses. Three online distance education programs provided at a large mid-west university were analyzed; the School of Continuing Studies--undergraduate distance program, the School of Business--distance MBA program, and the School of Education--distance graduate program. The results of the study showed that the assessment activities of online distance courses do not strictly follow the principles suggested in the literature.