Distance Education
I have written in several other places about the viablity of distance education in Taiwan. However, I continue to get questions concerning this, so I will try to summerize the situation.
Currently, the MOE does not recognize degrees granted via distance education. A master's degree must have involved at least six months of residency to be recognized by the MOE of the ROC. This means that holders of distance master's degrees can not apply for the license the MOE issues to teachers at accredited colleges and universities. It is not a matter of what the school feels they need; this is a regulation of the national government.
Schools that have distance education do not place distinguishing marks on their diplomas, so there is no way of looking at the diploma to tell how its holder earned it. That is probably not relevant. The procedure you must follow to get a post-secondary teacher's license is quite complete. You can find the complete procedure, as well as other useful information on the Web Site of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Australia at http://www.cultural.teco.org.au/regulation/regu_en.htm
I have summurized my experience with diploma verification below.
1. The MOE confirms that the issuing school is an accredited school by consulting a list of schools that they recognize. If the name of the school is not on the list, a work permit can not be issued.
2. You have to send copies of your diploma and passport, as well as your student number, degree granted, and date of graduation to the Taiwan trade commisssion nearest your graduating school. In my case, I had to send this to the office in Ottawa, Canada.
3. They then contact the registrar of your university and confirm that the person who holds that passport really received the diploma that accompanied the application. I do not know what questions they ask the school. It would not surprise me if they asked how long the recipient was in residence at the school. I can also imagine that if the school does not answer such questions, they will be removed from the list of acceptable institutions.
Much of this is specualtion, however, I do not know anyone who has fraudulantly obtained a post-secondary teacher's license. My feeling is that the process is leak-proof.
Taiwan is now a member of the WTO and as such must confirm to international standards of education and certification. Distance graduate education is widely recognized in Korea and Japan; it is a certainty that the Taiwan MOE will one day recognize these degrees, but no one can guess when that will be. In the meantime, there are many quality jobs that distance education will qualify you for. Of the several teachers I know who are doing distance degrees, one is teaching at the China External Trade Association (CETRA) and another is working for a publishing company as a proofreader. A close friend who is doing a distance MA TESOL is woking at an IETLS prep school where he is extremely happy.
While post-secondary teaching is currently limited with distance degrees, there is plenty of decent work that recognizes its value. In addition, the situation is bound to get better in the future.
10:49:06 PM 
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