Ireland - O'Sullivan seeks an immediate investigation into online degrees

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by George Brown, Dec 10, 2005.

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  1. George Brown

    George Brown Active Member

    http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=6953&category=Daily-Fri

    However, Labour Education spokesperson, DeputyJan O’Sullivan is seeking an immediate investigation into the legitimacy or otherwise of all third level qualifications awarded by online institutions.

    Referring specifically to the recent stepping down of the Government’s chief science adviser, Barry McSweeney, the deputy said that following on the further revelations that two UCD lecturers had received a doctorate and PHD respectively from a controversial US degree mill, the Government cannot sit complacently on the sidelines.

    "Day by day further revelations are emerging of academics and public appointees holding qualifications from PWU (Pacific Western University) in California and the existence of other unrecognised online bodies has also been uncovered " she said.

    Good luck O'Sullivan - many have travelled your path before, with little results.

    Cheers,

    George
     
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Again we see degree mills being morphed into "online" schools and, thus, tarring that entire group.

    Degree mills are not "online schools." There is nothing "online" or "school" about a degree mill. The only "online" aspects of them are their websites (advertising) and their payment (collections). The same could be said of a website set up to collect fake donations for a hurricaine or tsunami disaster.

    It used to be that traditional academia could ignore this stuff because it affected only online schools, which traditional academia usually shunted into the higher education ghetto anyway. But now most traditional schools are involved with online programs, and the regional accreditors have accepted fully online schools in a big time way. Why won't they (a) campaign against diploma mills and (b) fight against equating "diploma (or degree) mill" with "online"? They risk the public's lumping of both legitimate and illegitimate operations into one "online" bucket. Unfortunately, we know this to be true in too many cases already.
     
  3. Guest

    Guest Guest

    PWU

    Where is the BPPVE on all of this?
     

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