Oregon's ODA list - Disclaimer

As a matt of good practice and transparency, please inform your visitors that Oregon's ODA list is recognized as flawed by the State of Oregon. In fact, if you visit the ODA web cite you will read the following disclaimer (in bright RED print no less).


PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT WE HAVE BECOME AWARE OF SOME QUESTIONS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF THIS DATABASE.

UNTIL THESE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN RESOLVED, PLEASE DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON THIS RESOURCE TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT AN INSTITUTION IS PROPERLY ACCREDITED.

http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/accreditation.html

 

That's the ODA's own website that you linked to. The warning in red letters isn't talking about the ODA list. It's referring to the link that's immediately above the warning, entitled "Complete list of accredited U. S. colleges". That's the US federal government's effort to provide an online list of accredited colleges and universities, here:

http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.aspx

The federal 'accredited' list was found to include the names of several very doubtful unaccredited things. I believe that it was Degreeinfo that first discovered that unfortunate fact. Perhaps the federal list has subsequently been cleaned up and has become more reliable.

 

This misrepresentation of what the ODA is referring to is frequently pointed to by academic frauds trying to discredit the ODA unaccredited list that is on a completely different page. The other favorite academic fraud con regarding the ODA is to say that the ODA used to list them as a diploma mill but they don't any longer because the ODA has looked into them further.

Note: I'm NOT referring to DA1 at all in the above paragraph. I suspect that most of them playing the above game are probably owners of degree mills.

 

BTW DA1, you asked the same question in the Carribean diploma mill thread and got the same answer. If Bill Dayson's excellent answer was unsatisfactory to you then please ask some follow up questions.

 

I was just kind of spot-checking the current incarnation of the federal list and I didn't encounter any obviously unaccredited schools.

There were a couple of schools with unusual varieties of recognized accreditation that either weren't listed at all or whose listings weren't up to date. (They hadn't noticed Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute's recent accreditation by the NY Regents, for example.)

But all in all, given the scope of the project and its subject's ever-changing nature, the list has improved nicely and I feel a lot more confident about using it.

 

My foggy recollection is that Warren National University was one of the unaccredited institutions on the list. I believe that I remember thinking that perhaps they got on the list because they had applied for accreditation. Anyway, I checked and they are no longer on the list. Of course, they are also not any longer trying to become accredited.

 

DA1 is now listed as a guest and number of "Posts: n/a"

Hmmm, I guess that means that he closed his account? He came here just to let us know (twice) to warn vistors to this site not to count on the ODA website. Then disappears without comment when the true nature of what the warning means was revealed. The ODA website is probably the best site on the web for information on substandard schools and diploma mills. I guess two most likely possibilities.

1. This guy is a diploma mill apologist trying to cast aspersions on a website that he despises.
2. He's a well meaning fellow but amazingly stubborn, <remove rest of sentence to avoid any hint of violating TOS>.

Actually I looked and I couldn't find anyway to close my own account. Perhaps an admin closed his account but I didn't see any posts by DA1 worthy of a ban? Did I miss something?

 

Well, ODA's list was deeply flawed years ago. Point.

Now, it is somewhat useful for identifying schools who claim to be accredited, but are not accredited by a recognized agency. Objection.

My feedback on the original post is "so what". Every database contains mistakes. If there is a school that has been improperly categorized by ODA, then simply state the objection and report it to ODA. Simple.

 

DA1 and BA1 appear to be the same individual. I think that multiple logins are against the tos, so one of the moderators probably trimmed him/her back to one.

 

In another tread I called him/her out about his real agenda! Because it seems little strange the questions asked by this individual, kind of suspect that we have a double dipper in here. But, have to give room to see what was the real intentions.

 

That makes sense, when DA1 showed up, I assumed that they had just forgotten their password for the BA1 account or something.