The Assurance of Academic Excellence among Non-traditional Universities

Whilst searching through EBSCO Online for articles pertaining to my PhD topic, I came across the following article:

The Assurance of Academic Excellence among Non-traditional Universities
Douglas Capogrossi
Higher Education in Europe, Vol. XXVII, No.4, 2002.

A very interesting article, pulished in a UNESCO publication at a time when I think (correct me if I am wrong) Capogrossi was still Vice Chancellor of Greenwich University.

The title grabbed me as I believe this is underpinning issue which continually fuels the tension between RA proponents and Non-trad/ Unaccredited supporters.

The ten page article makes for some interesting reading, but doesn't really solve any major problems (and Capogrossi freely admits it never aimed to). He does, however, quote a very fitting paragraph from Stewart & Spille's classic text 'Diploma Mills, Degrees of Fraud'(1988:22):

The key question facing the nation now is this: How can the integrity of academic degrees in America be maintained without discouraging innovation aimed at meeting the needs of new groups of clients? How, too, can the brakes be put on diploma mills without developing rigid prescriptive mechanisms either inside the academic establishment or within government agencies that have regulatory jurisdiction of certain aspects of post-secondary education?

This, I strongly believe, is the fundamental question which still remains unanswered. This is where core research really should be done. Then, and only then, will the wars between Degreeinfo proponents and other newsgroups members be laid to rest.

Cheers,

George