Peterson's less than wonderful ads

I used to find Peterson's Lifelong Learning useful for finding courses by subject, despite some drawbacks (no links to school websites in most cases) and concerns about schools' having to pay for extra info (see John Bear's note at http://www.degree.net/news.htm#Peterson's )

My concerns were raised when I began to notice "Atlantic International University" among the school listings.

Now, this morning I see an ad for Canyon College, with a link to pages on Peterson's site -- http://www.petersons.com/canyon/

Sigh.

The course database is still a very useful tool -- it's based on Excelsior College's DistanceLearn database. If I were at Excelsior, I'd be looking for a different business partner to make this course guide available to the public.


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Kristin Evenson Hirst
DistanceLearn.About.com

 

How lovely. Can a full-page advertisement for "prestigious unaccredited degrees" be far behind?

Then again, I suppose when you're getting stomped like Peterson's is getting -- when John's book was ranked #764 on Amazon.com last week, the 2001 Peterson's Guide was hovering somewhere around #7,500 -- well, desperate times obviously call for desperate measures. But I didn't think they'd get that desperate.


Peace,

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Tom Head
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

I doubt that Petersons are desperate, nor that Excelsior need seek a new partner.

These occasional lapses are probably the result of poor editorial supervision of clerical employees assigned to keeping the list updated. Perhaps somebody should contact Peterson's and bring it to their attention.

It is damnable heresy to say it on this group I know, but I really like Peterson's guides. I haven't studied their distance education book, but I think that their guides to (mostly on-campus) graduate study are the best available in the United States.

 

Tom Head refers to Peterson's possible desperation because my book is outselling theirs. Let's look at some numbers.

Peterson's revenues from selling "editorial content" in their book: I estimate this at about $2,000,000 based on 600+ schools at $3,000 each.

Bears' Guide revenues from selling space: $0.

So if Peterson's sells 5,000 books at $30 while Bears' sells 10,000 books at $30, Peterson's total revenues are $2,150,000 while Bears' total revenues are $300,000.

Kind of depressing, it is.

John Bear

 

Hmmm. Why am I not surprised by this?

As Thomson Learning is in the process of acquiring Harcourt's "educational" divisions, this is just a preview of the coming years of less-than-wonderful ads we'll see from Thomson/Peterson's/Harcourt...

 

H. Piper wrote, As Thomson Learning is in the process of acquiring Harcourt's "educational" divisions, this is just a preview of the coming years of less-than-wonderful ads we'll see from Thomson/Peterson's/Harcourt...

Indeed. And let us not forget that one of Pearson's first acts on buying the copyrights to my books was to start selling advertising in Bears' Guide. Thankfully, when Ten Speed acquired those rights from Pearson last year, they immediately stopped the practice--at least for now. (I have no control over this matter, but can only whine and cajole.)

Is it just coincidence that Thomson, Peterson's, Murdoch, and Pearson are all British companies? Do American publishers do this sort of thing?

John Bear

 

After 225 years, another form of British taxation of the colonies? First it was tea, now distance learning!

Russell

 

Here are the embedded keywords in Peterson's Canyon College ad at http://www.petersons.com/canyon/ -

meta name="keywords" content="online college degrees, college degree online, online college degree, online, colleges, MBA, degrees, MS, MA, BBA, BSW, on-line, bachelors, bba, graduate, MS, MA, MEd, health administration, colleges, courses, bachelor, masters, business administration, schools, business, mba, psychology, health care administration, counseling, social work, bsw, msw, theology, divinity, campus free, programs, program, legal nurse consultant, travel agent training, holistic nursing and wellness counseling, holistic nursing, nursing, school, nurse certification, nurse, distance learning, distance, external, course, health care, social sciences, home study, correspondence, courses, off campus, virtual, campus, distance education, study, grad, studies, Canyon"

Here are the embedded keywords (copied verbatim, all mistakes are theirs) in Peterson's Harcourt ad at http://www.petersons.com/harcourt/degree.html -

meta name="Keywords" content="Harcourt, Harcourt Higher Education, HHE, bachelor of science, associate in science, certificate programs, business, it, information technology, health sciences, e-commerce, marketing, marketing research and analysis, project management, network systems integration, internet practitioner, helath services administration, health services accounting and finance, health services marketing, Peterson's, petersons.com"

Personally, I find the inclusion of Peterson's name in the Harcourt ad's keywords interesting. (Not to mention "internet practitioner"!?!)

 

And on an unrelated note, here are the embedded keywords in CCHS's homepage at http://www.cchs.edu/ -

meta name="keywords"
content="California College for Health Sciences CCHS distance learning respiratory therapy wellness promotion sleep studies polysomnography eeg electroencephalography Medical Transcription Childcare Early Childhood Education College and Universities Sex training courses AARC Allied Health Management colleges on the Web BS MS AS nursing Continuing education Online Education Computer Based Training Internet Based Training CBT IBT Web based training WBT"

I bet they have a monopoly on those "Early Childhood Education College and Universities Sex training courses".

 

At least the Peterson's site works.

Having just received a revised password for the About DL forums I still can't log on.

Is this what is called a "Less Than Wonderful" site ?

N.

 

Neil,

If you have a problem getting into the About DL forum, please e-mail me directly at [email protected] -- or e-mail [email protected]




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Kristin Evenson Hirst
DistanceLearn.About.com

 

Indeed. That's how Kristin discovered they are providing prime cyber real estate for SCAM DEGREE MILL operations like Canyon College to lure potential victims.

 

As a newbie to the discussion board (been reading for days, registered yesterday), I find myself looking up colleges here that I find on Peterson's. As stated before, Peterson's is a great guide, but when it comes to distant education and names unfamiliar to me, I'm I have this board to fall back on. I saw Canyon College's ad, and knew I read negative feedback from here somewhere!

dunklint...
still researching to find that perfect BA in business that a Pell Grant will help pay for

 

As a newbie to the discussion board (been reading for days, registered yesterday), I find myself looking up colleges here that I find on Peterson's. As stated before, Peterson's is a great guide, but when it comes to distant education and names unfamiliar to me, I'm I have this board to fall back on. I saw Canyon College's ad, and knew I read negative feedback from here somewhere!

dunklint...
still researching to find that perfect BA in business that a Pell Grant will help pay for