UNIPSA, private distance learning university

Has anyone in the forum heard about this university? Apparently, they are located in the city of Lugano, canton of Ticino, Switzerland.

Politecnico di Studi Aziendali, Universita Privata a Distanza (www.unipsa.ch)

If you know Italian, you will be able to get further details. If not, there is the possibility of downloading a Guide in English.

For their courses in English, they link to a German institution. They also claim accreditation with certain American entities.

Go through the Guide and I would appreciate comments from students.

Ralph

 

Yes, Ralph, I do. This is one of those cantonally-authorized Swiss "universities". It is not part of the Swiss University Council, however, which includes all universities which would be regarded as RA-equivalent. Technically, authorization of higher education in Switzerland is a function of the cantonal government, not the federal government. However, there is NO quality control involved. It's really a meaningless business license until proven--and I do mean proven--otherwise. Two of these universities are in the canton Appenzell-Ausserrhoden. A cantonal government spokesman assured me that they were degree mills operating out of somebody's apartments. The German and Italian governments have made it clear that degrees from these so-called free universities are illegal for use in those neighbouring countries. The one you cite is the only one operating out of Ticino, as far as I know. It looks more substantial, but I would proceed with very great caution. Do a search on Switzerland and the old material on these outfits should come up.

Best wishes to you from my sauna to yours.

 

Thanks Janko for the update. I was not aware that the Swiss government do not control the quality of the degrees and curriculums of those educational institutions.

I will be traveling to Milan in a couple of weeks and will do my best to reach Lugano on a weekday and have a look by myself.

Ralph ... how is the steam?

 

Sure thing.
The situation is a bit parallel to state licensing--and to the abuse of terminology by which dubious schools try to pass off state licensing as equivalent to accreditation or some other form of quality control. I came thi_s close to getting suckered by one of the other Swiss outfits in my early investigations of DL options. The high dollar gave me pause and a few more questions brought the sorry mess to light.
Actually, I've had the website on the outfit you mentioned on my favorites list against just such an inquiry as yours. When I get a chance I'll look through the site again and let you know if I see anything to alter my present opinion/hunch. The odds are agin it, though.
You might want to do some googling, too. If you talk to anybody, FERGODSAKE don't mention their accent! There's only so much fun I can stand all at once. Good luck!

 

unipsa

As a general manager of Politecnico di Studi Aziendali I specify the following information:
the our university is authorized from the Cantonal Government to confer private degrees and to use the term Università privata a distanza private distance university.
The judgement of the Federal Court of Losanna has decided that the status " accredited" is a voluntary choice of each university and it is not a legal duty to indicate in the name of the university the status " not accredited".
The our degree has been recognized for the admission into the post lauream course of the FORCOM italian universities consortium

 

My dear Massimo Silvestri:

Thank you for the invitation to ask you my questions directly.

Two prefatory matters:

1) In my earlier post on this thread, I said that your institution appeared to be more substantial than the "freie und private Universitaeten" based in Appenzell-Ausserrhoden. I advised caution, however, since your institution is not accredited.
The other two schools in AR have the following problems: a) denounced as "Titelmuehle" by cantonal officials in AR; b) degrees illegal for use in neighbouring Germany; c) degrees denounced as non-equipollent by Italian professional journalists' association; d) degrees not acceptable as prior qualifications for graduate work by the universities comprising the Conferenza Universitaria Svizzera; e) schools unknown to education liaison in Swiss Embassy to the US; f) doctoral work not supervised by professors with qualification in the field of the doctoral student's study; g) very very few graduates findable via a Google search--only one in the US; h) cantonal approval simply is not equivalent to accreditation as a quality control mechanism, however much it confers legality upon a school possessing only cantonal authorization.

2) More than many other regular posters on this board, I have been open to unaccredited schools, so you are dealing with a (potentially) sympathethic interlocutor, who nonetheless still has serious reservations which need to be overcome.

The central problem is this: how can we distinguish your school from these other, extremely problematic, "free and private universities"?

So, here are some of my specific questions to you about UNIPSA.

I. You have been very honest both on your website and here about UNIPSA not possessing accreditation. What external quality control measures, in the absence ofaccreditation, assure the quality of education offered by UNIPSA?

II. Are your degrees, unlike those of the other free and private Swiss universities, acceptable for higher degree prerequisites by the CUS or by educational authorities in neighbouring European countries?

III. Are UNIPSA degrees fully usable within the canton Ticino? That is, can a person be hired for educational, cantonal, or other public employment, or be legally qualified for the practice of any of the liberal professions, within Ticino, on the strength of a laurea, masters, or doctorate conferred by UNIPSA?

IV. What evidence of acceptability of your degrees can you report to us?

V. (If this is covered in your student handbook--a far more thorough document than anything on offer from the other "free and private universities"--I apologise.) What are the internal requirements for completion of a doctorate at UNIPSA? Such as: character of dissertation; congruence of field between supervisor and student; length required; committee or solo director; external readers, if any; oral defense, if any?

VI. Are degrees at any level granted entirely or substantially on the basis of life experience? If so, how is this life experience assessed and proven?

VII. Can you supply the names of the universities which comprise FORCOM? What is FORCOM's legal and accreditational status in Italy?

I deeply appreciate your consideration of these questions. No one would be more pleased than I, if the answers to these and possibly other posters' questions demonstrate that your school is that relatively rare bird: an academically sound unaccredited school. Thank you again for the opportunity to address these questions directly to you as an official representative of UNIPSA.

Yours cordially,

Janko Preotul

 

unipsa

Dear Uncle Janko,
first of all I am sorry for may bad english.
I am happy to reply to your question:

I. We have a Quality manual and procedures.We have an annual quality control by an external independent control quality audit

II. the our degrees are been recognized to admission at master course and posta luarem course in Italy.

III.Yes the our degrees are usable within the canton ticino in conformity to the official letter of University office delegate with the indication of the private origin.We have not news about this.But we have official positive news regarding the private corporations in Italy and switzerland.

IV. The official docuements issued by a private corporations above mentioned

V.We have a multimedial e-learning platform in which each student can acces with a personal password.The student find a hundreds hours of registered video lessons,thousands of lecrture notes with bibliography.The student must be passed for 3 steps
the first a general admission test,second a official writing test for each subiect,3° a final sub thesis and original thesis.We have about 30 tutors with a personal approach between each student and his tutor.Lenght required not less that 150 pages.committe of four members,external readers,obviously oral defense

VI.the degrees are substantially but not only,granted on the basis of academic aexperience ( ects credits) and life experience ( see the project of EUCEN) in which we are official member,The experince is proved by a official documents and assessement .

VII.The Forcon consortium www.forcom.it has been incorporated in june 1990 between l'Università di Roma "La Sapienza" ed il Bournemouth Polytechnic (UK) in conformity of D.P.R. 382/80. : l'Università degli Studi di Torino, l'Università degli Studi di Macerata, l'Università degli Studi del Molise, l'Università degli Studi di Cassino, l'Università degli Studi di Udine, l'Università degli Studi di Sassari, l'Università degli Studi di Bari, l'Università degli Studi di Foggia, l'Università degli Studi di Camerino, l'University of Liverpool (University College Chester), l'University of Malta, il Polytechnic University of Tirana.
I hope my reply is accurate and I am at your disposal for many others information usefull.
Yours cordially
Massimo Silvestri

 

Signore Silvestri,

What will surely be of most interest to the readers of this forum is the ability to transfer from your school to universities in their home countries.

As an American I ask of you if students have transferred from your Politecnico to accredited American universities.

Grazie

 

unipsa

Dear Mr.Decimon,
I have not news regarding the transfer to accredited american university because we have not american students at the moment.
the our students are form italy,switzerland, germany and italian language and culture countries.
Best regards
Massimo Silvestri

 

Hi Massimo: Thank you very much for your thorough and forthright answers. They speak well of your school. UNIPSA appears to have the same legal basis as the less-than-good AR "freie Universitaeten", but in sharp contrast to those ephemeral schools sounds pedagogically like an unaccredited school with real integrity, whatever practical loss of utility is entailed in unaccredited status. Best wishes, Janko

 

Janko,

I know this won't be easy but can you 'place' UNIPSA for us? Would you say it's roughly equivalent to City and Guilds or a US vocational school? Could a European student expect to transfer to university with credit from UNIPSA?

Enquiring minds and so forth.

 

Hi Decimon: This is a fast answer and may not quite work, but here goes. The nearest equivalent seems to be a polytechnic or a South African technikon, but unaccredited. I know nothing about City and Guilds, so can't say there. My guess is that maybe Cal Coast might be equivalent, including its limitations and its reality.

If transfer of credit is part of FORCOM, UNIPSA credit might then be transferable within FORCOM. None of the other FPU's have any such links to GAAP universities, but outside of a specific arrangement, I would doubt transferability very much. The Swiss free and private universities are not regarded with respect elsewhere in Europe (nor should they be). Three of the others are either evanescent or mills, but so far UNIPSA appears substantial and the only one that is.

This may well be due in part, with all due respect, to Ticino being a more, um, advanced part of Switzerland than Appenzell's half-cantons. It should be irrelevant, but Appenzellers are not always regarded as sophisticated by other Swiss. One of the other FPU's engages in KW-esque gameplaying: authorized by Appenzell-Innerrhoden, it's actually in Appenzell-Ausserrhoden (or the other way around), which raises real questions about the legality of a plainly ephemeral school.

See, Switzerland is highly federal, so that on paper at least each canton is almost a miniature republic (some are even called Republic in their official names). That's why I've drawn the analogy elsewhere of cantonal approval to state approval in the US, although each canton is more self-directing than a modern US state.

So Cal Coast or some other California-approved school with integrity might be the best analogy. My tentative conclusion: real, not a joke, the FPU exception that proves the rule, restricted utility, worth exploring further.

I'll go back and reread the UNIPSA handbook again when I get a chance, in light of Massimo Silvestri's answers.

 

Thanks. I take that as informed opinion and it was fine.

My interest is that I like alternatives and I like competition. The polytechnic/technicon sort of school seems a good alternative for many and the option of transferring credit to university would make them for many a good career/education choice. Or so it seems to me.

 

Unipsa e AR Herisau

Dear Janko and Decimon,
thare is a fundamental difference between Unipsa and Free Universitate Herisau in Appenzello.
Within the Cantone Ticino it's a must to have a official authorization from a Government or Department of Education to granting a university degree as a "private university".
In fact in Ticino there is a state university Swiss Italian University and there is a specific law concerning the universities matter regulating the use of the protected term " Università"
before to grant the authorization the local authorities asked us all the official papers of our university as a student guides CV of the tutors,the matriculation form and rules and so on for a formal ceck of the information issued to the students concerning the legal status and bona fides .
In Cantone Appenzello this specific law doesn't exist and so you can not ask for a official authorization.The Free Universitate have not this authorization .
Best regards.

 

I was not going to mention names , but you have made it clear why there is a difference. Thanks.

 

Yes, I know this thread is 10 years old.
Anyway, FYI, this diploma mill has been declared illegal by the Canton of Ticino. See Politecnico di Studi Aziendali - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
However, their office still prints degrees in a neighboring canton.

Their "courses" have always been a joke…

The diploma mill is not affiliated with any American institutions and was denied accreditation by the Swiss Federal Court last year.

…students?!?