what qualifies an institution to offer doctoral programs?

We are seeing a large number of institutions getting into the business of offering doctoral programs, especially in business.

What qualifies an institution to offer doctoral programs?

I'd argue for research active faculty (at least some of whom are full-time with the institution) and appropriate library resources. Research active faculty would seem critical to support students in the dissertation phase of their work.

Your thoughts?

 

That is something to be determined by the accrediting agencies and in other places by the government.

Are you advocating for NOVA?

 

It seems to me that strong doctoral programs display active intellectual lives. There's a research apprenticeship aspect as programs get their students involved in the cutting edge of their discipline.

So when I look at a university doctoral program, one of the first things that I look for is research taking place in areas of interest to me. What are they doing? Is it exciting? Is it significant? Does it get any notice from professional peers?

That's how I kind of informally rank programs in my mind. If a school or a program doesn't show any visible intellectual life at all, then it's hard for me to imagine that it has much more than basic legal/accreditor permission to award doctoral degrees.

 

He's raising the issue because Baker College is now offering an online DBA, along with other online universities.

 

It seems that we still have people that have not found the door to the 21st Century.

 

Andy put emphasis on research-active faculty, at least some of whom are full-time. He also mentioned library resources. I agreed, saying that a doctoral program needs to have an active intellectual life and mentioned the research apprenticeship aspect.

Apparently some find these ideas atavistic, but I don't understand why. What's wrong with them?

What characteristics should schools emphasize instead, if they want to offer strong doctoral programs?

 

Actually, I opened a new forum to remove the discussion from any particular school. There are many new DL and B&M programs popping up all over.

As a faculty member I see increasing numbers of applicants for faculty positions with new age doctoral degrees. I myself am a graduate of a non-traditional school. I see a coming glut of folks with doctorates in business, however, from DL schools. In such a market "good money" chases out "bad money" and folks from less respected programs may have real problems securing a job.

The questions is "What qualifies an institution to offer doctoral programs?"

Obtaining accreditation is one answer, although this tends to be a minimal qualification (at least RA). The quality of inputs (such as faculty, library resources and incoming students) is another. The quality of graduates may be another.

I don't harbor any belief that mode of delivery is a key differentiator. But I have my doubt about the quality of inputs and graduates from DL programs. The overwhelming preference of the best business schools (the AACSB accredited ones) not to hire DL grads speaks volumes. Are they not in the 21st century? Or can they tell the difference between DL and traditional grads?

Regards - Andy

 

As an employer, I would certainly make sure that my applicant's university is a research university or at least shows significant research activity. DBA programs become increasingly lucrative because nowadays anyone and their mother can have an MBA from some school. And too many of the new DBAs seem to be master's programs with increased course loads - which is not what a doctoral degree should be about.

 

It was explained to me that working on a doctorate degree is much more than just taking classes and writing a dissertation. It's also about interacting with your peers, being able to have high level discussions in the hallway, attending conferences etc. It involves having a solid mentor that helps guide you down the path so at the end of the program, not only do you have a dissertation written, you also have all the other skills you need to be a successful researcher/teacher/colleague in academic schools.

The concern is that a DL program doesn't offer all of the above. Questions come up such as how many other students does your adviser mentor? 10? 100? With a DL program, it could be any number. It also could be just one but it's still more of an unknown to hiring schools. How many people get to go to conferences while attending a DL program? How many people interact with their other classmates regularly (not just 2 weeks a year) in a DL program?

I'm not saying that these are deal breakers. I strongly think that in time, these issues will be resolved and hiring a DL vs. a traditional graduate will be a non-issue. If you think about it, the internet as a tool for the masses has only really started to catch on since around 1993 or so. That is 16 years. Distance learning programs didn't start in 1993, they took several more years to get started. In reality, DL is still in its infant stages and traditional schools that have been in the business of graduating students for 100+ years aren't 100% sure what to do with it yet. I'm very impressed as to how far DL has come in the last few years with more and more big named schools getting on board. It will only get better.

For now, almost all of the people in the positions to hire people have come the traditional route. They are wary of the unknown. Why take a chance on someone from an online school for a position when you have 50 other applicants from a traditional program that are probably just as good? It's an uphill road but 20 years from now, things will be different. The first DL schools that will be accepted will be B&M schools offering online programs. After that, maybe 100% online schools will as well but that will take a lot longer. I've started to realize that as more and more B&M schools start offering DL programs, there is less need for online only schools unless they start filling a niche that B&M schools have ignored.

 

Something else I wanted to add is that I think many traditional programs don't hire from DL schools (yet) because they feel the DL programs are really hurting traditional graduates chances of employment. It's case of sticking together and watching each others backs. I've heard that business schools are better, but in the humanities, a tenure track opening at a B&M school will usually get 100 or more applications for the job. These are applications from graduates that have uprooted their life and were willing to move across the country to attend a 5-6 year PhD program. If you start considering people that sat at home and worked on their degree over the internet and didn't uproot their life, that 100+ number suddenly shoots up to maybe 300+ or more. They aren't happy about that thought and I think that is where much of the reluctance to hire DL graduates come from.

It's a case of I sucked it up for 6 years and you should too. I didn't get to go the "easy" route and nether should you. Again, as time goes on and more and more DL grads sneak into traditional positions, this mentality will start to diminish in future years.

 

Advocating for research in business to me makes not point, what is exactly is that business researchers are looking to change or add to what is already in practice? Why not advocated for research and doctorates in sciences, medicine, technology, and other disciplines that can really change the quality of life in this planet and not about money, most people in this country only think about money, reason for the current melt down in the economy and unrealistic plans this days, solutions to problems that is the name of the game.

Traditionalists have destroyed our economy(yeah with Ivy League and AACSB accredited degrees), so what is the point of saying more research in business? Why not focus in the practice of doing things instead on concentrating in the theory? Then again, what to research or to contribute in business? Who is the authority? What is the real reason for some universities that want so bad to be AACSB accredited? Because of a big library and a huge campus? What purpose does that serve? What about to be able to compete for more funding from the taxpayers? Who knows? time will tell! Change is inevitable and the electric car will be back!

 

All degree programs are and they know it, which is reason as per why even the states universities are increasing the tuition in out of control proportion(FL will increase 15% a year), in reference the doctorate degree unless you have walk or are walking that road, your position may be only just something to say. Only 1% percent of the population can do a RA doctorate regardless where they go to school for it. Lets us know if you ever consider that path and how far would you be able to get!

 

I found this funny since your signature says "DBA in Advanced Accounting (Research Phase)".

It used to be that the MBA was the end all, terminal degree in business. It made sense, and fits with what you are asking, because it is a hands on, practical application degree. Don't take this the wrong way but the DBA seems a little like credential creep. MBAs suddenly became very accessible and now, in business, they are more common than they used to be. To me it seems like the DBA came about because someone felt the need to up at ante and have a higher degree than the MBA. For example, you are studying accounting at a doctorate level. Why wouldn't a PhD in Accounting be appropriate for this level of study? If the DBA is more hands on, why don't schools offer beefed up terminal MBA programs instead?

As for your question on AACSB accreditation, I think it's just a prestige issue. Someone, somewhere said it's the gold standard for business programs and now if you aren't accredited by them, you "aren't as good" as the ones that are. It's like library science degrees. If your program isn't ALA accredited, you might as well close up shop. All libraries hiring require a degree accredited by the ALA.

If you were a good marketer and created a totally new accreditation and managed to get a few top schools to sign on, you'd have a gold mine. Market it as the hottest must have accreditation and schools would flock to you simply because they don't want to look worse than other schools.

 

Correct it did not started in 1993 but before, distance learning (DL) have been around before you and I were born, that is explained in detail in Dr. Bear's guides over the years, what you are referring to is Online learning that is a portion or one method in delivering distance learning.

 

Andy,

In my opinion, the growth of DL DBA and PhD programs in business has been triggered by the media's message that there is a shortage of qualified business teachers. You also have books like the Dr Babb's one that claims that people can make 100K at home if they hold an accredited doctorate.

AACSB publishes starting salaries for business teachers at the 100K range. Full time residential PhD programs take at least 4 years of full time commitment so it is obvious that few people were willing to follow these programs and as a result the so advertised shortage of qualified teachers.

Companies like Capella and Apollo group realized that they were people willing to pay for doctoral programs that were flexible enough to accommodate full time careers and had completion tiimes that would allow people to take such commitments. Even if traditional doctoral programs were available for part time study, it wouldn't be practical to require a candidate to spend 8 years of his or her life to complete a doctorate, the 3 to 4 year part time that new age programs promise seem to be more appealing to prospect students.

So from the financial point of view, it makes sense for a student to spend the 25 to 50K for a doctoral program rather than having to spend 4 years with no or little income. In addition, new age programs replace things that we don't like such as proctored exams with more friendly term essay assignments or doctoral dissertations with doctoral projects that can be related to work.

So new programs are more customer oriented and tend to profit for the "shortage" that media advertises. However, we are now seeing people that graduate from these programs and report in this newsgroup that are not able to land even adjunct positions with these degrees never mind tenure track or permanent positions.

The boom of friendly and more customer oriented doctorates will continue for a while, the effect of this will be that schools hiring doctoral graduates for tenure tracks will make the AACSB accreditation mandatory as a way to eliminate the graduates from new age doctorates. New age doctoral graduates will fight for adjunct positions that once were available only with a master's degree and the master;s degree will become obsolete for adjunct teaching at least for business teachers.

In conclusion, the new age more user friendly and customer oriented doctorates will continue to grow and take the position that the MBA once had. People looking for academic careers would need to look for AACSB accredited programs and AACSB will be more strict in terms of academic requirements in order to protect the status of the qualification.

 

Doh, ok, I'll give you that one. I wasn't even thinking of correspondence classes.

 

I...don't quite understand what you are saying. Are you questioning my qualification to contribute in this thread? Why is tuition being increased? And all degree programs are what?

Okay: I am going that path, and yes, I hope I will be able to get to the end of it eventually.

 

Not meant to be funny, but that can be fixed, it can be called in different ways: dissertation stages, ongoing, in progress, in process, some may be called ABD and so on. But the thing is that is on going and it will happen!

Are you going for your MBA? It used to be that the BBA was the end all, terminal degree in business.

I don't, it is more accessible due to competition and demand!

There are both PhD and DBA in Accounting, I choose the DBA as a personal preference and it is more in line with the accounting practice, there is more than 10,000 members in this forum and I am sure that less than 1% percent have a doctorate, that can give you an indication that a doctorate is not easy, regardless your point of view.

Same as lawyers, is a form of control!

 

This is because traditional programs required 4-6 years full time commitment, publication requirements and exams. Now, if you replace proctored exams with friedly term essays, no publication requirements, reduce the 4 year full time to a 3 year part time you will find that this 1% can easily go to 10% in few decades.

 

Interesting perspective, we will have to wait and see in few decades. But from the mathematical point of view, 10% can be a quite a high estimate, there are other variables to considered, but basically, you will have to consider the population grow and allocate for inflation, just to mention two variable in the equation!