Athabasca applies for Middle States accreditation

Just saw in AU's Nov. 2001 news letter. Any other Canadian U goes for an US RA?

 

A big, f-ing waste of money. They have no sense of planning, nor how they are going to carry out their existing "plans" in the US...all that I know is that I and the rest of my fellow Canadian AU students (and both Alberta and all Canadian taxpayers) are going to be stuck with the damned bill!


Darren.

 

It is ridiculous... it is like a Regionally Accredited school applying for DETC.

 

Quick, someone take away all sharp objects from Ken/Walter, and give him a sedative!


Bruce

 

I'm the one that needs the sedative!
All accreditation will do for AU is a chance for our beloved admin to fly around and live it up on our tab in the quest for RA.
I can't wait to see what increase in tuition the jack***es are going to ask for this year to help pay for their nonsense.


Darren.

 

DETC accreditation will quality for their programs for company tuition reimbursement programs and potentially financial aid. Seems like a good move. It should cost very little cash if handled properly.

 

This, coming from an administration that thought that OUUS was the best thing since sliced cheese, an administration that was so proud of its involvement with WGU-only to see "marginal" improvements for our "investment" in that organisation
($ 75000 US, I think), an administration that refuses to disclose the cost to date of its adventures in RA-land--but loves to tell us where they've been in support of getting RA status, an administration that has not offered a public cost benefit ratio of its involvement with the RA approval process, an administration that is treating the information relating to the "nuts and bolts" and the ramification of these nuts and bolts like a state secret, an administration that will not explain if (as in one previous RA foray) it will be required to tighten its admission requirments and academic programming) and finally, it will not explain who is actually going to pay for all of this nonsense, nor who will take responsibility if something goes wrong in the RA process.


Darren.

 

I think that it's excellent news. While regional accreditation would probably be of little importance to Canadians, it would be of considerable value to Americans. So I'm reading this news as suggesting that Athabasca is interested in attracting a larger number of American students.

Addressing Dikereluk's concerns, I see little or no downside to this for Athabasca. At the most, it will occupy some staff getting together the required documentation, with the associated labor costs. But on the other hand, if it makes AU more attractive to foreign students, who I believe pay higher fees than Canadians, there will be added revenue generated down the line as well.

 

Re: Re: Athabasca applies for Middle States accreditation

Yes, I am interested in it because they are wasting "our" tuition fees and tax dollars on an endeavour that they fail to tell us peon students very little about.

Oh, really, are you an AU student? How many courses have you taken?
Have you been to committee meetings in Athabasca where this has been discussed?

You must be kidding! Our "involvement" with the WGU is a perfect example of how our tuition and tax dollars have been used in the US market with negligible benefit. This experiment, as well as the one with the OUUS, and the incessant travelling of our admin in support of the "RA" process (I thought that it was supposed to be a simply matter of "getting together the documentation") all helped to contribute to a $ 783,000 CDN deficit last year, even with a tuition fee increase of about 4.9% for ungrad courses (don't even mention grad studies courses, and "extra fees" like the course materials "handling" fee). I and my fellow students are prepaying for this asinine RA debacle, and we haven't even been given any real cost/benefit analysis data from administration, because after all, we're just peons and students.
I go to AU, so I know a bit of what I am speaking. AU is getting to the point where it's going to make it impossible for the average person to attend the place, due in no small part to the dictates of some obscure RA officials. These RA officials already have tried to tell the university how to conduct its admissions process, and how to structure some of the degree programmes...what more do they want from us? Our blood? And all through this, our beloved AU admin follows blythely along, probably because it means another free trip somewhere.

Darren.

 

Re: Re: Re: Athabasca applies for Middle States accreditation

Why would this be necessary in order to see that being RA would enable Athabasca to attract more US students? I can tell you without a doubt that I would have at least taken courses, and probably done an entire degree, through Athabasca had they been RA. In fact, this may still be the case.

I'm really confused about your comments regarding admissions policies. There are many, many RA schools that have open admissions. Are you saying that Middle States won't accept an open admissions policy? That doesn't seem consistent. Are you sure that they don't just require the admissions policy to be documented in a certain way?

 

There is nothing wrong with AU seeking regional accreditation, nor with foreign schools (and US RA schools) seeking DETC accreditation. There are many potential benefits.

First, such accreditation makes penetrating the U.S. market easier. When I was doing some preliminary work with John Bear on marketing Heriot-Watt, we seriously considered pursuing DETC accreditation of the MBA program. Such accreditation provides a much simpler answer to the oft-asked question, "Is it accredited?" Instead of saying, "Yes, but...." and going into a long explanation about why a royal charter makes H-W comparable to being accredited, we would simply be able to answer, "Yes." It gets you over that hurdle, and facilitates degree recognition, tuition reimbursement, etc. But the store got bought out and we moved on.

Another advantage for a foreign school in receiving U.S. accreditation is the synergies available. Accrediting associations are not just standards-setting and approving bodies; they're also--and perhaps primarily so--designed to improve operations of their member schools. The opportunities for exchanging ideas, best practices, lessons learned, etc. are ideal in delivering DL programs, especially to a new market. DETC is trying to become a community of DL degree-granting schools.

Finally, god forbid that the accreditation process actually improves the operation of the school! Many foreign schools operate with an extreme amount of autonomy--their governments are often unable to provide oversight or even understand what the school is doing. While such schools benefit from the autonomy and flexibility, they lose when it comes to maintaining standards and continuous improvement. The accreditation process (gaining and maintaing it) requires accountability, self-study, inspection, execution, and continuous improvement.

Is AU already comparable to an RA school? Sure. But don't just look at the goal. Examine the benefits of the process.

Rich Douglas, hardly a fan of accreditation.

 

The gold standard, m'boy, the gold standard.. apparently even outside the States. I have lots of evidence of this, by the way.

 

But you won't be sharing any of it, right?

Rich Douglas, on the Ken watch.

 

Yea, right pal. Excuse me while I get up from the floor. RA might be the gold standard in AMERICA, but you better be careful casting the net any wider.

Your evidence? And for whom are you speaking?

SOME RA degrees stack up: the rest, well...

 

Don't get your shorts all bunched up, my Australian friend. I'm being facetious (and I'm comforted that at least one other poster "got it.") I have no evidence to support a claim like that, and I've no problem with saying so.. mostly because I don't believe it.

I would no sooner suggest that US RA is a worldwide "gold standard" any more than I'd suggest that U.S. currency was the only acceptable form of legal tender anywhere.

But to use that analogy: I might suggest to a U.S. resident that dollars might be more useful, recognized, and valuable than French francs in the States. They're a "known quantity" here. People know what they're worth. They're relatively certain that they're legitimate. Most people can recognize a counterfeit one. They know what it takes to earn one. And they're accepted without question. Does this mean that I'd turn down a suitcase full of francs? No, not if I really liked the design of the bills.. but I'd recognize that they might take some explaining in, say, Detroit. The same would be true of American dollars in Australia, or Australian dollars in France.

Now substitute the word "degrees" for "dollars," "francs," and "bills" and you have my opinion on the utility of foreign degrees.

Contrast this to Johnny Reincarnation's standard position.. that RA institutions (and U.S. schools in general) are inherently inferior, not generally respected, and (his words) "jokes," while schools in Canada, the UK, or Australia are all paragons of educational virtue and "the gold standard" for anyone, anywhere.. more suitable as an educational experience than all but the Ivys, no further questions asked or necessary. And of this he claims to have evidence (and lots of it, too.)

My earlier post is every bit as ridiculous as that proposition. The difference? I admit that it's ridiculous, and it's not taking me multiple identities to say so.

 

Oh, a joke. I see. I obviously missed the side humour.

I agree with your post and the dollars and francs analogy pretty well explains things.

But to continue on the original thread theme:

I see the viewpoint of the original poster (Darren) IF there is no obvious business case for seeking RA. Sure, if Athabasca want to enter the US market and their research shows that RA is an essential part of the cost/benefit analysis then I wouldn't object. But Darren's view is that there is no such evidence and therefore is a waste of time. If that is the case, then I concur.

If I had an interest or involvement in Athabasca I'd want to see the figures stack up.

 

From the point of view of an American DL consumer, I think that the benefits of Athabasca obtaining RA and entering the US market are obvious. That needs no argument.

The benefits to Athabasca would be increased enrollments of foreign students that pay higher fees than Canadian students. So the university's income would rise. How much would depend on how many American students they attracted, marginal costs of servicing the new students subtracted from the revenue they generate and stuff.

I trust that the net would be positive, because as I said in another post, schools in one country are not in the habit of providing educational services to students in another country out of selfless altruism. That's why you find more Australian DL programs targeted at Singapore than at Uganda.

Despite Darren's passionate posts, I'm still unclear on what the costs of seeking RA would be for Athabasca. There would be some labor costs associated with putting the submission together, but I can't imagine them being excessive.

The only structural issue that I can see might be the three-year bachelors degrees. I'm not sure what Middle States' reaction will be to them.

Finally there is probably a political/nationalistic angle to this. Canadians kind of live in the shadow of the United States. Athabasca is probably a source of Canadian pride, a cool Canadian thing. If it is perceived as selling out to the overbearing southern colossus, I can see why that might cause some resentment.

 

The acid from the first note is obvious, but my personal experience at AU was positive from beginning to end. (Can this solely be attributed to the fact that the MBA (my degree from AU) is managed by the 'Centre for Innovative Management'?)

As a tool to increase market share, this accreditation pursuit strikes me as a sensible move. Institutional management, even with their student/faculty advisory panels, still have to make marketing decisions, don't they?
___________

Not too long ago, there was an article in Maclean's magazine (a Canadian newsweekly) about how attractive Canadian universities are to Americans. Even with higher tuition charged to US students, the value because of Canada's low dollar makes for some attractive deals. (And the schools are good too!)

Michael in Vancouver, Canada

 

Generally, yes. However, the AU MBA costs over $20K USD. Not really affordable.

 

Well the good people that run the AU MBA aren't really to blame. They do run a fairly tight ship (in terms of cost control), but because the rest of the university needs money for such things as flying administrators around to push the "valuable" RA crusade(instead of the extra funds on services, course redevelopment and the like), the MBA, by necessity, has to be costly.

Darren.