Opinions on University of Northumbria at Newcastle DL LLM program

Recently, I was clicking about on Lawrie Miller's website and came across an interesting DL LLM program in medical law. Regular readers of this forum will recall that I am a medical malpractice consultant for the past eighteen years and am always curious about malpractice education.

The University of Northumbria at Newcastle offers this program with no residency required. I am interested in this program solely for my own curiosity and learning, particularly about malpractice in the UK; since I have no need for additional credentials in my occupation. This is the only health law LLM I have found that emphasizes malpractice, as opposed to others which emphasize ethics, employment law, fraud and abuse, and the like.

Also given that I graduated from the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot Watt, I laugh in the face of danger and have no qualms embarking on yet another graduate degree via DL.

Realizing that the University has a Royal Charter and what not, I would be interested to hear any opinions from anyone on this school and/or this program specifically. Although the program offers the option of a PGDip or LLM, I would just go for the LLM.

Regards,

Michael Lloyd
Mill Creek, Washington USA

 

Hi Michael

Great to see you looking at further dl activity.

I was asked recently to comment on the University of Northumbria for a student enquiring in another forum about its bona fides.

Like you I found it was the upgraded Northumbrian polytechnic formed by mergers of some colleges of higher education. It certainly has a Royal Charter, without which it could not function as a university in the UK, and it has considerable experience in degree courses.

As law is not my subject I do not know about the particular degree you are interested in but given its status as a British university you can make judgements about it by enquiring of its examination regime and comparing that with what you have experienced in the past. The closer it is to the regime you know of, the better.

Law certainly lends itself to a distance learning approach.

 

I think Prof. Kennedy would not like the Northumbria LLM. No exams at all -- there is only a 4,000 word assignment for each course (7 in total).

 

Exam regimes

Hi Gert

You caught me out! But I was following a self denying ordnance in case I am accused again of 'promoting' an 'institution of which I know' about and so I merely advised Michael to test the standard of the LLM degree by its exam regime as a reliable judge of its standards.

That it has no exam at all, says it all, but that is for Michael to judge given his needs. Maybe the degree is of less importance for him than the material covered in the degree.

I am not dogmatic about the worth of a study programme purely by its exam regime; I am, however, ultra dogmatic that an assessment standard of a Masters should be judged by its exam regime only. But Michael will know that, being a graduate from an institution which he and I know about...

 

Mr. Potgieter, my research has revealed that for LLM degrees, and particularly so for LLM degrees in health law, it is not at all uncommon that each course be tested by writing a research paper. This is because since the degree is generally considered a specialized or research-oriented legal program, as opposed to the more generalized nature of a JD or LLB.

You will find similar learning assessment methodologies at the LLM medical law programs at the University of Glasgow, Lancashire University, the Nottingham Law School, the University of Cardiff, the University of Houston, Dalhousie University, the Concord Law Center, and a couple of others who I cannot recall at the moment.

In addition, going for the LLM as opposed to the PGDip requires a 16,000 to 20,000 research thesis, which is also consistent with the requirements of the other schools listed above. I am already thinking about a thesis topic having to do with my interests in medical informatics, telemedicine or electronic medical records.

If you can think of any other LLM programs in health or medical law that I may have missed, I would very much appreciate any referrals you care to offer, so that I may check them out. I am not very interested in the programs that emphasize biotechnology, medical ethics, genetic testing and the like, given my interest in malpractice. So the program at Northumbria is the only one I have found to date that appeals to me.

Regards,

Michael Lloyd
Mill Creek, Washington USA

PS: I would certainly defer to the pedagogy experts on the issue of how to best assess subject matter competence in a graduate program. When I got my master's in chemistry 20 years ago, you could either earn it by coursework assessed by whatever method the professor deemed proper or by doing a research project and writing a thesis as I did. The American Chemical Society still follows that policy today and I think I may have read somewhere that graduate degrees in the physical sciences frequently still follow that model.

 

4,000 words per subject?

1. This seems VERY light whether the assessment is of a research paper, essay or whatever they may call it, and whether or not it is followed up by a dissertation.

2. Permitting entry into an LLM for non attorneys seems to be 'out' in most areas, and i have difficulty where this is not the case.

But, as you say, you don't 'need' it, so what the hell ... it may as well be unaccredited form that point of view. We have degrres available out here but they are 'lawyers' only entry, and require a lot more work that this tech-on-viagra - that is not fair is it, so I'll withdraw the comment

 

Re: 4,000 words per subject?

The danger, of course, in making generalizations is that they are so often wrong. A Google search notes health law LLM programs at the University of Sydney law school, Deakin University and Melbourne University (all in Australia) offer programs that admit non-lawyers, such as healthcare providers and administrators. An additional class in legal fundamentals may be required if the applicant is a non-lawyer. And again, a Google search further noted similiar assessment standards as the other UK, Canadian and US universities referenced in earlier posts. So your concerns are apparently not shared by the people creating and running these programs.

Out of curiosity over the concept of LLM programs admitting non-lawyers, another search revealed there are a number of LLM programs in taxation in the United States, whereby one can be either a lawyer or an accountant and qualify for admission. I did not do the same search for LLM programs in other subjects outside the US, but I do recall reading of other such programs while I was searching for the health or medical law LLM programs. So depending on the specialty subject matter, there seem to be a number of reputable institutions offering LLM degrees to non-lawyers. I suspect that an analogy would be that here in the US, one does not have to be a physician or nurse in order to obtain a master's in public health degree (MPH)

Regards,

Michael Lloyd
Mill Creek, Washington USA

 

I am not aware of any ABA accredited law school (other than STU) that admits applicants without a J.D. or foreign equivalent to its LL.M. in taxation program. Which schools turned up in your search?

Further, the vast majority of the foregoing require that the J.D. be from an ABA approved law school, with an exception made for certain grads of foreign law schools.

 

Michael, it might be useful to you to get some input from those with hands-on experience of the program. This will probably prove more useful than uniformed pontification and baseless nay saying.


You may well feel isolated, doing this DL LLM. If you like or require a lot of student-student, student-tutor feedback, this aint the program for you. If you are a self-starter who prefers to work on your own, it might prove a good fit.

As you will know, the course work leading to the dissertation is examined in a series of essays. These are anything but trivial. The required standard of scholarship is high. Between these and a choice of traditional examinations, I'd take the exams thank you very much, in a heart beat. It is certain that those not fully versed in the concepts and detail of the subjects under scrutiny risk summary failure. You cannot, in my view, earn a pass in any course in the program, without thorough research backed by comprehensive formal study.

The course material is quite adequate, though it is not of the standard of (say) the HW MBA print courseware (yes, I do have HW courseware - purchased 1995), nor is it of the standard seen in some of the better fully online mediated programs (USQ courseware, for instance, which I consider a benchmark).

You do have access to program academic staff. Curiously, no course-related collaboration of any kind, between LLM students, is allowed. Definitely verboten. There is an online communications area, but it was not being used by students last I looked.

Before submission of each essay, you have the opportunity to submit a practice work for informal assessment. Very useful. Note however, that the subject of the formal examined essay is not known until sent to you about six weeks or eight weeks before the required submission date. Submission deadlines are strictly enforced.

There is a week-long face to face seminar open to all beginning students, held September each year. The cost of this is covered by the tuition fees. Attendance is optional.

On the customer service front, the staff performance is nothing short of outstanding. It seems to me they bend over backwards to be accommodating. It is interesting to observe how an organization performs under stress. By that I mean, rather than the normal expected student/institution transaction, what happens when you throw them a curve? How does the system deal with the exception?

In the course of a two year program, it may well be that you will hit unforeseen obstacles. In the three departmental areas "tested", Administration, Academic, Finance, I found no significant flaw. All staff I encountered were customer oriented, not institution oriented. All were focused on fixing a problem rather than blindly quoting a set of obstructive rules. All seemed to be interested in exploring how things could be done, rather than on why they could not be done.

When I say "all", I mean it. Every member of staff I encountered, was courteous, knowledgeable, helpful. Communication via phone, email and snail mail.

I am writing a series of reviews detailing my first-hand experience of various programs. None fair so well as the UNN LLM.

Watch out for the series of comprehensive reviews from the frontlines, appearing soon in a BA in 4 Weeks web site near you.

Lawrie Miller
author: Accelerated Master's Degrees by Distance Learning
http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks

 

I just had a most illuminating chat about this program with a good friend of mine in the UK. He is a general practitioner near London who works part time for the Medical Defence Union, the large malpractice insurer in the UK. He works in claims and risk management as I do.

We have known each other for many years; he has come over and visited my company and I have done the same with his. I stayed with him for a few days when I was a guest lecturer in risk management at the Scarman Centre at the University of Leicester a few years back.

He has known three people who went through this program; a lawyer, a physician and a nurse. He is of the opinion that it is a good training program for malpractice or risk management novices; it is not a good program for people who already have experience in the field. He thinks that anyone with a few years of experience in the medical-legal field already knows more than this program teaches. He also pointed out that the instructors are of legal background, rather than clinical, and understandably so for a LLM, is more about training lawyers to handle malpractice cases. Hmm, from the brochure, I had formed the opinion that it was more general in scope and was equally geared towards clinicians. He also thought it was so UK-specific as to not be particularly useful for a student outside of the UK.

A very interesting viewpoint from someone whose opinions I respect greatly. I am not altogether surprised by his opinion, since my experience with similar programs in the USA leads me to draw similar conclusions. I shall have to perhaps re-think my initial enthusiasm, since I don't need the program or LLM for my occupation, and I was primarily interested in it as a learning experience.

Regards,

Michael Lloyd
Mill Creek, Washington USA

 

That is simply a falsehood. There are a total of six exams of 4,000 words length and a project dissertation of 16,000 - 20,000 words. Had you applied the least rigor and actually read the relevant UNN material, you would have known that.

Now, what exactly is it you are saying here, Gert? That the UNN LLM program does not test outcomes? Could you provide evidence of this? Are you saying that research based assignments of 4,000 words and 16,000 words are not valid methods of demonstrating competencies? What is it you are saying, Gert?

 

Re: Exam regimes

And that you did not check the facts for yourself before rendering public judgment, what does that say, Gavin?

I will ask you the same question I asked Gert: are you saying that the UNN LLM program does not require that students demonstrate competency? Are you saying that the HW MBA method of assessment is the only valid measurement of outcomes? No? Yes?

Is it the case that the HW MBA program, bereft of any coursework requirements, consisting only of nine 3-hour exams, each of which comprises a mix of multiple choice questions and essays, is valid, and that examination via a series of research papers and a 16,000 to 20,000 word dissertation is not? Is that really what you are saying?

Don't you think it incumbent upon those who would criticize the veracity, rigor and worth, of the wares of other institutions and the efforts of individuals in pursuit of those wares, to themselves demonstrate they have at least a passing acquaintance with the relevant facts and some notion of the basic skills of scholarship?

Well, in fact, by virtue of your own testimony, it appears you are. You wrote of the UNN LLM program: "That it has no exam at all, says it all". Clearly, you do not think research papers and a dissertation, adequate assessments. You are judging the program purely by its exam regime, aren't you?

Well, me too, and that is exactly what occurs in the UNN LLM program. Uh, but you have already told us you believe the UNN LLM student competencies are not examined.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument that you withdraw your initial assertion that the UNN LLM has no assessments (for the position is untenable, and frankly, daft). Are you saying that the UNN LLM assessment regime, is inferior, and by extension, that the master's degree is inferior, relative to some mean standard? If so, how is it you know that?

If not, what is it you are saying? Is it reasonable for a senior representative of one UK institution's DL master's program, to demean another UK institution's DL master's program, based on nothing but half-baked "facts", hubris and hot air?

 

The risks of trust

A distance learning exam regime based soley or mainly on 'assignments' has a problem of provenance which in my opinion cannot be resolved at a distance.

We have to apply the same standards of probability of probity to all regimes (awarding bodies and students) and not only to ones in countries that have codes of behaviour that compromise the integrity of the exam regime.

To suggest that a university's regime is safe from doubts about its probity and that all its students at a distance are also above suspicion ('innocent until proved guilty') irrespective of its exam regime is to invite widespread malpractice (recent evidence in Israel) and suspicion of the integrity of distance learning.

My point was, and remains, that exam regimes that cannot (and mostly do not) guarantee as tightly as possible the provenance of a student's work lend themselves to doubts. Of course, if I tutor a set of students, whom I see everyday, hear them perform, interact in discourse and generally engage them in the old Oxbridge tutorial type of system (no longer fundable) I have more confidence that the assignment paper handed in and subject to my personal in depth viva with its alleged author than I can have when judging at a distance how several thousand distance students with no such or replicable constant contact have performed.

If you do not accept that, fine, I am not arguing that you have to agree but I do know that nine 3-hour examinations, closed book and no choice of questions, with appropriate security measures in processing exam papers to the centres, and high standards of security of invigilation, all returned to the centre and graded by a community of faculty, subject themselves to External Examination, is a safer assessment of students performance with high standards of credibility than exam regimes based on 'trust' of widely disparate students of unknown probity and access to 'assistance' from friends or 'commercial partners' unsighted and, for most intents and purposes, undetectable.

That is my point but knowing you, a barrage will follow on me proving my case as if in a US court of law. We are not in such a court. Perceptions about distance learning are informed by doubts about assessments based on 'out of sight' trust. I address a broader issue than theoretical regimes of equal security.

 

Re: The risks of trust

I generally agree with many (probably most) of your assertions but you seem to be preoccupied with exams that are closed book and contain no choice of questions (put another way, biased against open book and multiple choice exams).

Personally, I've taken one hell of a lot of exams and can unequivocally state that the most hellish have been open book or multiple choice.

For example, take the Multistate Bar Exam. It is comprised of 200 multiple choice questions and no materials, other than pencils, are allowed in the room. After hundreds of thousands of administrations, not one person has ever achieved a raw score above 199 (i.e. no examinee has ever gotten them all correct), the average raw score is anywhere between 125-140 (i.e. the average examinee gets roughly 35% =wrong=), and a not insignificant percentage do not achieve a passing score. This despite the fact that the vast majority of examinees have completed a J.D. program at a traditional, ABA approved, law school as well as a bar review course just prior to taking the exam. Clearly, a multiple choice exam can be constructed in such a way as to be as difficult, if not more so, than an exam in any other format.

Regarding open books exams, the fact that an examinee may refer to texts, notes, or any other material, does not have much of an impact if the exam is extremely time-pressured (i.e. there is insufficient time to complete the exam if the materials allowed to be used are referred to continually). Further, the open book exams, typically, have been infinitely more difficult and comprehensive than any closed book exam I have taken. I am, therefore, a bit hesitant to categorically state that a closed book exam is, necessarily a "safer assessment of students' performance".

 

Homer
This discussion carries a great deal of nostalgia for me as I started teaching at University at the tail end of the 60s - early 70s when students were revolting (please no gags intended) about exam regimes: some favoured no exams at all and in one demonstration they demanded that once a student was accepted into university he or she should graduate after three years with a degree (on a question, the speaker said students should be trusted to "try to turn up" to lectures; the response from the Professor was that he would prefer that they 'turned up and tried').

So every conceivable variation was tried: closed book, open book, exam questions handed out the day/week/term before/ continuous assessment/Multiple choice/ no choice/ pairwise work graded, teram work graded, graded by student colleagues, grade by faculty with student representatives, by faculty alone, even put to a vote by studnets, and so on. It was a bewildering experience and one I have kept in touch with since.

So I welcome a trip down memory lane, but I have to say I am now firmly of the opinion that the drift in exam regimes in the UK (and probably in the US) has gone too far and has resulted in a dumbing down of assessment standards on and off campus. My concern is that for ditance learning we must reverse the drift as we have enough barriers to acceptance of dl without allowing sneers about standards to have validity.

 

Re: The risks of trust

Had that actually been your point, I would not have responded, but that was not your point. I invite you to re-read your own previous posts in this thread. The only unambiguous point you made related to UNN was: "That [UNN LLM] has no exam at all, says it all, ". That statement is false, isn't it? When considering issues of "rigor"and "veracity", might it not be best that you first include these qualities in your own missives before publication?

That you have managed to articulate a legitimate proposition, ex post facto, does not absolve you of responsibility for previous baseless accusations.

Lawrie Miller
http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks

 

The full statement I made on the 'no exams at all' regime was: "That it has no exam at all, says it all, but that is for Michael to judge given his needs. Maybe the degree is of less importance for him than the material covered in the degree."

The addition of the remark (dropped by Lawrie) is 'but that is for Michael to judge'.

In other words, I was not judging for Michael, or for Lawrie or for anybody else, only for myself. In my view, no exams 'says it all' for me. A statement of my views as an educationalist cannot be 'false' just because Lawrie disagrees. It is not counter to the facts: I believe exam regimes have to have exams (as defined many times by me elsewhere, including on this thread) and the absence of exams 'says it all' - in my judgement. Many people disagreeing with my definition of an exam regime and thereby my assessment does not make my statement false. Voting is no a reliable means of establishing the truth of a proposition (or its falsity)

You are free to assert that my definition is 'false' but your assertion does not make it so. Why can't you accept that there are differences of opinion on these matters and leave it at that? Why the compulsion to argue about everything and with anybody who does not conform to your view of what is examinable or not, or what constitutes an examination or does not? I do not know in what institution you work, or whether you actually run an academic institution or not, but I do know that working in one may give you a different perspective on the validity of the assessment processes found around the world.

For what it is worth, legal subjects probably require a different form of examination to other subjects - case law probably cannot be evaluated in several 20-40 minute essays in a 3-hour examination. But that was not my point.

I do not consider the assessment system involved in 4,000+ word essay assignments at a distance are secure from corruption. There is nothing daft in asserting this. The worth of the programme is one thing, its examinability is another. Perhaps you are reading what I wrote too quickly?

 

Original statement by Gavin: I merely advised Michael to test the standard of the LLM degree by its exam regime as a reliable judge of its standards.

That it has no exam at all, says it all, but that is for Michael to judge given his needs. Maybe the degree is of less importance for him than the material covered in the degree.

It was your unqualified assertion that the UNN LLM lacked any examination. It is irrelevant that you add that Michael will judge whether the "fact" of no examinations is important. The issue is your assertion of an untruth, namely that the LLM has no examination. Whether you, or Michael, or I, consider it important to have learning examined in a degree program is irrelevant, the issue is your false accusation against a perfectly respectable institution and its LLM programs.

You accused UNN of offering a master's degree in which the required competencies are never examined. Should the subsequent smoke about "judgment" of its importance, absolve you of the responsibility for the original falsehoods uttered against another UK University? Is it OK for you to make clearly baseless allegations, then when called to account, pass it off with the bromide that your assertions were justified by some subsequent opinion predicated on the alleged fact? You did not offer "no exam" as opinion, but as an assertion of fact.

The issue is one of demonstrable fact, not judgment. You claimed that UNN did not require examination of competencies in its LLM programs. That is patently a falsehood. You have tried to blur the issue with the subsequent red herring about judgments of the importance of the "fact". The "judgment" of which you speak was based on the premise that there was no exam, and the issue is that premise. You have made accusations that are demonstrably untrue. That is not opinion.

That was not your claim. You claimed specifically the the UNN LLM program had no assessment. You wrongly accused a rival UK university of requiring no examination of competencies. That is the issue.

You asserted that UNN required no exam in the LLM. LLM competencies clearly are examined, aren't they? There are 6 required research papers of 4,000 words and a 20,000 word dissertation.

All of this is irrelevant, it does not address the issue of the false statements made about UNN's LLM programs. It might help your case were you to address the issue and refrain from personally attacking those with whom you disagree.

Indeed, but that is not what was asserted and described as "daft", was it? Security of the exams was not the issue, the "daft" remark related to your false statement that the UNN LLM competencies were not examined, when clearly, by any definition, they were and are examined. There are 6 required research papers of 4,000 words and a 20,000 word dissertation, in each LLM program. To say there is no exam is untrue and not very sensible, is it? Isn't that the very definition of "daft", as in: silly; foolish?

 

Once more with feeling

Lawrie

By 'exams' I mean and always mean prior unsighted, closed book, 3 hour (or some other timed period) examination in a quiet room that is invigilated, the attendees identified and the usual security regulations applied.

I do not consider any form of assessment as an 'exam', nor does it warrant you stretching the meaning I have always applied on this Board to mean the more general word 'examination'. Given my constant use of this terminology I realised from your last diatribe where this confusion has arisen in your mind. Mea culpa, etc.

Hence, by 'no exams' at all I mean (and meant!) that assignments at a distance (sent in by people studying away from the campus, unknown to and unsighted by) was not an 'exam' as far as I am concerned. The grader may 'examine' the assignment, may 'assess' it, may give it a grade but because of the distance element, the grader cannot be sure to same degree of security that the person whose name is on the cover was the person who wrote, prepared, pasted and compiled the assignment. That makes security relevant and very relevant to my point. The provenance of the 'examined' work is in doubt and across hundreds - thousands in the case of an institution with which I am familiar - that does not constitute an 'exam' within the meaning of the words used in my contribution (as lawyers might say).

You say that because essays and projects are 'examined' by graders, the presumption is it that their authors are who they say they are (presumably unless proven otherwise). If the authorship can be in doubt the grader has not examined the alleged 'authors' work. You disagree. Once a scandal hits the place, it is too late to claw back the reputation of the institution and the worth of their past assessments. In distance learning this is a serious problem. I prefer to avoid it. If this means that certain subjects (advanced law may be one) do not lend them self to long distance exams then making the exam regime fit the subject at the cost of compromising the provenance of the 'examined' material is not worth the risk.

You disagree, fine. I think I can live with that. But for me, 'no exams says it all', not about the worth of the subject, or the course, or the institution offering it (of which I have made no imputations), but it says it all about the vulnerability to fraud (and therefore serious doubts about) their exam regime.

 

An only remotely related rant

All of this examination talk has me thinking about the Navy's Five Vector Model for Sailor development. The Navy may stop utilizing Navy-wide exams, which have been a major determining factor of Sailors' advancements for many years. While the Five Vector Model has individuals being "tested and evaluated," Navy-wide exams for advancement will go away.

The purpose of Navy-wide exam is to rank order all qualified candidates on the basis of technical and military knowledge at the next higher pay grade. All candidates who take the exam are already fully qualified to advance. So, the exam is designed to compare candidates to each other and rank order that group based on knowledge of the rating, the ones at the top are selected for promotion. The exam score itself makes up 34% of the final multiple for PO3 and PO2 (E-4/5), 30% for PO1 (E-6), and 60% for CPO (E-7), the CPO exam is for selection board eligibility only. Chief, Senior Chief, and Master Chief (E-7/8/9) are all determined by selection board. I like the current system, by which the exam scores are an objective criterion by which all candidates (within their individual occupational fields) can be compared.

Rant over. I like the Five Vector Model, especially the plan to make recognized certifications and qualifications part of career development, but I would like to see competitive Navy-wide exams remain a major part of the advancement system.

"Using the measures of performance in the Five Vector Model, an algorithm
should be developed to rank an individual in their respective peer group and do away with the need for advancement exams, officer accession packages and special program accession packages. Individuals would be evaluated and tested throughout their career as outlined by the vector model, and documented performance would be their measure of proficiency in their respective peer/skill group. Applying this theory individuals could be promoted to the next higher pay grade based on their Peer Performance Mark (Advancement Potential) as soon as the billet opened up, with promotion and pay being synchronous.

A notional algorithm might follow the example below:

GPA – Grade Point Average
CR – Completed Requirements
PDPE – Personal Development Points Earned
AP – Actual Performance Rating
C&Q – Certification/Qualification points

[(GPA x %CR) + PDPE + (GPA x %CR) AP + C&Q points] = Vector quotient
Professional Development + Personal Development + Leadership + Cert. & Quals. = Vector quotient

ST – Sea Duty Counter (days)
TIS – Time in Service (days)
AWD – Award Points
PR – Overall Performance Mark = performance vector

[(ST/TIS) + AWDP] PR = performance factor

Vector Quotient x Performance Factor = Advancement Potential

The Vector Model would have to be able to establish this ranking on a real time basis in order for it to be functional. Being able to run this algorithm would allow an individual to gauge their performance against their peers and providing them real time feedback. This would make it an excellent counseling and mentoring tool."

https://wwwa.nko.navy.mil/portal/5vectormodelwhitepaper.doc