AOAA: Association for Online Academic Accreditation

Subject: Re: AOAA
Newsgroups: alt.education.distance
From: [email protected] (Mark Israel)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 10 May 2003 23:06:48 GMT

In article <[email protected]>, ATT <[email protected]> wrote:

> Is the "Association for Online Academic Accreditation" a meaningful
> or a bogus accreditation agency?

This one is so new that search engines barely know about it. I had to make a lucky guess to find the URL: http://www.aoaa.org . I must admit, it's a nice Website.

Accreditors in the US are recognised by the US Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/accreditation/natlagencies.html . You won't find AOAA there. In all other countries, universities are approved by their national governments. There are no recognised "global accreditors" of universities.

> They are used by a number of "questionable" schools,

The only Google reference I found was Sterling University, http://www.sterlingedu.net/acc.htm , which says: "Sterling University is approved and accredited by the Government of Liberia and it's [sic] Ministry of Education. Sterling University has also met the requirements and approval for accreditation by AOAA, the Association for Online Academic Accreditation."

Apparently these "Liberian-accredited universities" are starting to admit that "Liberian accreditation" isn't enough.

> but their web site lists a number of well known foreign
> universities as being accredited by them ( University of Ankara, University
> of Oslo, etc...). Of course, these may be bogus lists as well.

"Some new ones have adopted the clever idea of bestowing their accreditation on some major universities, quite possibly unbeknownst to those schools. Then they can say truthfully, but misleadingly, that they accredit such well-known schools." -- http://www.degree.net/guides/accreditation_guide.html

 

Yes, a very nicely designed web site. They obviously hired a creative webmaster to design each page.

Only one problem.......the AOAA does not have recognition in the U.S. Many of the registered members are either bogus or unaccredited.

 

Including at least five faux schools which the domain registration details indicate are probably operated by the same person or persons behind AOAA itself. AOAA's registration implies a Ripley, Mississippi home.

 

The list of members is very similar to those of GAOLEE, which was discussed here previously. Even the same misspellings!