Microversity

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Rich Douglas, Aug 29, 2020.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    True. Absolutely. What I meant was:

    If an Accrediting Organization like ACICS, with its subsequent display of ineptness could obtain recognition, lose its mandate and then get it back - then anybody should be able to get recognition of any accrediting org. they want to set up. .

    Examples of ineptness, as I see it include

    (1) Accreditation of that visa mill or whatever it was, i.e. Si Tanka U. that became Reagan National U. in South Dakota, owned by a Chinese businessman and "International Man of Mystery Schools"

    (2) Accreditation of entire chains of schools that tanked, etc. Where were the ACICS inspectors when things started to go south at Corinthian?

    Just my little joke at ACICS expense. Hardly worth explaining, but I felt I should.

    Chain, chain, chain
    (Chain, chain, chain)
    Chain, chain, chain
    (Chain, chain, chain)
    Chain, chain, chain
    (Chain, chain, chain)
    Chain of Schools...

    For three long years
    I went to that school
    But I found out
    I'm just a penniless fool

    You got me where you want me
    I ain't nothin' but your fool
    Ya treated me mean
    Oh you treated me cruel

    Chain, chain, chain
    (Chain, chain, chain)
    Chain of Schools...

    (Apologies to the Divine Ms. Aretha Franklin - 'Miss Ree,' you are dearly loved and sorely missed.)
     
    felderga likes this.
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    ACICS got in over its head when it began accrediting degree-granting institutions. This could have happened to DEAC, but they seem to have been more rigorous and they stayed smaller. Still, they made some pretty huge mistakes as well.
     
  3. Johann766

    Johann766 Active Member

    Any progress on this Microversity project :D?

    I´d also love to try the following idea:
    aquire a franchise right from a low-ranked private institution of higher education in the European Union.
    Develop a mostly-automated study programm in Business Administration that leads to a "titulo propio" Bachelor certificate.
    Offer it on Groupon for less than 1000 Dollars.

    Basically the same like ENEB is doing, just with a Bachelor instead of a Master.
     
  4. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    It will be much more difficult to do and won't be automated unless you make it entirely multiple-choice based. Otherwise, with papers involved, there is a big difference in scale between 10-11 courses for a Master's vs. up to 40 for a Bachelor's. It will require much more personnel to read and grade papers and return them in a timely manner. Then you'll need to be able to handle disputes for all of those classes, so that's another workload. Then tack on registration and credit transfers which will require another team of people to work on that (University of the People went without allowing transfer credit for years because they didn't have the infrastructure to handle it at the time), and then you have to have people who can verify data and award degrees to graduates like ENEB does manually. The last part may be able to be automated but it will require something custom that can transfer student data to the degree document.
     
  5. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    All your objections are contingent on the concept that he’s trying to build a real legitimate educational institution! If the the goal is simply to make Mayweather money... you can off load that busy work to India or simply ignore it all! Never doubt the ingenuity that can occur when money’s on the table and neither accredidation or long term sustainability are of concern!
     
    innen_oda likes this.
  6. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    LOL! Well, I assume Johann766 is not a scammer.

    I actually took the outsourcing approach into consideration with that post. Outsourcing is being done by plenty of legitimate schools as some grow way too large to be able to handle it all in-house, we just don't know for sure of all of the schools actually doing it but we can surmise that independent study and competency-based programs are prime. To pull off a program that large (roughly 40 classes), he'd have to outsource something.

    Now, if he went with an entirely exam-based route, it could be almost fully automated. He could also make papers peer-graded. Then he'd just need people to handle credit transfers and transcript duties, and there are companies out there to take care of that.
     
  7. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Ha, I’d assume he wasn’t also. Post was more in jest, as a good portion of these types of ventures really seem to be about generating cash flow.
     
  8. Johann766

    Johann766 Active Member

    You're perfectly right, there are many steps to realise such a project. Since I don't have any experience in the academic sector apart from being a student myself this will probably stay a dream.

    However it would be exciting for me to work on a low-threshold, cheap, self-paced, flexible in terms of time study program.

    I guess there is already a lot of study material out there so it wouldn't be necessary to develop a completely new method of teaching and learning with new content.

    I don't understand why Eneb isn't offering Bachelor and doctoral certificates too...
     
  9. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    It's a matter of cost and personnel levels. They already struggle to award their degrees in a timely manner when a person graduates due to the amount of students they have. A Doctoral program would be double their current per program workload. Add a 4-year Bachelor's degree and that would be about 4 times their current amount. All of that means paying to hire more staff to handle it all.

    A propio Doctoral program from ENEB is unlikely to ever happen because it would be useless in Spain and I'm not even sure it would be legal there since I believe Doctorates there have to be official (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) or at least they wouldn't be accepted by anyone there, and because of that I don't think Isabel could certify it. Isabel itself doesn't even award Doctorates. Could ENEB just offer it themselves without certification to Americans and other countries outside Spain? Maybe, but I would advise people against a propio not certified by an accredited University. I don't see a positive evaluation coming from that, and I only mention that for those who would be looking to get an evaluation.

    Maybe they could get by doing just one Bachelor's program and one Doctoral program instead of having as many of those as they do Master's programs, but still, there is a cost to it as I've pointed out, and utility issues with a propio Doctorate.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2021
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    No degree title is as stupid as "Juris Doctor". That one is so embarrassing they have to hide it behind Latin. Anyway, is a "microuniversity" for very tiny students?
     
    Charles Fout likes this.
  11. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    ENEB doesn't but you may be able to find another Spanish school offering own-degrees at the Bachelor level. For instance, this school has both a titulo propio and an official degree at the bachelor level: https://www.facultadseut.org/es/titulaciones-seut But you would need to feel comfortable in Spanish to get a degree like this.
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    As an aside, I received my LL.B degree, (cleverly disguised as a bed-sheet sized Juris Doctor diploma), 35 years ago this month from the University of New Mexico. Wow. It's been a long ride.:)
     
  13. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

  14. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    I was about to ask what would be the point of doing a Bachelors that is Propio but just like the Masters Propio, courses could be transferred into a school that would accept Propio after a foreign evaluation. I"m sure TESU and Excelsior would accept these credits. Also Doctorates that are Propio do exist in several countries but not in Spain.
     
  15. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    I believe the Azteca Doctorates from Mexico that are not registered with the RVOE would fall under that designation. I've never been sure if they offer them to everyone including people living in Mexico like a propio is offered to everyone in Spain, or if them not being registered with the RVOE makes them not legal in Mexico and they can only offer them to international students? I really wonder how they would shake out in a foreign credential evaluation, too.
     
  16. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    This is the reason why Azteca is blacklisted because the outcome of a foreign evaluation would be ambiguous due to the mix of RVOE and non-RVOE programs as well as their partnership with UCN. I'm actually working on a PhD in Education which is Propio but will also be issued the UCN PhD in Education as validation. If I choose I can pick one of the progressive evaluators, ie Spantran or IEE and they would give me the regional accredited PhD equivalency based on the UCN diploma. I think most if not all programs at Azteca that are non-RVOE will likely have the UCN validation option since UCN can issue a degree in any specialization of their choosing.
     
  17. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    I believe you posted a document from SpanTran some time ago that stated they will only evaluate propios for credit or something to that effect. ACEI has the same approach according to some info they publicly released. So far we know for Master propio degrees:

    WES - May evaluate as equivalent to U.S. non-accredited

    ECE - May evaluate as equivalent to U.S regionally accredited but possibly as a lower degree level

    ACEI - Will only evaluate for credit, possibly graduate

    SpanTran - Will only evaluate for credit, possibly graduate

    IEE - Will only evaluate for graduate credit ( https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?
    threads/iee-evaluation-of-spanish-titulos-propios-for-graduate-credit.57596/
    )

    But that's only a handful of the evaluators. That still leaves:

    A2Z Evaluations, LLC

    Academic Evaluation Services, Inc.

    Center for Applied Research, Evaluation and Education, Inc.

    Educational Perspectives, nfp

    Educational Records Evaluation Service, Inc.

    Evaluation Service, Inc.

    Foreign Academic Credential Service, Inc.

    Foundation for International Services, Inc.

    Global Credential Evaluators, Inc.

    Global Services Associates, Inc.

    International Academic Credential Evaluators, Inc.

    International Consultants of Delaware, Inc.

    International Education Research Foundation, Inc.

    Josef Silny and Associates, Inc. International Education Consultants

    Transcript Research

    I think we need someone to survey them all to see if they will give a preliminary idea of how they treat propios. May prove futile with a number of them because even with the ones we have outcomes from they tend to be very guarded and curt when just asking about this, always directing you to just get an evaluation. But all we really want to know is what their SOP is for propios in general since it's become clear that quite a few evaluators have one.
     
  18. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Keeping in mind the old adage about "fastest/cheapest/easiest", is ENEB the "easiest" propio one could complete as far as having a transcript one could submit to evaluators?
     
  19. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    That may be the reason why Universidad Isabel I / ENEB was evaluated as a Bachelors although they had 3-year Bachelors policy being equivalent to senior year here in the US through ECE. At the same time, Universidad Isabel I stated that credits from Masters Propio degrees can only be used as undergraduate credits in their programs which would be another good reason to count ENEB as a second or advanced Bachelors rather than Masters. In theory, I believe all of these evaluators are right with their results. It just depends on how it is viewed as well as previous studies. I see why evaluators don't do pre-evaluations because they may come up with different results from the same company based on the same credential. Those who have completed an official Masters who then complete an ENEB Masters might get it evaluated as graduate credit (Graduate Diploma / Certificate of sorts) rather than a Bachelors degree.
     
  20. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    If a student is good with writing papers and is good with using a lot of sourcing and visual graphics (I'm told ENEB bases its scoring on this heavily), then it might be a path with a lot of speed and very little trouble given its independent study model. For others, it may not be so smooth: I've read a lot of posts over the years here and at other boards where people discuss their dread for writing papers, part of it having to do with the amount of time it takes them, and so they're always looking for programs with the least amount of it needed. With the program's grades weighing entirely on a project-based model, it wouldn't be the right program for that type of student.
     
    Maxwell_Smart likes this.

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