PhD by publication - Has anyone ever actually gotten one?

There few Latin American schools offering PhDs by publication including Azteca and UCN, the issue seems to be utility of such degrees. I recall few people with PhDs from empresarial in Costa Rica working as online adjuncts, I don't know if UCN and Azteca are at the same league as Empresarial but my guess is that a PhD from these schools would add little value to a resume other than perhaps being eligible to teach as an adjunct.

 

In all fairness, this is true for any PhD program (except maybe in Accounting and Finance) from non-top schools. I am an on-line adjunct with a B&M US degree (not the same situation I realize; other graduates of my school do find full-time jobs). Individual mileages can and do vary considerably.

As I recall, the issue with Empressarial is that the main school in Costa Rica is not actually authorized to offer PhDs. On the other hand, Azteca is authorized to offer a Doctorado in Education, while UCN under Nicaraguan law is autonomous and can offer anything it pleases. What casts a shadow on Azteca is their practice to "validate" some pretty weird operations.

 

I believe you've gotten that right.

 

LaFerney here

LaFerney here -Mike LaFerney not Robert and I did a doctoral degree In Psychology from UCN by published work. I wrote many schools around the world and very few were willing to do this option. The few that would allow a non-graduate of their own school to do one made it very difficult to enroll and participate. The degree from UCN was not easy. I had a Masters degree and a CAGS (30+ post Master graduate credits) plus other graduate credits so my having advanced graduate credits played a role in my acceptance. I had to complete a project (a study of transitional residential housing programs on state hospital grounds) have 5 articles published in reputable accepted publications and write a unifying paper on these. It took a little over a year. The school was responsive and helpful. I applied to 3 NACES organizations for evaluations. Two immediately evaluated my transcripts and decided the degree was equal to a regionally accredited doctoral degree in the USA. The other took 3 months to decide they couldn't decide and refunded my money.
How has this degree aided me? First I get raise at the college I teach at for having a doctoral degree rather than a M.A and a promotion from Adjunct Instructor to Adjunct professor. It allows for full membership in the APA, APS and other prestigious Psychological organizations. It would not allow me to be licensed as Psychologist -my focus was more on Social Psychology but I am already licensed in 2 other Mental Health professions (LMHC, ARPN) so I can use it to enhance my credentials.
And I have the personal satisfaction of completing it at fraction of the cost a degree in the USA would have cost. It has been accepted and validated.
So it can be done. I'm happy with my UCN degree. It meets my needs. While it might be seen as unremarkable I found the opportunity it gave me to be quite remarkable!

 

My experience was similar, the few that were open to this asked for money upfront for an evaluation with no guarantee of admission.
Although the programs exist, they are not really open for your average person. These programs seem to be created to provide PhD options for either faculty or graduates. The main challenge is admission, you need to convince the prospect university that your publications are worth a PhD and this might be a tough call in particular at schools at the caliber of Warwick.

UCN is not Harvard but I agree that a PhD is better than no PhD. For people looking for this option, be ready to send at least ten applications and get a lot of rejections before you find a school that is willing to take you. Be ready for few trips and at least one year of extra work.

 

It looks like some Chinese professors are using this PhD for faculty positions:

About Professors-Faculty of Business - City University of Macau

At least one professor uses the UCN PhD for a faculty position:
https://www.gbc.edu/faculty/shaffner
http://www.nlp-nielsen.de/cv-nielsen/Scientific-Curriculum-Vitae-Nandana-Nielsen-english.pdf

 

Thanks for sharing your story, Dr. Mike. It's truly inspirational!

I think clearly, this is a textbook example of sound research to make sure the degree "will meet current and anticipated future needs" of the student. Well done!

I am not surprised someone uses UCN doctorates for faculty work; it's accredited after all (and there are a few professors coming from even low-ranking schools, including for-profits). I'm surprised we can't find at least one or two tenure-track prof at some smaller RA institution, actually. This degree will not be particularly well-received by traditional academia, but then it's in a good company. You should go to the Chronicle forum and marvel at some of the hate-ons they had for, say, Union, not mentioning DeVry or Phoenix. UCN may fare better because it's relatively obscure.

I still wish Dr. McGee would share some of his exploits. I mean, if doctoral programs at Tartu are truly free and truly can be done by distance, wow! It's like the perfect replacement for free Scandinavian programs now that they're gone (Estonia is a small country bordering Finland, so it works even geography-wise). It is not clear if that was truly distance, as Dr. McGee worked as a consultant in Eastern Europe for some large NGO (World Bank? EBRD?) in Eastern Europe so could conceivably be in the neighborhood. Still, fascinating.

 

I am sure there are some out of there, some schools pay as little as 40K for a tenure track position. I am sure that some out there have a hard time attracting qualified people so might be willing to hire a UCN graduate. As you said, some are hiring UoP, NCU, etc graduates so why not UCN.

 

I got to ask, why do you think someone with UVN doctorate by publication would not be qualified? As with any candidate, the school would need to look at the whole package, but I see no reason for blank rejection. Not every school is a major research university.

At one point, I interviewed for a full-time position (at a public, RA technical/community college) with posted starting pay of $27K. I don't remember if they had formal tenure. I was a doctoral student in a B&M, RA, ABET, large public university. I did not get it (ouch!).

 

In my experience, tenure track positions that pay well (more than 100K) are normally given to either people with PhDs from strong schools or people with strong support from key stake holders.
A PhD from UCN is not going to rule me out for sure but I would need to compensate the weak name of the school with something else (strong research, good work experience, etc.).
The reality is that if someone has strong research, most likely would be able to get a PhD from a better name school (e.g. Warwick) so my guess is that a PhD from UCN might have better chances at a teaching school that only requires a MSc or MBA and the PhD can be seen as the ice on the cake that can make a difference.

I think the degree is perfect for someone that needs the title to boost a professional practice (e.g. Psychologist) and being able to teach on the side for extra cash but not so ideal for someone looking to impress a committee for a tenure track position.

 

...and some significant (generally a minimum of 5 years) managerial experience.

Regards,

 

In my experience, TT positions that pay 100K+, on Assistant level, are few and far between. And, oh BTW, Warwick would not help land one of these either. What you appear to saying is that UVN degree is not more utile than any other low-tier degree. Well duh, sure it isn't.

As a general rule, one gets to work at a less prestigious school than the one s/he attended for the PhD. Exceptions happen - the guy I went to undergrad with landed Princeton with degree from University of Iowa. But he is a quantitative whiz with technical skills in math and computing most economists don't have. So the guy with UCN degree can hope, with luck and connections, to land a job at a no-name school. Same as the guy with Nova Southeastern doctorate, but without student debt. Of course, chances are that both are mid-career professionals who don't actually want to become Assistant Professors at Bidirectional Compass State U.

 

You will be surprised, if you browse this forum, you will find a lot of people asking if a PhD from an obscure country earned by non conventional means (e.g. publication, non residential, etc) will help to land a tenure track at a University in the US.

The typical post reads along the lines of "show me a PhD that cost less than 10K and can be completed in a year and good enough to get a tenure track or high level administration position at a good University".

Many mid career people would settle for a job that pays 150K and has summer offs for sure.

 

Like "NorthCentral" University or "California Southern" University

 

The first part of this is certainly true, there are very few junior faculty jobs that offer $100K+. A handful of disciplines offer this sort of pay, namely accounting and finance, but there are many tenured profs at large state universities with PhDs from major research universities who are making more like $50K. I'm a FT faculty member at a state university with over 20,000 students, we're a division one sports school, and one of my colleagues, who got his PhD from a Big 10 uni (and holds multiple masters from very good schools) makes only a bit over $50K, and he's been tenured for over a decade. I know a colleague at a former school where I taught, a small college, who holds two PhDs and I don't think he makes over $40K.

As for Warwick, they certainly might help one land a good tenure track job, if you could lift the whole university up and plop it down somewhere into the New England area, they'd fit right into the Ivy League. Darned elite university.

Certainly true, recently saw research on this. I also fit the bill, I attended two grad schools, both flagship state unis, both nationally-known, my doctorate from a Pac12, and here I am at a directional uni at least two levels down on the evolutionary scale.

One correction (not to you, Stanislav), I am acquainted with Dr. McGee, he got his Warwick PhD on the basis of a dissertation, not publications. He did get several other degrees by publication, however.