DL doctorates in top universities

I have been lucky

My wife has been working on her MPA from Troy State at the same time (she's on her last class, yeah!!) so she couldn't complain too much. I am getting my doctorate from a school in SA and the cost has been way less than a stateside school ($520 for this year). A professor with a PhD from Wharton once asked when I would be going on the market. He didn't seem to look down on my school or degree. Of course, I don't expect that attitude from everyone...

 

I'm sorry, but that's just silly. Systems aren't prestigious, individual institutions are. There is not one state system in which all of its schools are prestigious. That's the whole point of a state system. Comparing UMUC and Maryland, College Park is like comparing Texas, Austin and Texas, Permian Basin, or UCLA and Cal State, Stanislas. UMUC serves a purpose in the Maryland system, but to call it prestigious is to confuse it with Maryland, College Park--unless we are using the term "prestigious" in a particularly peculiar way.

Should we determine the quality of educational institutions by taking street polls, now?

You're right, but the original point of this thread was about DL doctorates at "tier-1" institutions.

Actually, the UMUC list you cited doesn't really fulfill Tony's requirement, since it does not specify which of those listed are full-time and which are part-time. Knowing the penchant for schools using adjuncts whenever possible, I would guess (and it is just a guess, since we don't have direct evidence at this point) that many on this list are adjuncts (i.e., not full-time faculty). Which are which?

Hope this helps.



marilynd

 

Nice ellipsis. Where's your examples? Could you perhaps do 30 seconds of googling and come up with a better one? No, because you would rather offer inane criticism than do anything useful. Do you contend that DL degrees are an utter waste of time, and anyone thinking of using one to get a teaching job ought to quit right now? Or have you even given the actual topic a single thought? Or is it that you actually have no knowledge about the topic, but just enjoy talking out your back end?

 

Learned Foot (BTW, a great handle, you a lawyer perchance?)

Just chill a little, no need for the invective. UMUC's not a junk institution, it's a real, legit part of the U of Maryland system and the great majority of people polled probably would confuse it with the school at College Park--so it may have the imprimatur, to some, of being prestigious. I'm sure there are even academics who would share in the confusion.

But let's not make any mistake, there's no way that say, the Smith School at UMCP is going to be equated with the DL MBA program for non-traditional students offered by UMUC. One need only look at national rankings, publications by faculty, faculty academic qualifications, strength of incoming students, etc. to know that the former is one of the best B-schools in the U.S., while the latter is an adult-ed program. Not that there's anything wrong with that AT ALL; it's just that UMUC has a very different purpose, a different mission, and would not be considered by many knowledgeable people at all to fit the description of "prestige".

 

Re: Re: Re: Walden University

I think that prestige departments at the research universities get their prestige in large part from who they have working for them and from what those people are busy doing.

Prominent departments usually want established people who already have reputations in their field, or else they want younger contenders who show strong indications of generating a reputation both for themselves and for their employer. Departments want people with exciting ideas that mesh well with the things that the rest of the department is already busy doing.

There's actually an active trade in academic stars, who move from university to university like sports free-agents.

So I don't really think that it matters a whole lot what university's name is on a candidate's doctoral diploma. It doesn't matter very much whether the degree was earned by DL. What matters most is the work that the candidate has already done. Recommendations and publications are going to be big.

In other words, I think that the reason that many DL doctoral programs don't show very well in placing their graduates in top research university faculties has virtually nothing to do with DL. The problem is that the programs that awarded the doctorate are basically unknown in their fields and no interesting work ever seems to emerge from them.

I still say that DL doctoral programs won't truly arrive in the big-time until people in a research specialty can't stay current in their subject unless they read work that comes out of a DL program. The day needs to come when people at conferences are buzzing about the latest idea to emerge from a DL program.

It's certainly not impossible. My guess is that it will come first in the field of education, probably in the study of DL itself. Participants in a DL doctoral program might be uniquely situated to contribute to the scholarly conversation about DL.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Walden University

That's a great post; I couldn't agree more. Someone in a DL PhD program needs to step up with a unique perspective on DL or some great piece of research that causes academia's ears to buzz. DL's only going to be more of a factor as times goes on, who's more qualified to produce scholarship on this emerging field than one currently pursuing the highest level research degree via DL?

The reason it hasn't happened to date is that most of the motivated, passionate people pursuing DL research degrees who would otherwise qualify for traditional PhD programs and have the acumen to produce brilliant research are burdened with many other obligations such as family and work--that's why they're doing DL in the first place. Many other DL research degree students are not as motivated or brilliant as their B&M counterparts; they see DL as a method of getting their PhD card stamped without real sacrifice--let's not pretend that this crowd doesn't exist. It's hard to expect too much in the way of paradigm-shifting scholarship from either crowd, and my guess is that these two categories make up at least 80% of those pursuing DL PhDs.

 

I think the lack of DL graduates as professors in the highest ranked schools is endemic to DL education. DL tends to appeal to those who have time contraints due to work and family, those who are balancing a number of priorities. These people may be key practitioners, may be well respected and established within their fields, and may make noticeable and significant contributions within their respective industries but they tend not to be focused or entrenched in top-tier academics. The purpose of top-tier institutions is to produce top-tier academics which is still done traditionally in most instances.

I think it will be quite awhile before we see a leading university professor, research scientist, or Nobel laureate attribute his or her educational background to DL.

 

Prestige of state university systems

<<I'm sorry, but that's just silly... There is not one state system in which all of its schools are prestigious.>>

There's an exception. The venerable University of California System IS prestigious, as ALL of its campuses are highly regarded nationally; US News & World Report, in fact, consistently ranks EACH of its campuses among America's top undergraduate and graduate schools year after year after year.

 

Prestige of State Universities:

Arch is absolutely right regarding the prestige of state university systems. California is unique in that it has two very distinct systems, the University of California (9 campuses) and California State University (23 campuses). The UCs are designated as the research institutions, while the Cal States are comprehesive universities.

Not all state university systems are created equal; each has its "flagship" institution. Here in Illinois, it is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (which would rank somewhere in the middle of the University of California system). My institution (Northeastern) is like a Cal State.

Reasons for Lack of DL Grads Among University Profs:

I think that Bill Dayson, little fauss and Kirkland have come up with insightful reasons for the current situation. Certainly the nature of the situation that makes pursuing a DL degree necessary will also affect one's ability to pursue certain kinds of work. Universities have never been very open or progressive by nature, particularly when it comes to recruiting faculty. It amazes me how many university faculty are still relatively technologically illiterate. That, to me, is a sign of a lack of professionalism, but it is not a priority for many university departments (some of which are headed by technologically illiterate faculty). It will take some time for DL degrees to catch on, but I predict that they will.

About Faculty With DL Degrees at Prestigious Universities:

Please allow me to backtrack a little...I will be pleased to see evidence of a good number of full-time tenure-track faculty at plain ol' state universities (such as my own). I applaud those who are using our friend, Mr. Google, to locate faculty with doctorates from Walden, Capella, etc. This is a great service--keep up the good work. If it helps bring good, talented scholars and researchers to these schools, then we will see a greater representation among university faculty. Who knows, in a few years, we may have that Harvard prof with a DL doc.

Tony Pina
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

Point taken. I was going to list the Cal system as the exception, but then I counted the Cal and Cal State schools as one system--wrongly as it turned out.

The one exeption, however, proves the rule.

BTW, I agree that Tony, Bill Dayson, little fauss, and Kirkland are precisely on point on this issue.

marilynd

 

Rankings misleading...

The University of Illinois is ranked behind 3 schools in the University of California System. However, 2 of those schools really only benefit from the fact they are in California and it is the state that is the lure. A look at the schools within the university will show that Illinois' individual programs rate far higher than UC-San Diego or even UCLA and none of them have the number Nobel Laureates and Academy of Science members that UofI has. Problem with UIUC is no one wants to spend 4 years in Champagne-Urbana unless you are committed to a specific program. I avoid the place like the plague and I live in central Illinois. That is one of the problems with using the method that USN&WR uses to rank the schools. Kids want to go to school in California so they apply there in droves, the state schools turn them down in droves and that boosts them in the rankings. A friend of mines daughter wanted to go so bad she decided to go to a community college in California and transfer later a UC school. Rankings aren't all they're cracked up to be.

 

Re: Rankings misleading...

Rankings can be perfectly absurd sometimes; the methodology can be frightful, and I understand your desire to downplay the admit percentage due to the problems that you mentioned. You have to admit, though, if a given school is particularly popular for any reason whatsoever--even the climate--and many more students apply, it does enable the institution to be more selective and have--at least in theory--a more qualified entering class.

If I fill a university with nothing but Nobel laureate profs, but it happens to be located in Siberia and only a handful of dolts are willing to matriculate there, that's going to influence the quality of the education. Rubbing shoulders with great peers is perhaps as much a benefit as studying under a great mentor. It may not be fair, but the UC schools actually do become a bit better due to the sheer numbers of applications.

I'll side with you on this, though: the quality of faculty is seldom given its proper emphasis in rankings (except indirectly through the reputation ratings by polling other schools' academics). Too often, admit percentages, incoming GPA and other easily-manipulated factors such as post-graduation salary are given too much weight. This results in atrocious anomolies.

Examp: USN's B-school rankings place the University of Central Florida at #77. Now, nothing against UCF per se, they're an accredited, legit program, but top 80 when there are about 700 programs nationwide? You take a look at the numbers and it doesn't add up. What could've driven that ranking? Then you see the answer--the avg salary post-graduation: $86,000 (a round number; hmmm...interesting). As you look at the list, you see that with the sole exception of UConn (Connecticut has I believe the highest avg salary in the U.S.), you have to leapfrog past 50 programs all the way up to Purdue's reknowned Krannert School, which is just marginally higher than UCF. In fact, UCF published an avg starting salary higher than Carnegie Mellon and USC, and only a bit under Yale! Manipulation? You bet.

 

Re: Rankings misleading...

Rankings can be perfectly absurd sometimes; the methodology can be frightful, and I understand your desire to downplay the admit percentage factor. You have to admit, though, if a given school is particularly popular for any reason whatsoever--even the climate--and many more students apply, it does enable the institution to be more selective and have--at least in theory--a more qualified entering class.

If I fill a university with nothing but Nobel laureate profs, but it happens to be located in Siberia and only a handful of dolts are willing to matriculate there, that diminishes the quality of the education. Rubbing shoulders with great peers is perhaps as much a benefit as studying under a great mentor. It may not be fair, but the UC schools actually do become a bit better due to the sheer number of applications.

I'll side with you on this, though: the quality of faculty is seldom given its proper emphasis in rankings (except indirectly through the reputation ratings by polling other schools' academics). Too often, admit percentages, incoming GPA and other easily-manipulated factors such as post-graduation salary are given too much weight. This results in atrocious anomolies.

Examp: USN's B-school rankings place the University of Central Florida at #77. Now, nothing against UCF per se, they're an accredited, legit program, but top 80 when there are about 700 programs nationwide? You take a look at the numbers and it doesn't add up. What could've driven that ranking? Then you see the answer--the avg salary post-graduation: $86,000 (a round number, hmmm...interesting). As you look at the list, you see that with the sole exception of UConn (Connecticut has I believe the highest avg salary in the U.S.), you have to leapfrog past 50 programs all the way up to Purdue's reknowned Krannert School at #27 to find a higher avg salary! In fact, UCF published an avg starting salary higher than Carnegie Mellon and USC, and only a couple percent less than Yale!

Manipulation? You bet.

 

Re: Rankings misleading...

Personally, I consider the U. of Illinois to be one of the best research universities in the United States, and it's certainly comparable to any University of California, including Berkeley. I don't want to get into a fruitless argument about whether Illinois is "better" or "worse" than this or that UC.

But if you are suggesting that UCLA and UCSD are second rate schools that somehow coast along as free-riders on California's mild climate or something, then I disagree.

Here's some information about UC San Diego:

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/about/index.asp

 

The problem with the rubbing shoulders thing is...

that when you get to the upper groups of schools the average varies only by a few points. This makes the difference almost meaningless. Also, UIUC predominately uses tha ACT and UC predominently uses the SAT which further confuses things.

The Atlantic Monthly just had a scathing article on a recent graduates undergraduate experience at Harvard. Ouch....

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200503/douthat

Granted this can be the experience at a lot of schools.

 

Re: Re: Rankings misleading...

Just so DTechBA doesn't get the wrong idea and get the notion I think little of UI, I think that UI is right there with the UC schools also, certainly UCLA, Davis, et. al, but I would make a sole exception for Berkeley, that's probably the #1 public in the U.S. (or #2 behind Michigan, depending on your field).

 

Rankings, such as those developed by U.S. News & World Report can be a useful tools, as long as one realizes that there are many other useful tools (such as other rankings) and that one should never utilize a publication's school ranking system as the only indicator of quality.

U of I Urbana-Champaign is a top level school, so is UCLA and so is Berkeley (and a host of others). The U.S. News rankings as published annaully in the popular "America's Best Colleges" edition is not very useful to those seeking masters or doctoral degrees, since "ABC" only collects data on undergraduate admissions and programs. I have been less impressed by their "Best Graduate Colleges" edition (which sells far less issues), since many schools are left out and it only highlights a few programs. At the graduate level, the quality of the specific academic program or department can be far more important than the overall ranking of the school itself.

In my discipline (instructional technology), the programs that are considered the most influential include programs from all of the USNWR "tiers". As the University of South Alabama was able to lure some of the top faculty in the field to its Instrucitonal Design and Development program, this "tier 4" school has become a major player in the field. Nova Southeastern has some faculty in its Instrucitonal Technology & Distance Learning program who are very influential in the field (including editing some of the major distance learning journals).

Since U.S. News has a history of excluding many D.L. and non-traditional programs, its usefulness as a source is limited even further. Thank goodness for Bears' Guide

Tony Pina
Coordinator of Learning Technologies
Northeastern Illinois University

 

I agree. As you imply, the profs as well as the department can be much more important than the school in a particular field. If a particularly oft-cited Hotshot Prof in a specified field is tenured faculty at Podunk U, and you wish to do research in that field and teach at the university level later on, you can be better off with a PhD at Podunk and a few peer-reviewed articles that are co-authored by Hotshot Prof than with a PhD from an Ivy League school.

Example from my field: The University of Florida has a respectable law school and overall they're a solid state school, but they're not exactly Harvard--they're not even ranked in the top 40. But who would know that if you want to get a specialized LL.M. degree in taxation, it's arguably the best program in the world?

A degree from a prestige university might impress your aunt Mildred, but there are times where a degree from a lesser-known school will impress the people that count--the ones doing the hiring.

 

<<Rankings, such as those developed by U.S. News & World Report can be a useful tools, as long as one realizes that there are many other useful tools (such as other rankings) and that one should never utilize a publication's school ranking system as the only indicator of quality.>>

That's true; rankings can really be helpful when one is aware of both their limitations and usefulness, and if they're used alongside other means of asssessing quality. Publication records or journal citations, exam passing rates*, and number of employers that recruit on campus could also help in the assessment, as could other factors such as prominence and success of alumni -- although alumni outcome could really be a function of each graduate's personality and perseverance, rather than from where s/he earned his/her degree.

More than quality, however, I would give those factors related to MY needs and goals as a student greater importance. Even if Harvard, for instance, had hands-down the best program in my field on the entire planet, if my situation doesn't allow me to move to Cambridge, MA, and the school doesn't exert any effort to reach out to potential students not living in the area, or if the school is so behind and low-tech in educational innovation that it can't even provide any distance learning arrangements for potentially good candidates despite the fact that we're already in the 21st century, I would totally ignore that school. In all cases, I believe that it should be "what's best out there" matching "what's best for ME, THE STUDENT."

-----

*MBA students might want to check out schools that have produced passers in the Certified MBA exam (http://www.certifiedmba.com/directory/CMBA_directory.pdf). Interestingly, according to the organizers, the list of schools of successful exam-takers shows proof that "delivering the goods" isn't something exclusive to top-ranked programs (http://www.certifiedmba.com/press/ACMBA%20Newsletter%20Volume%201,%20Issue%202.2.pdf).

 

National Research Universities

The problem with ranking national research universities is that you are talking about huge schools with dozens of programs. UIUC is very strong in engineeering and accounting. Berkley and UCLA will have other strengths. My daughters career field has not a single "elite" school in the top five. The one considered the best is the University of Tennessee and it has a lower acceptance rate to its graduate program in forensic anthropology than Harvard Business school has for their MBA. Another at close second is the University of New Mexico and I think USN&WR ranks them overall at tier 3 or 4.

When you start talking about the state schools, most have a requirement to limit admissions of out of state students. This inevitably acts to lower their statistics a bit. Granted it is only a bit but when you talk about the best schools they only differ minimally so that little bit counts a lot. Another thing that hurts them with USN&WR is their value rating. They are rated based on their out of state tuition rates and as state schools they have less private financial aid to give. This doesn't mean anything to the bulk of their students which are in state but costs them in the final ratings.

Point is, the rankings are only a guide. An anecdotal story to show just how flawed people have started to view them. We visited Eastern Illinois University a few years ago on a prescheduled visitation day right after the most recent rankings from USN&WR had been released. EIU had just moved up into the first tier for the Midwest region. They had 3 times the number of visitors than they had expected and most of them appeared to be from the Chicago area, most likely because of the new ranking. EIU had always been a solid school school but was it better than 3 weeks earlier?