DL Reviews Website

A couple of questions here.

1. Do you plan on adding the option of "India" for "Location" under "Add A School"? India follows the British system of dissertation-only doctorates.

2. Do you have plans to add Business Quantitative Methods, Homeland Security, and Sports Management to your list of possible majors? (Also, Public Administration should also be under Social Sciences next to Political Science as well as under Business Administration.)

 

And what about for countries put OTHER after all there are schools all over the world.

As for accreditation why limit the field to just accredited schools or their equivalent there are decent unaccredited schools and non-degree programs. We should not limit this to higher education of there is a decent program by distance learning why not include it? After all isn't learning a career a good and worthwhile goal as well?

I just point out that site should cover any school with DL or correspondance.

 

1. Of course. I guess the reason I hadn't thought about that is that I am a foreign language illiterate so I only thought about English-speaking countries with dl.

2. Well, the problem there becomes identifying and defining "decent" unaccredited. Now, yes, there are unaccredited schools that allow one to take the California Bar Exam and the state licensure exam in psychology with their degrees, but, if unaccredited schools are to be posted, how does one prevent the board from being flooded with degree mills?

3. Of course not! We should include dl high schools and even dl elementary schools!

 

...and nursery schools! Unaccredited nursery schools, by golly! But not crayon-and-paste mills.

 

My point is where best to bring them out into the open if a mill is a mill then post it, let people comment on it and bring it out into the open. Any life experience based degree that does actually show some initiantive to check on such experience and the like should clearly be given a fair chance as well.

And did you not state the other site was to be unbiased and open then aren't you therefore by not allowing any school that offers a DL program, including legitimate trade and training schools acting in a biased way? Seems as a critic you are picking sides here. For example lets say someone goes to a distance school learning Flower Arranging getting a diploma and the school is legal but not accredited (because its not that sort of program) that is still DL.

If your concerned just have a section for unaccredited schools and unaccredited colleges that would leve a place for them both.

 

Okay, thomaskolter, I'm just a dude that posts schools/programs at OnlineDegreeReviews.org, just like I'm just a dude that posts sometimes schools/programs, sometimes other things to degreeinfo.com, so the decision's not mine, that's up to Steve9. But I did note that, on another thread, the inclusion of unaccredited schools would open things up to the possible posting of out-and-out degree mills (with their owners/shills being able to give themselves rave reviews) unless the owner(s)/moderator(s) of the board knew of some way to screen out the mills, but, sure, good unaccredited schools should be posted, if there were some reliable means of knowing exactly where to draw the line between the good unaccredited schools and the mills.

 

I just pointed out his site on the top says Unbiased Online Degree Reviews and he is automatically putting in a biase. And who said good unaccredited schools should be the only ones I don't care if a degree seller gets listed and trashed its a matter of fairness. Either he's unbiased or biased but don't advertise falsely.But where better to bring out programs to the light and shake them around?

 

Basically, anytime you own your own business, be that having a website that helps people find the distance learning programs they need (like Chip's degreeinfo.com or Steve9's OnlineDegreeReviews.org) or any other business, one of your primary concerns is going to be seeing to it that your business builds/maintains a good reputation and, as such, certain decisions need to be made. If I were doing my own distance learning website (which I'm not, because I'm just not computer-smart enough to do all those technical things, so I settle for participating in other people's distance learning boards), I'd be concerned to see to it that the site not become infested with mill shills. I'm not sure that Steve9's site doesn't allow good unaccredited schools; you might go ask him yourself. But, like I say, you would need some way of knowing where to draw the lline between the good unaccredited schools and the bad unaccredited schools. I don't think it is ever possible to be totally unbiased, though one could simply announce one's biases up front and then allow one's audience to know what they might wish to take magna cum granis salis (with a large grain of salt). Now, the descriptions of the schools seem to be as straightforward and factual as possible, but the individual reviewers are going to have their own biases one way or the other.

 

I just pointed out his site on the top says Unbiased Online Degree Reviews and he is automatically putting in a biase. And who said good unaccredited schools should be the only ones I don't care if a degree seller gets listed and trashed its a matter of fairness. Either he's unbiased or biased but don't advertise falsely.But where better to bring out programs to the light and shake them around?

Basically he wants to limit the CHOICES for submitted unbiased reviews to accredited schools only. Not a problem IMO.

And who said good unaccredited schools should be the only ones

It appears the "self financed" site owner did..

Either he's unbiased or biased but don't advertise falsely.

Again, his choice. If he built a site about talking about cars, should he include EVERY type of car on his website? Of course not.. You seem to be taking this personally for some reason, why???

BTW, there is enough room out there in Cyber Space for another educational type website, become a webmaster!

 

Steve9: How long does it take from the time an individual adds/suggests a school/program till that school/program actually materializes on your board? Some of the schools/programs I have added/suggested have materialized on your board, while others have not.

 

Have not seen him in a while, hummmm..

 

Apologies!

My apologies for not monitoring this thread over the past few days. I thought I had it set so that I would be alerted to any replies, but obviously I didn't.

I'll do my best to answer each question. From my brief scan it looks like there has been some interesting discussion in my absense.

Steve

 

Hi Ted,

1. Yes, I think more countries should be added to the list. It is not my intention to limit the site to schools in particular countries. So India should definitely be on the list. I have been adding countries as people suggest them.

2. Deciding on the subject categories and sub-categories (types of majors) has been a challenge at times. I don't want too many majors or too few. Or have duplication of categories that may confuse people. Having said that, I think adding Sports Managment and Homeland Security categories is an excellent suggestion as these seem to be popular degrees. I'm not sure how common Business Quantitative Methods majors are, but I'll look into it.

 

Thomas,

Adding an "Other" country to the list is a good idea. The most common countries that have several colleges that offer DL programs will get listed, but those countries with just one or two schools will be categories as "Other."

It is not my intention to limit the website to accredited schools only. I agree with you that there are very legitimate schools offering valueable DL programs that may not be accredited and should not be excluded because of that. Degree mills are another topic that I'll discuss in a separate post.

However, I am limiting the site to higher education or post-secondary programs only. By that I mean I will not include k-12 DL programs. As the name of the website indicates, it is primarily for degree type programs (bachelor, masters, PhD) but I also include certificates.

The website can't be all things to all people, and it has to have some focus otherwise it risks not being useful to anyone. I am happy to include DL non-accredited and non-degree programs that are legitimate and valuable to people, but the focus of the website is on online degree programs.

Someone interested in k-12 DL programs asked me to include them on the website, but my feeling is that another website would better serve that community.

 

Sounds like an opportunity for someone...

 

Okay, I had noticed that you had Psychology under both Health and Social Sciences, and both the categories "Health/Psychology" and "Social Sciences/Psychology" seemed to have the same schools listed. On Q Meth, you might ask a more quantitatively inclined business major if Q Meth and Business Statistics are considered the same or no. By the way, the seems to be no category for Philosophy, neither under Humanities nor under Social Sciences.

 

Yes, psychology is an example of a major that is listed under two subjects (Health and Social Sciences). The same thing could be done for other majors where appropriate, like the examples you gave.

You're right, I missed Philosophy! I'll add that subject. Now, is that a "Social Science" or an "Arts and Hummanities"?

 

Good question. Ideally, it will usually take one or two days. However, right now probably about one week since people have been contributing so much and there is a bit of a backlog. New reviews are always a priority since I think they're the most valuable part of the website. Then I work on the schools and programs. Schools/programs that have all the information provided (descriptions, links, accreditation, etc.) require less work so they may be approved first.

The past week has been unusual in that the article by eSchool News and discussion in this forum resulted in a lot of new visitor and contributions to the site. That's a good thing but the backlog has meant a longer delay approving contributions then I would have liked. It should just be temporary situation.

There have been a lot of good questions in this thread, so I plan to add them to the website FAQ as I'm sure others are wondering the same thing.

 

It could be either. My undergrad institution, Western State College, housed Philosophy in the Division of Social Sciences, while one of the grad programs I attempted (but did not finish), California State University Dominguez Hills, houses Philosophy in their Humanities Program. So it could work either way.

 

Does the category "Certificates" differentiate between undergraduate certificates and graduate certificates?