Is a DL Doctorate a New Kind of Animal?

This is a continuation of the thread from a few days ago.

Do you believe that a DL doctorate is a new entity unto itself that has application outside of the traditional, pure research doctorates? Maybe it's sort of a "super master's degree"? Not really useful for getting a professorship but still a worthy goal? Useful in business, in DL teaching, in CC teaching and good for personal growth? If so, vote for option 1.

Or, do you believe that it's just as good as a traditional doctorate in most every way and someday it will become mainstream, with DL doctorates holders teaching at top tier universities someday? If so, vote for option 2.

Or, do you believe that it's a worthless waste of time? A ripoff of the doctoral student? A useless way of inflating a person's ego with no practical application? If so, vote for option 3.



Yes Randell, I'm playing with matches and lighter fluid again!

 

Oh boy...here we go :bigeyes: :bigeyes: :bigeyes:

 

Put on your helmet! Maybe some body armor.

 

For piss sake, really? Can't you think of any other topic to use to inflate your post count?

 

That's not inflating your post count.

THIS is inflating your post count;

 

What a kind and thoughtful response. I don't really think my post count needs inflating, but thanks for asking.

 

I was just kidding with you I hope you know.

 

Having made 3747 posts for an average posting rate of 2.51 posts per day I expect to hit 5000 posts right around my birthday in 2012. That is unless I start trying to inflate my number of posts LIKE SOME PEOPLE :lame:

As for the Doctor's original question, I'm not sure you can divide it up so simply. I think that traditional academic subjects will continue to be dominated by holders of traditional degrees. If you have a DL PhD in English Lit or History or Anthropology, etc. then you will have considerable difficulty in getting a tenured position at a Tier 1 university. At the same time, with the cost of higher education continuing to rise at an alarming rate you might see an increase in the number of PhD adjuncts teaching lower division courses thereby decreasing the number of tenured instructors that the school needs to carry. At the same time, I would expect that other subject areas might come to be dominated more by teacher/practitioners. The field of business comes to mind but also other areas such as health-related fields. Here DL PhDs might have a better shot because their experience as practitioners will count for a lot. I think that publishing will count for a lot and I think that the recent topic of tiered journals will come more into the equation. In general I think that the field of higher education has been dominated by an "old boy" system for centuries and those boys are not going to give it up easily.

 

I think it's really important to make the distinction, when discussing DL degrees, among for-profit online "universities" (ones with no campuses), for-profit universities with campuses (UoP, etc.), non-profit state universities, and non-profit private schools. Each of these types of schools offer a DL degree of some kind, though the DL doctorate is rare in the latter.

As was mentioned in the previous, ahem, discussion - DL degrees are not likely to land you a tenure track associate professor position at a school other than a community college or a for-profit school. If your goal is to be a professor, you're going to have to quit your current job, go to a school in your area full-time and put the work in to a Ph.D. with all that is required of that (teaching assistantships, research assistantships, etc.). If you are getting a doctorate to further your career, depending on the career, the DL doctorate is probably fine.

No offense, but you're deluding yourself if you think a DBA from Argosy (or similar degrees/schools) is going to get you an Associate Professor gig at State University down the street when you retire.

 

No, I didn't, so I appreciate that. :smile:

 

We are confusing DL doctorates with DL institutions. A doctorate earned by using DL from University of Manchester (top 100 in the world according to financial times) would be a resume booster and can lead University professor positions, Executive positions, etc.

DL doctorates from DL institutions can be used to boost salaries for CC teachers, full time University lecturers and might help to land professorship positions in fields that have little competition (e.g. accounting). However, I see that the vast majority of people getting them is to be able to adjunct on the side and some feel that might help them to land a teaching position after retirement. Some others do it because they plan on becoming book writers and consultants so the PhD can help to sell the image of being an expert in a field of preference.

There is a niche market for this type of degree but the explosive number of people doing it suggest me that expectations might not be so realistic for some. Many have the perception that PhDs make a lot of money so the degree would lead to automatic salary increases and better opportunities. What is scary is that I have read a lot of testimonials in other discussion groups of people claiming that they were promoted and got better jobs because of the DL PhD, this just tells me that some DL schools might be hiring people to write in logs and discussion groups just to create a perception that the PhD is an automatic salary booster.

 

Mmmmmmm. I was hoping that someone would make that suggestion. :ban:

 

I think it is somewhere in between 1 and 3. I think in many cases, it is a ripoff and a waste of time. In other cases, it is quite beneficial.

I think that the utility of the DL doctoral degree is going down, however. It's getting more expensive and the fields are getting more glutted.

IMO, the most valuable field for DL doctorates is K-12 education because it can lead to automatic pay increases and can lead to promotions fairly consistently.

 

I wouldn't count on this for future. As more people are getting the dotcom doctorates, school officials would realize that is draining their budget for little extra value. Why would you want your kinder garden teacher to hold a DBA? It is becoming a bit ridiculous.

 

I'm not sure that doctorates in education are that prevalent among classroom teachers. It's more common for administrators. For classroom teachers in my area, the bigger pay differentials come with the master's degree and the EdS (or a similar number of additional graduate hours).

A DBA wouldn't make much difference anyway, as it is a business degree, not an education degree.

 

Now this is the case, but once people realize that can get online doctorates in 3 years, this might change. My ex girl friend got her M.Ed in 3 years part time, some people might find more attractive to get a EdD than M.Ed. In the case of my ex, she already had a MA so the EdD would have made more sense as it took about the same time than online doctorates.

Believe me, once teachers realize that EdD are handed in like pancakes, they might want to get one to get the pay raise till someone stops the whole thing.

 

Perhaps, but the jump in workload from MEd to an EdD is significant. Even with a convenient online format, a dissertation is still a gargantuan task.

 

Legit EdD's are not handed out like pancakes. There is still a dissertation to write and be approved. I think few would argue that the dis is main element in a doctoral degree. A school that just fluffs off the dissertations is likely to loose their RA status. (By the way, where can I get free pancakes? I'm hungry)