Louisiana Baptist University's ASIC Accreditation Noted on Website

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Garp, Sep 6, 2024.

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  1. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    LBU has again noted there ASIC Accreditation (Premier Status) on their website. I'm not sure why it briefly disappeared but it has reappeared.

    Their Wikipedia article also notes them as accredited. I suppose that is a benefit for them in that rather than noting them being unaccredited (as it was for years) it now notes the accredited status with a link to ASIC.

    While apparently not the equivalent of regional or national accreditation it is some sort of quality control entity with a system of checks and balances that is recognized by the UK government. To that ended it may bring some sort of benefit or peace of mind to graduates. I imagine there are also marketing benefits.

    https://lbu.edu/about-lbu/#accreditation

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Baptist_University
     
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    `"Accredited" has a specific meaning in the U.S. Being accredited by ASIC does not meet that standard.
     
    tadj likes this.
  3. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    I agree. It is using "accredited" in a standard dictionary sense and not in the recognized educational sense (meaningful).

    Not likely meaningful in terms of using it where "accredited" degrees are required. Meaningful or useful to the school and to graduates who want to claim their degree is accredited by a UK government recognized entity.

    Perhaps benefitting from some confusion around ASIC.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2024
  4. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Well-Known Member

    Well if Rich says it, it must be true. Here we go with the unsupported absolutizing of an entire concept despite evident organizations that buck your claim. My suspicion is that what underlies this assertion is a naive statism.
     
  5. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    What sort of utility do you understand ASIC to have in the US?
     
  6. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    For folks unfamiliar with the posters here on this forum Rich Douglas is highly respected and a recognized expert in the field.
     
  7. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Well-Known Member

    I don't think accreditation should be understood in terms of the amount of utility this or that accreditor affords. Judging from their SOA, ASIC provides quality assurance for institutions of higher learning following the same sort of evaluation practices of US-based accreditors.
     
    Garp likes this.
  8. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Which is probably where some of the confusion about it comes in terms of how exactly to assess it. It seems somewhat clear that it is not the equivalent of regional or national or programmatic accreditation as understood in the United States in that the entity is not recognized by the US Department of Education or CHEA.

    On the other hand it apparently does offer some sort of quality assurance assessment ostensibly similar to that done by US-based accrediting agencies which are also private. It also has some limited UK government recognition for its activities in the UK but not outside of the UK.
     
  9. tadj

    tadj Well-Known Member

    Michael,

    You evidently want to make an argument in favor of various alteratives to currently recognized accreditation in your country. Your own seminary seems to be experimenting with such alternatives. Forge Theological Seminary’s Facebook page states: “We have lots of good news! 1. FTS has achieved full accredited membership with the ELQN! After a lengthy and arduous process through which our programs, faculty, courses, administration, and policies were evaluated, we are glad to have received this stamp of approval further confirming to our students the value of our work.” (There is also an updated statement on accreditation here: https://www.forge.education/accreditation).

    The organization’s own website (https://elqn.org/about-e-learning-quality-network/recognition-certificates/) states this: “Quality is about collaboration and sharing experiences. At ELQN, we work closely with a number of renowned organizations to enhance our expertise and collectively make the world a better place.” So, who do they collaborate with? Here are some of these collaborators: QAHE, American Accreditation Association, EAHEA, CONIES (their accredited members include: Universidad Azteca, Universidad Central de Nicaragua and even Collegium Humanum, which no longer even exists under that name after a major scandal in Poland).

    I don’t think that accreditation by ELQN or ASIC can realistically be in serious competition with institutional and programmatic accreditation in the U.S. I doubt that American recruiters have these organizations in mind when requesting a degree from an accredited institution of higher education. And that's the point.
     
  10. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Utility aside, what is your general reaction or impression when you see someone with an unaccredited degree (be it Louisiana Baptist University, Graduate Theological Foundation, or Columbia Pacific University).

    What about someone who has a PhD from an unaccredited school (eg John Gray of "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus"). Are there some unaccredited PhD programs that you give credibility to due to the rigor of their program and if so which ones?

    What criteria do you use to judge a school? Is lack of accreditation a non starter? Do you bother to dig further into the nature of the school (quality of faculty and compatibility of measures with accredited schools)?
     
  11. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    I ask the above because some accredited schools will allow people with unaccredited degrees to be admitted (even if on probation) into accredited programs. So, some accredited schools do look deeper than accredited or unaccredited. For instance, an LBU grad was admitted to an ABA accredited law school, graduated, and became a State Senator. She is only in her 30s so it wasn't that long ago.
     
  12. tadj

    tadj Well-Known Member

    When I see a PhD from one of the schools that you mentioned, I don’t immediately jump to conclusions. But I am generally unsupportive of the reasons given for unaccredited PhD acquisition. Individuals will sometimes justify their decision to earn an unaccredited PhD by cost considerations. Since many traditional doctoral programs are generously supported and financed, I don’t buy this argument. It may not be pleasant to hear that one needs to pay for the privilege of earning an online PhD outside a traditional doctoral school setting, but I don’t see this as a justification for taking an unaccredited shortcut to the highest degree. If you can’t take time off work to earn a traditional PhD and you don’t have the necessary financial resources for an online doctoral degree from an accredited institution, just don’t earn one. Academic shortcuts are the less frequently talked about reason behind the deliberate choice of unaccredited schools for one’s doctoral education. In the religious realm, it's possible to make a case for unaccredited doctorates that serve as door openers for teaching at unaccredited institutions. But I think that this is a rare career aspiration.

    Furthermore, I prefer it when unaccredited institutions openly state all the limitations associated with their status. I don’t think that seeking alternatives to institutional or programmatic recognition within their country of operations provides any real advantage to students. Therefore, I am not in favor of what Louisiana Baptist University has done with ASIC. It only muddies the waters when you see the university website display of accrediting organizations that have nothing to do with quality assurance in their country. When I see ASIC as an add-on to already existing government accreditation, I don’t see this as a big issue, perhaps just a marketing scheme. It’s the stand-alone ASIC accreditation that concerns me.

    I think there may be elements that give an unaccredited institution an edge over degree mills that also operate within this general unaccredited realm. This would include things like; academic partnerships enabling the students to receive further education at accredited institutions, transfer credit agreements with accredited entities, etc. These are much better alternatives for showcasing some level of quality than being approved by some irrelevant quality assurance body.
     
  13. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    But utility is exactly what most students want. For the vast majority of people, the point of a degree program is that it will help them professionally, whether in employment or qualifying them for further study. For those people, it would defeat the purpose to earn a degree from a school that doesn't "play by the rules", because (rightly or wrongly) that wouldn't help them reach their goal.

    Now, the rules of the game do change over time. And elbowing their way in seems to be what ASIC is trying to do if they're really living up to their standards now. But especially in academia, that change takes a long, long time.
     
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  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    A little bit of context here. When Gray did his PhD at CPU, there were almost no short-residency doctoral programs with accreditation. Additionally, California was a hotbed for innovative universities...and diploma mills. (CPU was the former, but there were concerns regarding quality control.)

    Personally, I cannot cite an example of a legitimate, unaccredited school in the U.S. awarding the PhD. Not anymore. The good ones have all gotten accreditation or have died off. (Or, in California, killed off by the state legislature.)

    I continue to maintain that there is no longer any good reason to attend an unaccredited school--other than a school on a clear accreditation track. No excuse for it, either.
     
    Bill Huffman likes this.
  15. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    "Accredited" has a generic meaning. But in the context of higher education in the U.S., claiming to be "accredited" by an institution not accredited as a degree-granting institution by an agency recognized by CHEA or the Department of Education is deceptive. The kind of thing diploma mills do.
     
  16. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I see some posts have been removed, but not this one.

    I will simply say that it didn't go unnoticed, but will not be returned in-kind.
     
  17. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    I thank the moderators for cleaning things up as best as they could. It is a difficult job especially when folks are prone to personal attacks when folks question questionable arrangements like LBU (A USA based school) claiming accreditation by ASIC (apparently some UK based entity?).

    What is ASIC? I did a Google search. Is this the same ASIC that is referenced in this thread?
    ASIC has comprehensively failed and its role should be split in two, according to long-awaited report
    https://theconversation.com/asic-has-comprehensively-failed-and-its-role-should-be-split-in-two-according-to-long-awaited-report-233668#

    Or apparently even worse this?
    "Accrediting Commission International (ACI), also known as Accrediting Commission International for Schools, Colleges, and Theological Seminaries, possibly associated with International Accrediting Commission (IAC), also known as International Accrediting Commission for Schools, Colleges and Theological Seminaries,[1][2] is an unrecognized educational accreditation corporation in the United States. It primarily accredits religious schools, including seminaries and Bible colleges, and also offers accreditation to non-U.S. schools that offer business education programs. It is on a 2009 list of accreditation mills in College and University, the journal of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrediting_Commission_International

    There are apparently a few other possibilities in the Google search list. It would seem to be concerning just because it is unclear what ASIC actually is by doing a Google search?
     
  18. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    ASIC in the link is not the UK accreditor. It is an Australian Securities and exchange entity.

    ACI is bad but also not ASIC.
     
  19. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member


    It seems it might be this one? At least the symbol matches the symbol on the LBU link in the initial post of this thread.
    Accreditation Service for International Colleges
    "As of October 2020, ASIC is based in a semi-detached (duplex) residential property at 13 Yarm Road, Stockton-on-Tees TS18 3NJ. This is also the registered address for Qisan Ltd and Rose Education Foundation Limited.[9] Its directors were Maurice and Margaret Dimmock.[6]"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accreditation_Service_for_International_Colleges

    No wonder ASIC hardly exists on the Internet. It apparently shares a semi-detached duplex where the founders reside as well as running some other apparently education organization (scam?). This appears to be a silly diploma mill like joke! LBU is looking much worse to me.
     
  20. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Michael you stated earlier in this thread the following.

    Based on the fact that the ASIC address is a residential property address, a duplex, and that Qisan Ltd (whatever that is?) is at the same address and that the Rose Education Foundation Limited (whatever that is?) is also at that same address and it's directors Maurice and Margaret Dimmock also apparently live at that address, do you still think it reasonable to assume that ASIC holds to the same quality standards as US-based accreditors? That seems like a ridiculous assertion to me based on these facts? Are you in anyway associated with LBU?
     

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