I was studying at Barnes and Noble and took it a break. To my utter surprise there was one copy of ONLINE DEGREES magazine. I quickly read the mag and I advise everyone that comes here to check it out. The best part of it was when it displayed the various skills one has when they finish an online degree such as tech-savvy and discipline. They do it in a way that you can easily incorporate the info. into your resume or to help answer KSAs(knowledge, skills, abilities). I highly recommend this mag. No, I don't work for them...lol.
Kennedy-Western U is one of ClassUSA’s "top picks!?" It's just too bad ClassesUSA gets their "top picks" based on the almighty dollar as opposed to merit... http://www.classesusa.com/featuredschools/fos/index.html
I read it last week and still have it. It is very tedious and filled with some very glaring errors. For example, Clayton College of Health is listed under some article about 30 new, exciting programs! (Click on the link in PhD2B's post above to find it. No mention that it is an unaccredited diploma mill operating in a state that fails to regulate such schools.) The article on diploma mills was terribly out of date, warning people about one school (CPU) that's been closed for years and another (Columbia State) where the proprietor is in prison. (Which the article fails to note, still putting Pellar on his yacht in Mexico.) There is an article about getting an MBA online, but the article doesn't even address AACSB accreditation! Now, regardless of where you stand on that topic (and I'm not in favor of the AACSB), it is extremely relevant. How could they leave it out? The majority of the magazine is made up of a nearly useless listing of schools that has no semblance of organization and hardly any useful information. (It's alphabetical for awhile, then it starts over without saying why. Also, degree areas are provided for each school, but not degree levels, costs, amount of residency, learning methods, etc.) Finally, the "advertorials" are a joke. They're ads, not "advertorials." Buyer beware, too, because all of that content comes from the schools. That makes them advertisements. Could some of the information in them be wrong if it comes from the schools themselves? Sure. The one from UoP says that school offers four "Ph.D." programs. UoP offers none. It does offer four doctoral programs, but none are the Ph.D. I'd expect that kind of error from a lay source, but not from the school itself (or the magazine--where were their fact-checkers?). This "magazine" is an advertisement, nothing more.
Ok. Maybe I jumped the gun on this magazine. It still gives good insight to the skills acquired by online-learning students.
Thanks Rich, you saved me a trip to the local Books-a-Million to see if they had this magazine. William
Just keep in mind that those of us discrediting the magazine (based on them recommending a known diploma mill) are only discrediting the magazine; not you. Don't hesitate to post in the future. By you posting the magazine on this forum, you could have saved someone a lot of heart ache if they had seen the magazine and assumed that the schools advertised in the magazine are all, at face value, credible.
Thanks for that. I don't take the attacks personally at all but it is good to hear such encouraging words.
Here's my two cents... I too discovered this magazine at B&N. I found it interesting too, and I also found it frustrating due to their seemingly haphazard alphabetizing (if you could even call it that). I did purchase it, and I did some internet research on the various listings, using the links provided. I did discover several regionally accredited schools that are offering previously unknown (to me) DL programs. Was it worth the money to me? Yeah... kind of. It exposed me to some programs I didn't know existed... although none of the programs were so awesome that I'm going to jump on one. Would I recommend it to others? I would definitely recommend that you hunt it down at your local bookstore and glance through it... Am I going to purchase the second issue? Maybe, maybe not. But I will definitely look it over carefully so see if there's anything of value to me! In summary, virtually everything in print has a critic or three... this magazine definitely has it's faults... the DL Programs are illogically ordered... I didn't pay any attention to the articles (because I didn't purchase it for the articles) so I'll rely on the opinions of others... but it definitely would be worth it to sit at B&N and thumb through it to see if it would have any value to you.
And my comments certainly weren't meant to demean the original poster. In fact, I highly recommend anyone reading this to get a copy of this "magazine" for yourself. It is ground-breaking, if for many wrong reasons.
