Interesting article .... http://www.onlinelearningmag.com/new/apr01/feature4.htm As online degrees start showing up on people’s résumés, what will the business world think of them? By Chris Jones Don’t count on seeing comedian Drew Carey’s picture on online university marketing materials anytime soon. The ABC improv host opened his Jan. 25 show saying, "Welcome to ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway,’ the show where everything is made up and the points don’t matter — just like a degree from an online university." The audience roared with laughter. Presumably, graduates, instructors and deans at online universities roared with something else. If it’s true, as 19th century French author Charles Baudelaire once said, that laughter comes from a notion of superiority, do Carey’s comments spell trouble for graduates of online programs? Think of it. You labor for years earning your degree from an institution recognized by an accrediting board for its academic rigor, only to have a hiring manager, not to mention the general public, look at your résumé and say, "Where’d you get that degree, out of a Cracker Jack box?" "The bad guys have really muddied the water for the good guys," says John Bear, an educational consultant for Degree.net in Berkeley, Calif., and author of Bear’s Guide to Earning Degrees Non-traditionally. The 2001 edition lists 481 "diploma mills" — companies that will give you a degree in anything for the right price. "The fake degree industry is about a $200 million a year industry," says Bear. And the challenge of how to recognize fake degrees is something hiring managers are facing more and more. Bear recently searched Monster.com, a leading online job bank, to find out how many résumés listed degrees from diploma mills. "The search engine stops at 500, and almost every bad school that I put in had 500-plus hits," he says. Furthermore, Bear says, some HR departments are "pretty much clueless" about the existence of diploma mills and the fact that they may be hiring "graduates" of these schools. ...continued at: http://www.onlinelearningmag.com/new/apr01/feature4.htm
hmmm...good reason for taking your course from a school that not only offers degrees via DL or online, but also has a few bricks and some tradition to stand on. Normally, such degrees do not have a note saying that they were earned via online courses. And there is really no need to mention that the degree was earned as a distance student. At least such an approach is necessary until the public realizes that not all degrees earned online are fake degrees. It is important that the public is educated as to how to differentiate a degree mill or fake degree from a genuine one. The most important community to be targeted should be recruiters and HR departements Good grief! these people should know their stuff!!
Quite true. Unfortunately, many hold stereo types about "mail order" degrees which they misapply with a sweeping stroke. So few realize how many schools engage in DE (eg. Duke University, Harvard). I have mentioned before on AED that reactions from two traditional & young Ph.D.s to the idea of a nontraditonal Ph.D. bordered on disgust. One said "Ohh, so you basically buy a degree". The other just expressed disbelief that such a thing was possible and seemed appalled. There is a ways to go with educating people. However, as you said if you graduate from a traditional school with DE, many won't know. The fact is that many will not know that you graduated from a school with a non traditonal degree and no bricks as long as the name sounds good. North
