polite questions to Henrik

This is a thread for polite questions addressed to Henrik Fyrst Kristensen. Could people who wish to be rude to him please use one of the other threads?

Dear Henrik,

1) You have suggested that one can assess the quality of a school by "legwork". Could you please give an example of "legwork" that would help a person assess the quality of Knightsbridge, and that would not require taking the word of Knightsbridge personnel for information?

2) Could you describe Knightsbridge's "self-validation" process? Who among your personnel assesses what, how do they decide if it's "valid", and what do they do about it if it's not?

 

Mark,

Although giddy with excitement at being able to contribute, however meagre my offerings may be considered, it is getting too late now. Bad head-cold the past few days, straining at the seams a bit.

Tomorrow morning I'll return to this very thread with a detailed response to your polite questions, valid and reasonable as they both are.


Henrik

 

Tomorrow morning

Was yesterday. Teach me to make promises when under the weather. Will be returning to the issue today, the shakes allowing.


Henrik

 

Re: Tomorrow morning

This is just a friendly and polite bump in case Henrik was having difficulty finding the thread.

 

Mark,

It's Monday, and I can finally get around to your questions. Sorry to keep you waiting.

Your questions:

QUOTE
"1) You have suggested that one can assess the quality of a school by "legwork". Could you please give an example of "legwork" that would help a person assess the quality of Knightsbridge, and that would not require taking the word of Knightsbridge personnel for information?"

What I tend to refer to as being required is 'legwork, due diligence and common sense'.

Bear in mind, please, that the type of person expressing an interest in our programmes is a mature, experienced and capable individual. We do not wish at all to cater to younger learners, and frequently direct such to other institutions.

We are dealing with people who have the wherewithal to seek information, compare it to their objectives and make decisions on that basis.

What they would establish is their objective. Next, how to reach the objective. Having set out a range of options, they seek the information necessary to enable them to reach a decision.

The questions asked are such as:

Can you accommodate research work in such-and-such?
What are the entry requirements?
Who would be my supervisor?
Can I discuss the matter with him/her prior to enrolling?
What are the topics covered by such-and-such taught programme?
How can I communicate with my tutor?

Once satisfied on this level, they would be interested in knowing what their rights and obligations as candidates would be. They would be supplied with relevant information, such as the Quality Assurance Framework document (for Research or Teaching respectively), relevant Regulation(s) pertaining the programme they'd be enrolling in, as well as any other document/information they request.

In short, it is all about the individual ensuring that the programme would suit the requirements and objectives they have established.

It is my experience that most of those enquiring with us are already very well informed, and have decided that they wish to proceed, and now they are simply trying to find out which would be the best place to pursue their objective. This means all we need do is provide information as requested, and leave the final decision up to the potential candidate.

QUOTE
"2) Could you describe Knightsbridge's "self-validation" process? Who among your personnel assesses what, how do they decide if it's "valid", and what do they do about it if it's not?"

'Self-validating' is a condition rather than a process. It means 'needing no guarantee or judgement of its validity outside of itself'.

The validation of programmes lies with involved faculty and relevant boards and committees, such as the Academic Board. The validation of internal processes and procedures rests with relevant bodies.

Once it has been established that a specific programme is suitable for inclusion in the portfolio - or, in the case of research programmes, has been accepted for candidate enrolment - it is available to the public, provided they're eligible for entry.

There are procedures in place to ensure continuous review of all programmes, and annual reports and recommendations are made to the Academic Board.

We need not ask any power or authority what they think of our programmes or procedures. Having been developed by people already doing such work in other institutions, and having been suitably processed internally, we know that all we offer is comparable to what the candidate could expect to find at a higher education institution of the UK (upon which we've modelled our offerings).

The faculty we have attached would not be interested in the affiliation if our processes, procedures and programmes were under par. Academics are very happy to point out what they perceive as shortcomings, let me assure you.

So, if the enquirer is happy with this, and does not have a need for an award with external approval, Knightsbridge could be a suitable choice.

We often provide correspondents with details of alternative institutions they could find interesting. It is then particularly gratifying to have these same people enrol with Knightsbridge just the same.

I hope this adequately addresses your points, do let me know if I can shed any more light on anything.


Henrik

 

Henrik, you touch on how the potential student typically might evaluate KU. What if someone else wished to evaluate KU like members of this forum or a potential employer?

One why of doing this might be to get a list of all the KU dissertations then picking one or two and review them. Typically the list would include a one or two paragraph abstract of each dissertation to give a better idea of the content than what just the title might give. From your previous statements, I understand that such a list is not available from KU?

Bill Dayson has suggested the Google search. This seems to generally show how connected the institution is to the academic community at large. He did some searches on some unaccredited institutions and it generated a very interesting and significant list of hits that seemed to verify that the unaccredited institutions were part of the greater academic community. A similar search on KU came up dry.

Can you think of another way?

 

Aha! Could this be the prototype of threads to come? I hope so! Thank you Mark, Henrik, et. al.

 

Bill wrote:
QUOTE
Bill Dayson has suggested the Google search. This seems to generally show how connected the institution is to the academic community at large. He did some searches on some unaccredited institutions and it generated a very interesting and significant list of hits that seemed to verify that the unaccredited institutions were part of the greater academic community. A similar search on KU came up dry.

Can you think of another way?
UNQUOTE

Given that KU works essentially on an individual mentoring basis, might I suggest that one way would be to Google the names of the senior faculty listed on the KU site to see how prominent *they* are as academics in *whatever* context.

It doesn't matter to me whether their work is done for KU, off their own bat or for another institution. The point is that essentially what KU is selling is their expertise, such as it is. If that expertise is worth tapping into, that will add value to the institution and to potential students.

In other words, perhaps KU is more akin to the idea of a university as a loosely connected community of independent scholars, who are drawn together only in as much as issues such as KU procedure and administration need to be applied, and in as much as they subscribe to the common aims and ethos of the institution.

 

It must be politely pointed out that Henrik failed to provide an answer to Mark’s first question. Mark requested an example of how someone could assess the quality of Knightsbridge University without having to rely on Knightsbridge personnel for information. Everything in Henrik’s description of “legwork” requires that the individual accept the word of Knightsbridge University personnel.

I believe Henrik’s answer to Mark’s second question, actually raises more questions than it answers. I am particularly troubled by his description of Knightsbridge’s highly touted self-validation. I’m simply not clear on what Henrik means by, “It means 'needing no guarantee or judgment of its validity outside of itself'.” He appears to be simply paraphrasing the famous lines uttered by Alfonso Bedoya (as “El Bandido” in the film Treasure of the Sierra Madre).

• “Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"

 

Doctor Marianus wrote:

> Given that KU works essentially on an individual mentoring
> basis, might I suggest that one way would be to Google the
> names of the senior faculty listed on the KU site to see how
> prominent *they* are as academics in *whatever* context.

One caution in that regard is suggested by Henrik's words in this thread:

I would infer that selecting names from the published faculty list would not necessarily yield a representative sample of the working faculty.

Henrik, thank you for your attention. I do have some followup questions, but shall hold off until you have had a chance to respond to Bill Huffman's thoughts above.

 

This is an excellent idea but it does require some slight modification. Henrik has admitted that many of the individuals listed as faculty are not actually in the employ of Knightsbridge University and have never been assigned any candidates. As such, there is no guarantee of actually having someone on that list available to a particular student. Now, if Henrik would be so kind as to tell us which faculty members have actually been assigned candidates, then the kind of research you suggest would be infinitely more relevant.

 

I agree that there's merit to that. In my past Google forays, I've listed examples of faculty activity as evidence of a school's value.

It is easy to imagine individuals using the fact that they studied informally with a noted figure as a selling point. That value would be multiplied if the noted figure was willing to recommend and promote the student.

In these cases, the strength of the recommendation would be a function of the reputation that the mentor has in whatever context the recommendation was being used.

But at what point to these recommendations transform themselves into university degrees?

Even if one particular mentor demands extremely high standards, what guarantee do we have that the next mentor isn't treating the whole thing as a joke? What would permit us to generalize from one mentor to the next?

Put another way, what gives the institution's degree meaning as the institution's degree, if the institution is a cryptic cypher whose function is reduced to that of an academic dating service? In that case, each degree would be a distinct individual, the mentor's own self-granted "degree", wouldn't it?

So if an outsider isn't already familiar with the mentor, with the student and with their relationship, how would they know what the "degree" means? And if they already are familiar with all of those things, what did an unrecognized "degree" from a paper "university" add to that familiarity?

 

Mark,

Doctor Marianus is on to something. What must be understood in this connection is that articles/papers/whatever are published in the name of the author and whichever body sponsors the work. We do not have full-time faculty, and do not fund the research or work of such parties.

There seems to be a tendency to misunderstand the comments made in the thread you mention.

It is true that dozens of the faculty available have never been assigned candidates. and this is the reason we lose them, when we do. However, adjunct faculty are readily available on the 'world market', and one can pick and choose, so it is not a great tragedy to be asked to shred a CV. Currently, we can draw on well over 400 people. A couple of well-placed advertisements would see this rise to over a thousand, easily. Increasingly, however we recruit from within, as it were, existing faculty simply draw in their colleagues.

There is no reason to think faculty are not available should the need arise. However, there is certainly no reason to maintain a massive great list of people, just because they happen to have made their services available. Rather than speculate on the people not listed, it seems more pertinent to focus on those listed. As you will see, this is given as 'Details of some senior faculty'. Not 'all faculty', or even 'all senior faculty'. This is a curtailed list, but at least one we can keep reasonably up-to-date without too much editing attention.

Also, it is a list of faculty who have been involved with programme work in recent time. Some have been supervisors/tutors, others external assessors, some have stood behind the development of new programmes. Usually, external assessors are happy to be added to the database of adjunct faculty, existing contracts allowing.

Institutions engaging with adjunct faculty are not expected to be able to employ them on a full time or even on-going basis. Indeed, that is why the adjunct system exists, it enables the institution and the faculty to collaborate whenever required. The referred list is indicative of the type of individual engaged as adjunct faculty. Whether they be this minute sat with their noses in something from a Knightsbridge candidate or not.

I should add that faculty apply their education, skill and experience to the task provided. This they do on the basis of fixed guidelines and assessment criteria. Apart from idiosyncracies and interpretation, there should be little difference between the work of one and the other. In cases where this would appear to be the case, there are measures in place to deal with it, both from the point of view of the candidate and the academic management of the programme.


Henrik

 

This, I think is the question on everyone’s mind. Precisely what are the fixed guidelines and assessment criteria, and how would someone ensure that these guidelines and criteria are being met without having to blindly accept the word of Knightsbridge’s personnel? If these guidelines do not exist in published form, how would a candidate know that there is a “differences in the work of one and the other?” Moreover, what, precisely, are the measures that are “in place to deal with it, both from the point of view of the candidate and the academic management of the programs?”

I don’t mean to be rude, but when asked what the standards are Henrik seems to respond, “We have standards.” When asked how someone could verify that the standards are being met without having to rely on the word of Knightsbridge personnel, Henrik responds, “By asking Knightsbridge personnel.” When asked what is Knightsbridge process of self validation, Henrik does not seem to offer anything more than, “Self validation, rules, man!”

The questions were polite, substantive and relevant. The answers were just polite (unless, of course, you consider it rude to ignore someone's questions and simply use them to launch a thinly veiled advertising campaign). Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

 

Googling Knightsbridge

I haven't had a moment to try my earlier suggestion of Googling the Knightsbridge senior faculty (although will do so now Henrik has indicated that
QUOTE
...it is a list of faculty who have been involved with programme work in recent time. Some have been supervisors/tutors, others external assessors, some have stood behind the development of new programmes. Usually, external assessors are happy to be added to the database of adjunct faculty, existing contracts allowing.
UNQUOTE)

However, a search in and around KU revealed the following items, which I don't believe have been discussed previously (my apologies if I am wrong on this):

Knightsbridge faculty member co-authoring with Manchester Metropolitan University faculty member on a paper published in a refereed British academic journal (with KU credited):
www2.umist.ac.uk/corrosion/JCSE/Volume3/Paper13/v3p13.html

KU listed as a partner of the Universidad Autonoma de Asuncion, Paraguay:
www.uaa.edu.py/convenios/inglaterra.html

KU listed as one of two non-British but British-based (then) institutions on Foreign Consultants, Inc's list of their approved British universities (the other is the US regionally accredited Richmond - The American University in London):
www.foreignconsultants.com/global.asp?country=unitedkingdom

 

Googling the Knightsbridge faculty

A selective sample of my findings is below. In some cases, it was impossible to search effectively because the first name of the faculty member concerned was not given, or their exact field of research not specified on the KU website.

I was looking not simply for institutional affiliation per se, but for evidence of involvement in the wider academic community through publication, conferences and similar activity, to establish a level of academic credibility.

There was a good deal more than this sample out there!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22rohan+gunaratna%22
All 5,410 results for Dr Gunaratna

http://ideas.repec.org/e/pst56.html
A listing of some papers by Dr Stambuli

http://www.unu.edu/africa/00sps-global.html
A paper by Dr Stambuli on the United Nations University website

http://www.commonwealthstudies.stir.ac.uk/events/past_events/McCracken%20conference/McCracken%20conference.htm
Dr Stambuli speaks at the conference 'Malawi after Banda: perspectives in a regional African context' at the University of Stirling

http://www.cofc.edu/Illuminations/fourteen.html
Published poetry by Dr Willies

http://www.criticalmethods.org/m2m.htm
Dr Willies contributes to the CD-ROM 'From Method to Madness: Five Years of Qualitative Enquiry'

http://gvanv.com/compass/arch/toc/toc1204.html
Published journal article by Dr Willies

http://www.u-picardie.fr/~FacSports/congres/fr/site/800600/comite.htm
Dr de Silva involved in conference at University of Picardy

http://www.softlookup.com/author/auth1548.html
Korean-English dictionary by Dr David B. Kent

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kent-Testing.html
Dr Kent’s “A Method for Oral Testing in University English Programs at Korean Universities”

www.marketing.strath.ac.uk/rnews/rnewssummer00.pdf
Prof. Zugbach de Sugg examines for the University of Strathclyde, UK

www.nnbh.com/ltsearch.php/nur/12900/200
A book by Prof Harrison-Barbet

http://examinedlifejournal.com/articles/template.php?shorttitle=metaart&authorid=17
Harrison-Barbet’s work referenced in article by South African professor

http://www.herplit.com/contents/Mertensiella.html
Academic article by Dr Gil Dryden referenced

http://www.ansci.uiuc.edu/faculty/MeetOurFaculty/faculty_pages/index.cfm?ID=2
…and another

http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/powdermill/Soricidae.doc
Dr Dryden chairs a conference

http://www.geocities.com/fdocch/explorandolinks.htm
Hynek Burda (University of Essen, Germany) reviews an academic book

www.sciencemag.org/content/vol294/ issue5541/index.shtml
Article by Prof Burda and others

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=6653
Research paper by Prof. Burda and others.

 

For the searches to really be meaningful, I believe it would also require some verification that there actually is a connection between KU and the person.

 

Henrik wrote:

> Doctor Marianus is on to something.

Dear Henrik,

Is he on to everything? Or do you have suggestions for objective assessment of Knightsbridge that could be used to supplement his?

> The faculty we have attached would not be interested in the
> affiliation if our processes, procedures and programmes were
> under par. Academics are very happy to point out what they
> perceive as shortcomings, let me assure you.

Do you agree that Northwestern International University (also registered as a company in Denmark) is "under par"? If so, if Jay Wise made the same statement about his faculty as you make above, how would you begin to refute his statement?

> Rather than speculate on the people not listed, it seems
> more pertinent to focus on those listed.

Do you agree or disagree that we are being asked to take your word for it that the listed faculty are representative of the working faculty?

(I do disagree with Gus, by the way: I'm sure the listed faculty are "available." But a list in, say, descending order of number of dissertations supervised, would help us assess the education of a typical Knightsbridge student.)

 

Henrik:

As you have stated that (as long as the author and title are known) dissertations from Knightsbridge University are publicly available, could you please tell me how I could procure a copy of Old Lesbians: An Ageing Experience? It was J. Davis’ Ph.D. thesis in 2001. In addition, could you tell us the name of the Knightsbridge faculty member that supervised this candidate?

 

All I said, Mark, was that there was no guarantee of actually having someone on that list available to a particular student. This could be for many reasons such as time constraints, lack of interest in the research topic, etc.. For example, it might be a little difficult securing the services of Dr. Gunaratna as a mentor, now that he has become somewhat of a media darling (see here). I agree with Henrik in that it would not be too difficult to have thousands of individuals “available.” That, however, is irrelevant, as it would not give us any more information concerning the legitimacy of Knightsbridge University.

I agree. I’d even settle for a list of which faculty members that have actually been assigned candidates, as Henrik is on record stating that many on the faculty list never have been. Moreover, keep in mind that when assessing an institution, the minimum acceptable standards are what is relevant, not the typical experience.