Recent Publication

Here are my two latest peer-reviewed publications (five and counting). Currently, I have three manuscripts under review.

Christian, D. D., Hendrickson, K. A., & Jadav, A. (2023). Cameras on or off in online synchronous courses? That is the question: An analysis of university faculty caring intelligence. Interactive Learning Environments. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2023.2267596

Interactive Learning Environments journal has a 26% acceptance. To say I am thrilled that this journal accepted our work would be an understatement.

Christian, D. D., Adams, J. L., & Miedich, C. M. (2023).“Can I get some harder work?”: Former juvenile offenders narrated educational experiences in juvenile correctional facilities. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology. https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.fd875d03

 

Others may disagree but I think that the measure of a good PhD program is that it prepares you to do publishable research and the easiest way to tell it has done that is to publish.

Lots of people "in industry" will slam online programs while themselves having no publications.

Of course, the counterpoint to that is that many of the PhD-holders I know with degrees from the Walden/Capella/N[C]Us of the world have no publications and maybe that's something that needs to be factored into those programs.

 

This is valuable information! First, congratulations to chrisjm18! I reviewed both articles, and the work is solid! My friend, you are living proof that online learning can produce solid graduates!

Dustin, I don't disagree at all! Your comments are significant. Significant work goes towards developing research skills. For clarity, I teach for National University in the DHA program!

 

I agree. My program prepared me to the extent of conducting research for my dissertation. I had no guidance on how to publish peer-reviewed articles. However, I took the initiative and published my first refereed work in Youth Justice in 2021, the year I earned my Ph.D.

 

In many countries, you don’t have the luxury of working as a professor and avoiding the responsibility of publishing in international peer-reviewed journals within your field. In Poland, the recent reforms to doctoral programs have made an academic career dependent on point accumulation that is heavily connected to peer-reviewed publishing. You cannot even finish a PhD without having a single paper published. It is the entry requirement for a doctoral school. That’s right, you should already have a published journal paper prior to entry, or you won’t get into the Polish four-year doctoral school program. A good Polish Master’s degree with a public thesis defense/Magister should prepare you for that level of research. Article publishing is a necessity, even for external PhD candidates who are not going through the standard doctoral school pathway.

There are even ministry-approved lists of journals where you can publish (and ranks of prestige with a specific number of points attached to each journal) to prevent the phenomena of people publishing in some obscure paper mill journals out of India with a pseudo-peer review process that amounts to making a prompt credit card payment.

As I browse through the academic job offers in Poland, I see fewer positions where you would just be allowed to teach. You may find some senior lecturer gig, but this stuff is becoming more rare, as the new “publish or perish” mentality sets in and published research becomes part and parcel of what it means to be an academic teacher in a Polish university or higher education institution.

The Polish Accreditation Committee is now also going after people who have made a career out of holding a PhD and have nothing else to offer to students besides this distinction. It’s almost funny to read these scathing critiques, which are made publicly accessible. As an academic teacher/prof (although strictly speaking, a mere doctorate holder is not a professor in Poland as this a higher rank title), you are expected to either have professional work experience that is in some way relevant to the courses that you’re teaching or be engaged in ongoing teaching subject-relevant academic research through peer review. If you don’t have either one of these as an academic teacher at a higher education institution or university, you are making it more likely that the Polish Accreditation Committee will give a negative review of your school faculty and the degree program’s accreditation is subsequently withdrawn. So yeah, it’s really important to be serious in terms of your academic pursuit.

This also raises the question of whether you should even pursue a PhD, if you only intend to do one-time research on your dissertation in the hope of “just teaching” in the future, at least in a Polish context.

 

Some other schools have requirements like this, where you need to publish 1-3 papers in order to graduate your PhD and it definitely causes issues since it incentivizes doing bad research quickly just to get a publication, or even fraud to produce something publishable. The use of prestige lists and ministry approval does seem to be a guardrail, though not one I'd personally like since there are thousands of perfectly serviceable journals that may not end up on a ministry-maintained list. Most B&M PhD programs in the US and Canada expect you to have research experience, if not necessarily a publication on entry.

 

Why would they have publications? They aren't going for tenure. A lot of Capella and Walden graduates are healthcare professionals. Do you look for publications before making an appointment with your provider?

 

Eh, publications are a factor in acceptance to the most competitive med schools and residencies, so a patient choosing a doctor selecting by med school or residency could be partly, indirectly selecting for publications.

 

Also, healthcare professionals shouldn't be pursuing vanity doctorates. They're training to learn a skill, the ability to conduct academic research that can pass peer review.

If they only want to be called doctor and plan to never use those skills, that's a waste.

If they can't publish because they weren't trained well enough, that's a problem that strikes at the core of whether those programs should exist. (And the same applies to Cumberlands and CTU.)

 

Can't or don't want and don't have to? Who says they aren't conducting applied research on the job or as a consultant?

 

How many patients are selecting a provider by med school or residency? Besides, the Capella and Walden healthcare graduates are rarely physicians. They're mostly in the mental health field or nursing.