Something different

Hi Rich,

As you say, many people here focus on their search for suitable qualifications and where it will transfer/travel to. But others such as Sunnie are occasionally interested in structural matters, which I think is what this thread addressed.

So here's a few corrections regarding ISO 9000.

It's as voluntary as authorities choose to make it.

In nine months time, any food processing operation (excluding shwarma and felafal stands) in the Emirate of Dubai (read US state) will be shut down unless it has a valid ISO 9000 quality management certificate.

In the USA, I believe manufacturing companies have three years to comply with ISO 14000 Environmental Management (which has the same auditing process as 9000). Three US school districts have implemented ISO 9000 quality management across their organisations.

Apart from businesses as you mention, I can also point to hospitals, government departments - yes, even universities - that have chosen to take the ISO 9000 quality route. Also, in many statutory situations, providers of goods or services are not dealt with unless they hold such certification.

And it is a lot more than having "good quality improvement processes" - ISO 9000 is a standard for Quality Management Systems, which in control system parlance is "adaptive" and includes continual improvement.

The standard requires internal quality audit covering all processes at least once within a yearly cycle, yearly external surveillance audit and 3-year external full compliance audit. Also, the internal audit process is itself examined for compliance.

This is a demanding and world-class standard that sets the standard. It also has the advantage that eg. a 5-person professional activity of 5 years' standing (or even a start-up) has an equal opportunity to achieve an internationally-recognised quality certification as a 100-person one of 100 years' standing. And such activity can and does include the delivery of educational services.

At the end of the day, proper quality-managed processes give rise to a quality product - and delivery of DL services is no exception.

As and Sunnie was referring to, the deliverers of those services (tutors etc.) "shall be competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills and experience".

Cheers,

Neil Hynd

 

Hi Sunnie,

Please e-mail me if you would like to follow this up .... [email protected]

Regards,

Neil

 

And none of it has one iota of relevance to the usability and recognition of a credential from Century University. Even if ISO standards are sporadically adopted (just as CMM certification is sometimes required in our business dealings with the Federal government), they have nothing to do with the topic at hand--nontraditional higher education. In fact, a tactic often used by diploma mills is to list forms of recognition that sound important but are, in fact, irrelevant. Just as Century displays many other such characteristics (one-fee program, short time-in-program requirements, tiny faculty, degrees in almost any area, thousands of degrees awarded with said tiny faculty, a large portion of the faculty with their highest degrees from Century, misleading claims about degree acceptance, misleading claims about institutional membership, accreditation by unrecognized agencies, locating in a juridiction where little or no effort is made to regulate the school, and on and on and on).

Not that Century is a diploma mill. But it does behave poorly, and has done so for more than 25 years. Can such a bad school meet ISO 9000 requirements? Sure! That shows it to be a very consistent, efficient, awful school. I guess Good Housekeeping didn't return Century's calls, huh?

Rich Douglas

 

ISO 9000 was designed primarily for QA and quality improvement in the product development and manufacturing process. It has been generalized to make it applicable to many other things.

I've been somewhat involved with its application to the software development process. I can imagine how it could be applied to the education process. It is almost totally useless for software engineering. I would imagine that it would be even less applicable to the education process.

 

All of those are good programs as far as content and courses. However, I chose the CSU program because it is still on the quarter system and I could finish faster. The price was the determining factor. In ten courses, I spend at the most $35 for books in any one course and many courses required no textbook. I purchased some software, not because it was required, but because it was highly recommended by classmates.

CSU's program, for the most, part is done well. The courses have not been revised since the program began, although this is in the process of being done one course at a time. There are some instructors who are hold-overs from when the program started and who should really not be teaching online as they are totally ineffective (and a couple even graduated from the program). The problem is in part because they hold full time jobs and just don't care to take the proper amount of time necessary to effectively facilitate discussions and they don't provide adequate assessment feedback.

HOWEVER, in any graduate program, out of 10 courses, you'll find 4 mediocre instructors, 3 totally incompetent instructors, and 3 (if you're lucky)really outstanding instructors. That's just the nature of grad school.

I've heard that the program is being redesigned for a semester system. Personally, I think this is a good idea. I've seen one redesigned course already, and it's outstanding. The program holds a lot of promise of being among the best -- which, at present, it is not. It is not the worst and it suited my purposes just fine. I went into the program with a lot of experience and even so, I learned a lot -- from my classmates, not from the courses. But that is the nature of distance learning

 

I guess what I meant by "one of the best" is scope and breadth of program content. There are two masters programs I can think of right off the top of my head that cover way more information and provide much more learning experience in all aspects of educational technology and instructional design and those would Jones International University's Master of Arts in e-Learning and George Washington University's Master of Arts in Educational Technology Leadership.

Both of these programs go much more in depth than does the CSUH program. I would have chosen the Jones program because I've taken a few Business Communications courses there and those would have transferred into the masters program -- but the eLearning masters is new and was not available when I started my masters.

The Jones program is comprehensive, the price is reasonable and last time I looked lower than most programs -- and my experience with both the course management system and the professors (not instructors -- professors) has been outstanding.

Frankly you would work a whole lot more and whole lot harder with either of those programs over the CSUH program. Having said that -- you'll also get what you need from the CSUH program in a lot shorter time for less $$$. There is nothing wrong with the CSUH program -- it just needs some new material and some new instructors

 

Hi again,

Well, I think I'm sold on the CSUH program. I emailed the program director (Dr. Nan Chico) for more information, and to see how soon I can get started. There is a course registration deadline at the end of this week (for courses beginning next week), so it's probably too late to apply for the program and register for those courses, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask!

I had never looked into the Jones program, but I just checked it out this afternoon and it does look comprehensive. I'm familiar with the GWU ETL program, and although it looks interesting, I think it may be a bit too diversified for me. I'm mostly interested in online education for adults, and several of the programs place at least some emphasis on K-12 education.

My goal is to design and/or teach online college courses. I think the CSUH MS would be a good degree choice. (Then I'll just have to figure out who's going to hire me...)

Thanks again for all of your help. I'll let you know what happens with Dr. Chico. (Maybe she'll pity me and let me start right away -- I'd love to get some credits quickly to build some momentum! Besides, the sooner I start, the sooner I FINISH!)

Regards,
Chloe