what qualifies an institution to offer doctoral programs?

And where are you going to be studying for your master's degrees in history and education this summer?

 

Thanks Ted - I stand corrected. The phrase doesn't apply in this situation.

Per Wiki - Gresham's law is commonly stated: "Bad money drives out good."

Gresham's law applies specifically when there are two forms of commodity money in circulation which are forced, by the application of legal-tender laws, to be respected as having face values in a fixed-ratio for marketplace transactions.

regards - andy

 

The DBA was created for the same reason as the MBA. Granted, the PhD in business subjects pre-existed the DBA, just like the MS in business subjects pre-existed the MBA. But the MS and PhD in business subjects were designed as hyper-subspecialized research degrees while the MBA and the DBA are supposed to be generalist degrees for practitioners. Whether the theoretical disinction actually exists in practice is open to question.

 

If the program and instructors are of the same quality why would decreasing the number of students improve the quality of the program? It appears to be more a matter of perception than quality.

 

The main market for PhDs in business and DBAs is academia. There are many that finish these programs for personal satisfaction or for consulting but for most business positions the DBA or PhD is not required. The market is not very large so most of the traditional Universities only take very few students a year in order to keep employment opportunities high for prospect graduates (Even the 100 that Nova allows is a lot for most Universities standards).

As online Universities see that is very difficult to compete with traditional schools for master's students, they have found a niche with doctoral programs. The problem with this is that these Universities are getting their income mainly from doctoral students so they need to take hundreds to exist. In theory, the market can take them since there is a real shortage but most Universities wouldn't hire all professors from the same school.

The credibility issue is a factor, I would think that hiring committees might start to wonder when they see a large number of applicants from particular schools. However, this new generation of doctoral graduates from non-traditional programs, have found their niche mainly in the online teaching business as they are more familiar with the process and the environment. I don't have any data to support this, but from personal experience, a good percentage of my colleagues that teach online courses have doctorates from online schools.

 

Bruce - The staff requirements to run a 400-500 student DBA program (what Nova was in the past) at the quality level that AACSB expects are huge. There may be some perception - but there are quality issues as well.

Regards -Andy

 

I thought I had settled on AMU but I decided to apply to Sam Houston State University instead for their history program. I'm going to do the MS in Education from CSUEB.

These are both schools I'd have never found without your fantastic lists of schools in the search archives, Ted. Thank you!

 

Hang in there Bazonkers

 

AACSB schools DO hire degrees from AACSB schools (though there is stigma on non-traditional and international degrees), but it DOES happen. The fact tthat it is not traditional is not the issue, it is that it is not AACSB is.

 

Cool! Always glad to know I've managed to help someone!

 

In doing research for an article that I am writing on the various masters & doctoral degree titles in my discipline (instructional technology), I have also been reasearching the AACSB accreditation requirements for doctoral programs. It is interesting to me that AACSB makes no discinction made between PhD and DBA in their standards and criteria for evaluating doctoral programs.

In one of the only AACSB documents to mention both degree titles, it states, "The two principal degree designations offered by business doctoral programs are the PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) and the DBA (Doctor of Business Administration). In an earlier era of business education, the DBA was popularly regarded as providing a more general exposure to business topics geared towards practice, while the PhD was viewed as focusing more on research in a given business specialty. Over time, the distinction between these 2 degrees has become blurred at many institutions. At present, the PhD is more widely available from business schools than the DBA, particularly in the U.S."

This sounds a lot like what has happened to the PhDand EdD in education.

 

The qualifications to offer a doctorate are usually 1) Permission from your state's board of higher education; 2) Permission from your regional accreditor; 3) Permission from your discipline's accreditor (if applicable to the discipline). The capacity of the institution to offer the degree program (e.g. number of faculty, faculty credentials, physical/technical infrastructure, learning resources, student services, etc.) is determined via evaluation by the aformentioned bodies.

 

Indeed. I wonder how many other academic disciplines have seen a collapsing of the traditional distinctions between the respective titles for their research doctorate and their professional doctorate.

 

I would agree, overall, with RFValve's assessment. The MBA is the normal terminal degree for the practictioner, while the doctorate (whether PhD or DBA) appeals to those who wish to teach or consult. I am getting resumes and vitas from people each week who wish to teach online for my institution, many of whom have PhDs and DBAs from the virtual institutions. I do not count an online doctorate as a disadvantage--in fact, I find that those with significant experience as online students make better online instructors.

 

I would say the vast majority of them. In researching the Ed.D. versus Ph.D. in education during the past few years (including amassing virtually every study done on the subject during the past few decades), I have yet to find a consistent difference between the two (other than many people's perception that the Ed.D. is, somehow, inferior). The same appears to be true with the DBA and PhD in business. Medicine and law seem to be the most adept at separating their professional and research degrees.

 

Some well-respected and long established DBA programs awarded the DBA instead of the PhD because their state higher education authority did not authorize them to award Ph.D.s.

As the AACSB website notes, many DBA programs are no different than PhD programs in terms of curriculum and research expectations.

 

Reading this thread motivated me to browse through the Dissertation Abstracts database to get a feel for the quality of dissertations from the non-AACSB online doctoral programs.

Most of what I saw in my discipline wouldn't come close to passing muster at an AACSB institution.

I found numerous examples of questionable topics, questionable methodolgy, and insufficient contributions to the discipline's body of knowledge. As much as I would like to provide examples (and it would be FUN!), it would be bad form to anonymously pick apart someone's dissertation in a public forum.

I'm not saying that every dissertation at a traditional institution is better than those from a DL institution. I have seen BAD dissertations from AACSB programs, but they were obvious exceptions when compared to others from the same institution.

 

Perhaps you will get another one when I finish my PhD...I have a lot of experience

 

That is why publication requirements are important, if a PhD candidate has at least one good publication in a reputable journal, you can kill the issue of credibility. However, even one publication might require one to two years of work and I don't see how a 3 years part time program can allow students to satisfy this requirement. Many of the dissertation supervisors at online schools are also graduates from the same type of schools and might not have also publication under their belts. As long as online schools don't show evidence that they are serious about research, it would be hard to give credibility to their degrees.

 

ok so here is where I bring out the AACSB Kennesaw State DBA:

Kennesaw DBA

"In a minimum 3-year program, Coles DBA graduates will enhance their career flexibility and choice by preparing for expanded roles with their current employer or another organization, a consulting career, or to teach at the university or college level."


While we will have to wait to see how this program's graduates perform, two important accreditors, SACS and AACSB, believe that three years will produce qualified graduates. It would be interesting to have been a participant in the discussions when the school supported and presented the program to the accreditors. I surmise that by design only indviduals with extensive experience and credentials will be admitted, so perhaps these folks will already be ahead of the curve.