what qualifies an institution to offer doctoral programs?

This happens quite bit with institutions that petition to offer an "applied" doctoral degree (either DBA or EdD) and are granted permission to do so, since it is assumed that these degrees will not compete with the "research" PhDs. Then the DBA or EdD is structured to be exactly like the PhD. The argument can be made later that, since they are already offering a research degree identical to the PhD (and recognized as such by the US Dept. of Education), that they should be able to change the name of the degree to PhD.

I have seen programs at a couple of my alma maters change from EdD to PhD without any substantive change to the program. The same thing can occur with a DBA: Get the degree approved and change to PhD in the future.

After all, if law schools can change a bachelor of laws (LLB) into a first professional degree--doctor of jurisprudence (JD) and enforce the change retroactively, it should be a piece of cake to change a DBA into a PhD in business administration.

 

Why would a college or university want to change a DBA into a PhD? That reminds me of this thread.

 

Classical definition isn't it considered normal for a doctor to make a doctor of anything? So first off is someone with an appropriate doctorate offering to make the party a doctor.

As for the general point of the thread I would say if the party issuing the degree has a doctor in the field sign off on it, the degree is legally issued as opposed to accredited and they meet the conditions of that school to get the degree having to do some amount of work- they should be allowed to issue said degrees at the doctorate level.

This is a loose term compared to the scholars here but I think at a minimum that is a good working and legal definition and would exclude simple degree sellers and "life experience only" degrees.

 

Graduates can have degrees with all the accreditations of the book but without publications, degrees won't really work for positions where the doctorate is required. It is possible that you can produce something for a publication in the 3 year part time but if it is not mandatory, I don't see students finding time to publish on top the existing requirements. These degrees might have some utility for administrative positions, CC or 4 year teaching institutions but not really for tenure track position at research institutions. There is no microwave oven recipe to cook scientists in short periods of time, this is a skill that takes time to develop.

 

Indiana changed its DBA into a PhD. I believe the PhD sales better to prospect students looking for academic careers. The DBA seems to be marketed now towards practicing managers rather than prospect academics, it seems that this is the justification to offer this program in an accelerated format as graduates won't be looking for teaching careers. The problem is that the market doesn't really pay you for a doctorate so DBAs are using this credential for teaching. In practice, most schools won't care about the tag of the degree but question a prospect academic in terms of publications. Faculties want individuals that are capable of attracting research grants so if you don't have any history of this, it would be hard to sell a doctorate regardless of the DBA, PhD, AACSB, SACS or any other type of name or accreditation the degree has.

 

The same reason why they would want to change an EdD into a PhD or an LLB into a JD...the perceived superiority of the PhD.

 

Publications are certainly a way to differentiate candidates for full-time faculty postions. They are less critical for community college faculty or for adjunct faculty or consultants, such as instructional designers. Publications, especially those in refereed (peer-reviewed) journals do give candidates a "leg up" on the competition. I look for them in the curriculum vitas that are sent to me.

 

This very much surprises me. I have a DBA and have never heard this discussion..... always heard they are the same (PhD and DBA in the same discipline). EdD is another story

 

The PhD definitely has more name recognition; and name recognition may make it more marketable to an unknowing public, but not necessarily to academics.

 

Well said, if you are looking to teach at a "top-tier" school, you need to be able to publish. If you have a strong publishing record, the school probably won't give a hoot if you have a DBA or PhD.

Shawn

 

Publishing is a useful thing for anyone who wishes a career in higher education. Although, as an administrator, I am not bound by "publish or perish," the fact that I have a number of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference presentations in my vita has definitely given me an edge over my competition. If I was looking for a full-time university faculty position, it would be critical. If I was looking at an adjunct teaching position, it would definitely be helpful.

 

I believe that is is correct, at least with respect to Canadian universities. It is consistent with information that I have been given at two faculty recruitment events.

The basic idea was, that for a full time tenure track position, if you apply with only a doctorate and without anything else (publications seemed to be the main "anything else") you were highly unlikely to get a second look.

Another point that has come up is the length of time to complete the doctorate. I was told that doctorates that are done too quickly are in general frowned upon.

 

Hiring a tenure track faculty member only because he or she has a PhD from a AACSB accredited school is like hiring a CEO only because he or she has an MBA from Harvard. Research Universities in Canada get their money from research grants so they want individuals that have a proven record of attracting research money. The quick AACSB DBA might be helpful for those that already have the research papers under their belt and just need a paper doctorate but I don't think that there are many under this category.

 

This is true in a way, but also if you are fresh out of school, then you have the AACSB requirements for 5 years, so you could (in a field very much hurting for candidates - accounting, etc.) be able to secure a position with only the degree, but you wouldnot get tenure without the research record. In fields that have many candidates, at least one hit is required, IMO.

 

I think that being published takes away a large amount of doubt about the credibility of the distance learning school. Any lingering bias against distance learning cannot withstand a list of publications. I have been accepted for publication five times in peer reviewed journals. I have adopted this course because I am a distance learning student, although there is very little bias here. Who is to say in a globalised market that I will stay here. I have hedged my position.

As a student, you write quite lengthy papers for marking. Re-examine these papers when they are returned. Look at the research you have undertaken, and see if there is an article in them. You can then submit the article to a peer reviewed journal that may be interested in the topic area. Adapt your assignment by rewriting and foussing, then submit it to a journal. If it gets accepted, then well and good. If it is rejected, then you will get some good feedback from the reviewers. Either way you win.

The other way is examine what conferences are being held. There are conferences that are peer reviewed and publish the presenters articles as conference proceedings. Go back to your research and assignments and see if any fit the criteria for the conference. Submit an abstract and see what happens. If you present, then you are opening yourself up to peer review. You also start to develop networks within the group attending the conference. Networks are very powerful for academia and, certainly, conference attendance is one way of accessing them. Certainly, you have then transcended the major criticism of distance learning that there is no peer interaction. You have taken it to the highest level, conference participation, not just the closed environemnt of a college.

If the above approaches don't work what have you lost? You are writing the assignments and doing the research anyway. I have done both. The article route is less costly, but does not have the opportunity for networking. My last article was an adaptation of an assignment. All the hard work was done.

Maybe degreeinfo could start a designated area for conferences to be advertised or a list of peer reviewed journals in areas of speciality?

 

Great comments!

Ebbwvale (may I call you Ebby?)

Great ideas on submissions. I like your conference/journal idea too.

 

Ebby is just fine. Thank you for the comments. Distance learners do great work, mostly on their own. It just needs to be showcased. Conference and publications are two ways of showcasing the educational outcome. I am not sure why distance learning institutions do not run conferences like B & M colleges. Maybe they do and I just don't know about it.

Maybe Degreeinfo can investigate the conference marketing etc so I can have a tax deductible trip to the states? Assuming somebody wants to listen to me of course. Failing that I will learn to tap dance!

 

I wish that were helpful (as I'm sure it would benefit a lot of students) . Since the approval that was granted a couple of years ago, however, how many stand-alone doctoral programs have the CSUs started? Two? Three?

And none of these are even available through distance education.

So where are these supposed large numbers of doctoral programs? A quick search comes up with predictable results: Northcentral, UoP, TUI, etc. - same ol' same ol' names. And then you get those programs that falsely advertise themselves as online programs but are actually hybrid or stagerred-residential at best whose courses cannot be completed at a distance.

It's frustrating to do a search for authentic distance-ed doctoral programs, so to put it out there that there are plenty of them is raising false hopes for people who need them. But then again, maybe we're talking South Africa here, and not the USA or Canada...

 

Don't forget Australia. These are all bricks and mortar schools that have a strong commitment to distance learning. Itis viewed the same as oncampus in terms of status. Have a look at University of Southern Queensland as an example

http://www.usq.edu.au/international/programs/default.htm