http://uopsucks.com/blog/ Discussion About UOP - Get the facts BEFORE you enroll! en-us Nucleus CMS v3.23 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://uopsucks.com/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://uopsucks.com/blog/ http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=31 online college rankings for 2008. This ranking puts University of Phoenix at 25 out of 41. This is definitely not a flattering rating, but I do not know enough about the other colleges to make an honest assessment of UOP’s ranks relative to other schools.

While I agree that UOP's place is probably in the bottom half of this list, I can't agree as to the validity of the methodology of this ranking. This ranking attempts to convert certain University attributes into numbers and then averages them together. Thankfully, they included their data such that we can take a close look at how they arrived at their rankings.

The rankings take into account acceptance rate, percent of students receiving financial aid, graduation rate, peer web citations (number of backlinks to the University's website), retention rate, scholarly citations (as found by Google Scholar, student-faculty ratio, and number of years accredited. The rankings weigh all criteria equally, which I believe is the first problem with this list. The really important criteria are the graduation rate, retention rate, and student-faculty ratio, as these are attributes that are very indicative of a school's quality and performance, yet they are given the same weight as other less important criteria. I'm just not convinced that the number of students receiving financial aid at a given school is an indication as to the quality of education, educational experience, or respect for the University. Most importantly I don’t think this is an important consideration for potential students other than their personal ability to obtain financial aid. I believe that potential students should consider all other factors first, and then look into the availability of financial aid once the student has narrowed his choices. Students not using financial aid will have little interest in this attribute, so it is unfair to increase or lower a school’s ranking because of this.

Similarly, I fail to see the importance of the number of backlinks to a school's website. A link to the school indicates conversation or discussion about the school, but that discussion is not necessarily good. The number of links may also be a direct result of how extensively the school is marketing itself online, the size of the marketing budget, or the propensity of the school to end up in newspaper headlines, and the age of the school. Again, I don’t think these are reasons to judge a school as better or worse than another.

Finally, the number of scholarly citations is another poor measure of a school as this is almost certainly going to be a function of a school’s size and age. I'm not convinced that a school's size or age, whether large or small, old or new, can be used to designate a school as better or worse than another.

In summary, this is a valiant attempt to objectify school properties in order to rank them based on facts and data. Unfortunately, this approach falls short due to inherent weaknesses in the model. This isn’t to say there isn’t some merit to the concept. I think that using other criteria that I believe students value more would be more useful and lead to more meaningful results. Such criteria might be average salary of graduates relative to national averages. Other good criteria might be some kind of an HR survey. Such measures would introduce a great degree of complexity and cost into such rankings, but the results would be far more useful. Beyond personal preference items (location, degrees offered, etc.), I believe that the following are the most important factors to be considered for rankings:

• Regional Accreditation
  
• Program Accreditation
  
• Respect for the degree by industry
  
• Cost per credit hour
  
• Acceptance Rate
  
• Graduation Rate
  
• Placement Rate
  
• Student-Faculty Ratio
  

If someone can compile a weighted list with the above criteria, that list would be one worth taking seriously.]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=31 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:25:29 -0500 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=23
With UOP's for-profit education model, there is an almost unlimited capacity, you can never have enough students. As a result you seek to enroll anyone that you can. Contrast to a typical non-profit public or private University with limited capacity, there are typically more student applicants than they have capacity for. When demand is greater than supply, these schools can (and do) pick only the best applicants. This serves to increase the quality of the institution because a school can only be as good as the students that go there. When you enroll anyone and everyone, quality is naturally going to suffer.

This isn’t an attack on for-profit education as a concept. I believe that it is possible to run a great school and make a tidy profit; however, the quest for profits must be secondary to the service offered. With any business, if you take care of the customers and offer a good product or service, the profits will come. The key to offering a good for-profit education is exclusivity and quality. There are two things that are certain: A) People are willing to pay for quality and B) People want only the best. If you can offer a great education, it doesn't matter if you make profit or not. To take it a bit further though, some people are willing to sacrifice quality for ease and convenience. This is where UOP lies.

Because of this, UOP is very popular. When it comes to education people will make sacrifices because of their personal situation, finances, or the perception that an education from a particular school is adequate (as opposed to ideal) for their purposes. We also know that people will pay for convenience. Admitedly, UOP has the convenience aspect nailed. Getting a degree at UOP is as convenient as you can get and requires considerably less time devotion than most any other school. UOP's extensive marketing also helps portray an image of acceptability and legitimacy. With these two advantages, UOP has no problem keeping up enrollment. When it comes down to it, students (more than anything else) are concerned with obtaining desirable employment and career advancement with their degree. It is easy for a University to make these claims, but difficult prove, and UOP takes advantage of this (although there are ever increasing Internet resources by which a student can research these things, such as http://uopsucks.com/earnless.html).

An obvious path to success for any kind of school is hiring only the best teachers and enrolling only the most qualified students. The problem is that this concept doesn’t translate easily to a massive scale. In the end, if a graduate can walk straight into a high paying, respectable position when they graduate (just as they do at the most prestigious non-profit schools), students will be thrilled, word will spread, and the school will be successful and profitable. But by the very nature that such schools employ and enroll only the best, such a school would almost certainly have to be smaller and have a higher overhead. To compensate, any school with such a great reputation should easily be able to charge even more and maintain attractive profit margins. The key is indeed to maintain the quality of the educational experience, and let the school grow naturally while maintaining high standards.

In conclusion, I believe the key to offering a quality for-profit education is in keeping the company private and limited to just a handful of owners/investors who truly believe in offering a quality education. Such a school wouldn't thrill Wall Street, but it would be wildly successful. The problems come in when there is excessive pressure to grow the bottom line. With a small group of individuals with clear goals and plans, it's easy to keep things on track. With Wall Street watching everything you do and with big incentive bonuses and lucrative stock options for executives, goals and plans change very quickly - and not for the better. The other key is slow, managed growth. When you grow as large and as fast as the University of Phoenix has, it is easy to lose perspective and compromise on morals and integrity, which we have definitely seen.]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=23 Tue, 1 Jan 2008 06:48:00 -0500 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=30
University of Phoenix is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association (for additional information, visit www.ncahlc.org). Their guidelines for accreditation are available at http://www.ncahlc.org/download/Overview07.pdf

I suspect that UOP banks on this general ignorance of accreditation to sell itself to prospective students. They can truthfully claim that they have the same accreditation as other prestigious Universities. But what does it really mean? Not as much as you might think.

The regional accreditation guidelines establish guidelines for determining if an institution is worthy of accreditation. They more-or-less outline a minimum set of standards by which to evaluate institutions that apply for membership. To say that a school is accredited is to say that they meet the guidelines.

From the big picture, the accreditation means that a school meets a certain set of minium criteria. It doesn't matter if a school barely meets the requirements or greatly exceeds them; both are accredited just the same. It is really no different than a driver's license. Both a 90 year-old grandma and Mario Andretti (Famous Formula 1 Driver) have a driver's license, but one's skills and ability far exceeds the other. Clearly, if 90 year-old grandma has a driver's license, then the mere possession of a driver's license is no indication of the quality of driver. Similarly, as we will find out, having regional accreditation is no indication of the quality of school.

So what is in the regional accreditation guidelines? I suggest you take a few minutes and read them for yourself. You'll see that the guidelines are generally vague, non-specific, and qualitative rather than quantitative. You'll also see that there is no academic review of specific degree programs or program content or quality!. That's right! The bulk of the guidelines merely establish that a school has all of the mechanisms in place to be a legitimate school. That is, the guidelines ensure that a school has faculty, administration, curriculum, policies, procedures, plans, and on and on. From what I can tell, the evaluation is just deep enough to determine that a school legitimately trying to be a place of learning instead of a mail-order diploma sales office. It was obvious from my interpretation of the guidelines that it would be possible to gain accreditation by setting up a shell of a school and hand out diplomas so long as the students were required to do work and attend classes led by "qualified" people. Clearly, regional accreditation doesn't mean much.

What most people fail to realize is that there is a more important accreditation that is critical to the recognition and reputation of a school and the quality of its graduates. This is the purpose of program accreditation. It is vital when selecting a school that the program of study you chose is accredited by a well known accrediting organization! For business, this would be AACSB, for engineering this would be ABET, for education, this would be NCATE, and on and on. These organizations closely examine degree program content and quality and are a true symbol of quality. It is important to note that UOP is not accredited by any of these organizations!

Conclusion:
All schools you consider should be definitely regionally accredited as a school that cannot meet those minimum requirements would be dubious indeed. However, it is critical that you look beyond the regional accreditation and make sure that the program you are enrolling into has PROGRAM accreditation. If the school has program accreditation, be sure to investigate thoroughly. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to go to that organization's website and look the list of accredited institutions. Are there prestigious or well-known schools on that list? If so, then you can bet the accreditation is a good one to look for. The other way to check accreditation would be to go to a prestigious school's website and find out who they are accredited by (i.e., check out who accredits Stanford if you are interested in an MBA). Be aware that some schools are over-ambitious when it comes to accreditation and may be accredited by multiple agencies. Be sure to dig deeper and find out which one is better.

Be careful! Schools may be members of accrediting organizations even though they are not accredited. Be sure to check that a school is actually accredited, NOT just a member!]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=30 Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:03:55 -0500 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=29
UOP flaunts this time-proven method, discarding the value of testing in lieu of PowerPoint presentations and short papers. But testing is not just useful for academic assessment, as testing serves as an invaluable teaching tool. As a graduate of a traditional University, I can easily say that I learned a great deal of the course material or expanded my knowledge and comprehension of course materials while studying for tests! Had my professors not given tests, I would not have learned nearly as much as I would have if tests had not been given or if we had been asked to write a paper instead. I gained even further knowledge when I reviewed the test results to see what questions were answered incorrectly.

Instead of testing, UOP relies on formal written papers and presentations. This is a more subjective form of academic assessment which allows the University great flexibility in assigning grades, and provides an improvable response (read: convenient excuse) to any suspicions of lax academic standards. The problem with UOP's implementation of this theory is that a great number of the writing assignments are group projects, and as such, a student may not be required to demonstrate knowledge of a particular subject at all if his teammates are responsible for those sections! Furthermore, much of the subject material in the college classes is such that the average person has at least minimal common knowledge of the subject before taking the class. As such, it is not a great effort to write a few pages or present a few slides on subject the student already knows a little about. Additionally, a paper can be written such as to focus on only one aspect of a subject, allowing or causing a student to limit their exposure to the entire curriculum for the course. Finally, there is little feedback on written assignments as few facilitators take the effort to write any more than a few sentences (if that) to provide feedback. In fact, in my personal experience most of the feedback pertained to grammar and formatting rather than content, so there was little opportunity for any advancement or learning through the grading process.

Another deficiency in the UOP model is the lack of controls in place to ensure that the person completing the work is the same person who is enrolled in the class. This is a problem whether the classes are online or on-ground and opens the door for academic fraud that the University can never even hope to detect. Traditional Universities require students to bring ID to classes when tests are given thus ensuring that the test-taker is the student; however, UOP blindly trusts that students are turning in their own work and does not give tests.

Critics of testing argue that students cram for tests and then forget the material right after the exam. This may be the case, but a test is successful even in this instance as the still managed to gauge the student's understanding of the material or ability to understand the material if only temporarily. Even if the student forgets the material soon afterward, the test was successful because the student has demonstrated that he has the ability to re-learn the material if necessary and in almost all cases, the student would know how to obtain or find the information in the future, which is valuable in and of itself.

Conclusion:
The lack of academic rigor caused by the lack of academic testing and the lack of controls to prevent academic fraud contribute greatly to UOP's poor reputation. Doesn't it seem suspicious that UOP doesn't want to spend the very minimal effort to develop tests for their courses and to make tests part of the learning process? How difficult and how hard could that possible be for a multi-billion dollar company with over 300,000 students? I've discussed all of the benefits, but what harm could giving tests cause? One of the few logical answers is that testing would make the courses too challenging for students and cause them to drop out, thus lowering enrollment and lowering revenues. I think we have our answer.

Footnote: There are a few courses in which UOP does give tests. I am aware that math courses utilize tests (as it only makes sense), but that is pretty much the extent.]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=29 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:46:11 -0400 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=28
One of the most common statements made about UOP and education in general is "You get out of it what you put into it." In many cases this is true, however at UOP this is not the case.

The statement YGOOIWYPII implies a direct relationship, or input = output. You put a lot of effort into something and you get a return on your investment proportional to the input. With a direct relationship, it stands to reason that if you put more in than you get out, you are getting ripped off and conversely, if you put very little in and you get extra out, you come out way ahead.

So let's look at the inputs with respect to UOP. You have:
TIME: All of the time spent with UOP, whether going to class, calling your EC, or studying.
MONEY: Cash spent on books, materials, tuition, etc.
EFFORT: The physical engergy expended while performing school-related activities. This could be measured by the number and quality of assignments submitted.

Now let's look at the outputs:
KNOWLEDGE: Increased knowledge and familiarity of the subject material
SKILLS: New skills acquired
DEGREE: The end result: A diploma that represents to others that the named person has acquired the skills and knowledge commensurate with the standards for degree. The resultant GPA also indicates a degree of achievement and acts as a measurement of academic achievement.

Let's break this down as it applies to University of Phoenix.
TIME/EFFORT: The amount of time and effort contributed varies greatly by student. YGOOIWYPII would indicate that the more time you spend, the more knowledge and skills you obtain and the higher GPA you will have. At a regular University, this generally holds true. Those who read and invest the extra time do better on tests, labs, and all work in general resulting in a higher GPA. At UOP, knowledge is demonstrated with short papers and presentations. Paper grading is inconsistent, and most papers can be written with common knowledge. Facilitators tend to grade generously and provide scant feedback. As such, it is not difficult for a student grift or fake knowledge in their papers and presentations. As such, at UOP it is possible and common place to achieve the same grade as someone who puts in extra time and effort. It is easy to see how some students get MORE OOIWTPII! This is a great deal for those putting in less, this is a slap in the face to those who put in more.

MONEY: UOP charges more than some schools, and less than others, so do you get the same output? It is not hard to find high quality and well respected schools that offer the same programs for less money. It is not hard to find instances where a degree from UOP is discounted for any number of reasons. There are employers who will not hire UOP grads, and there are plenty of people and organizations who question degrees from UOP. Let's be honest, UOP does not have the best reputation. This devalues the degree, and as such the average students gets LESS OOIWTPII!

Conclusions: This analysis has to be done using generalities, but it is easy to see the inaccuracy of the YGOOIWYPII statement. Clearly in many aspects you do NOT get out of it what you put into it. Those who put little effort into their studies achieve a similar output as those who put great effort into their studies. Monetarily, with respect to UOP compared to most public and private Universities, most students do NOT get out of it what they put into it. Clearly the relationship is not there to support this fallacious argument.]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=28 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:08:46 -0400 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=27
What makes a quality education? If we look at other industries, perhaps we can draw some parallels. Many companies boast of their quality because they use only the best ingredients or materials. In the education world, this would correspond to students and faculty. A common phrase in many industries is "garbage in, garbage out." This says that despite the best processes and systems, you can't make a quality product or get a quality result if your raw materials are of substandard quality. Clearly the quality of the student body is going to affect the entire academic atmosphere, school reputation, and achievements in research. The quality of faculty is clearly going to affect the quality of the curriculum, the academic environment, and achievements in research as well.

Other companies boast quality due to use of rigorous standards and processes. In the world of education, rigorous standards and processes would consist of constant academic assessment and evaluation and (if necessary) remediation or rejection. That is, most companies inspect quality through every process, and if a problem occurs the part gets re-worked or discarded. At most Universities, students are tested often and their work is carefully scrutinized and analyzed. If a student fails an academic assessment, that student is either dropped from the program or must re-take the course.

Other companies boast quality due to the use of sophisticated equipment, R&D, and technology. In academia this would correlate to the curriculum, text books, and teaching methods.

Let's review and compare each of these areas to UOP and other Universities.

Students and Faculty
Top Universities have limited enrollment. They assess each applicant and accept only the top x% of applications. This process may exclude some quality students who fail to achieve top standardized test scores or lack other criteria, but overall this process keeps the quality of the "ingredients" as high as possible.

UOP's open enrollment model allows students of all quality levels which leads to inconsistent results.

Standards and Processes
Traditional schools use traditional teaching methods which rely heavily on homework assignments, papers, and individual testing as the primary method of assessing academic achievement. Student's assignments are carefully scrutinized and feedback is given so that the student may make improvements and gauge his own achievement level. This has been the widely accepted standard for hundreds of years. For almost all of UOP's classes, there is no testing. Student assessment is typically based on participation, homework, and a final project done as a team. Feedback on assignments is limited due to the small number of class sessions and a common complaint of lack of feedback on assignments. There is very little opportunity to provide proper feedback to students and there is very little or no testing. Participation points are easy to earn regardless of academic achievement, and it is easy to coast or rely on others for team assignments. Clearly, the level of standards at UOP is inherently lower than those at other institutions.

Curriculum and Teaching Methodology
At top Universities, faculty is responsible for developing and teaching their own curriculum. This allows faculty to focus on areas of specialty and to modify their curriculum as necessary. Professors use traditional teaching methods of lecture and labs as has been used in academia for hundreds of years. Each course typically consists of at least 40 hours of instructor-lead class time. Professors are hired on a full-time, permanent basis, although they may make use of teaching assistants for lower level classes and temporary faculty from time to time. Professors are encouraged and/or required to participate in research and often attend academic conferences, network with fellow professors, and read industry journals. Teaching is usually the only source of income for faculty, and faculty are usually dedicated and inspired to establish and maintain a reputation for excellence in their field.

At UOP faculty are referred to as facilitators, not teachers or professors. In a typical class, facilitators introduce a topic and lead the class through a discussion amongst themselves. The facilitator rarely steps in except to steer the discussion or to keep it moving. In other words, students are expected to gain the same knowledge as they would from a lecture at a regular University from a classroom discussion amongst peers at UOP. Each course typically meets for 20 to 24 hours of classroom time - almost half the amount of time at top Universities. Facilitators typically do not lecture and are given curriculum to follow. Text books are already selected and there is little freedom for the facilitator to deviate substantially from the provided curriculum and course materials. Facilitators are hired for one or two classes at a time, typically for only 5 to 6 weeks on a contract basis. According to UOP's website, most faculty have other jobs and teach at UOP in their spare time. The part time, short-term, and temporary employment arrangement limits faculty's ability to stay up to date with the latest research, attend academic conferences and provides no infrastructure to support research. A UOP faculty member's commitment to excellence needs to go only as far as doing well enough to get another contract to teach another class. UOP faculty typically do not establish recognition or reputations in their academic field.

Summary
Clearly, when you break down the UOP learning model and compare it against standard quality benchmarks, it is easy to see how UOP's model is inferior. By all measurements, it simply cannot compete with most other schools. But if it's so inferioer, what are the benefits to the UOP model? Admittedly, UOP's concept is superior in convenience for students. The model reduces by about 50% the amount of classroom time, has no admissions requirements, relies heavily on team work, and has very little or no testing. It is no wonder that students like this concept... it's inherently easier! But like the old saying goes, nothing in life worth having comes easy. Students must ask themselves, do they really want to take the easy way out? and What will it be worth when they are done?]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=27 Thu, 2 Aug 2007 00:32:09 -0400 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=26 ExUoPInstructor)

I was hired on to UOP back in the spring of 2001 to teach IT courses, and needless to say I was excited about teaching at an institution that was hyped to be a great thing for working people, especially the military. My first suspicions were raised during our "teacher orientation course", which was over a three-day period. What was the content of the course? Basically, it was Powerpoint 101, "team activities", APA format, and how to keep your students in class for four hours without causing them to jump from the 5th floor out of sheer boredom.

I started teaching two classes a five-week term for them, and the more I taught the more I started realizing that something was really wrong here..the tuition kept going up, but the availability of resources and especially technology was severely lacking. There was no computer lab to speak of, so anything done in class was either done on a shoddy machine running Windows 98 and full of viruses or drawn on the whiteboard in class. Materials were way behind the times, I was lecturing on DOS when Windows XP was already a released operating system. What computer lab they did have consisted of four computers connected to one printer which about 50 students had to use before class to get their assignments printed out.

We were required to attend a staff meeting every four months that was held on a Saturday morning from 8-12...what was the topic of these staff meetings? Just like the orientation....Powerpoint, keeping the students til 9:45, and APA format.....after about 4 of these I stopped coming because it was just a repetetive joke. We would break up into our respective departments and I would bring up why we can't get a real computer lab or updated equipment for the students (sometimes I didnt' even have a projector because there wasn't one or the bulb was burned out)...the response from the IT department head? "We don't have the funding, make do with what you have."...which made zero sense because tuition rates were always going up every term, but for some reason there was no money for new technology...as for compensation for coming in on a Saturday, did we get any? Nope....just a free breakfast.

We finally did get a little break when they upgraded the classroom PCs to Windows 2000 and put more memory in them, but still the students didn't have any technology in the classrooms to follow along or do demonstrations on, and still no computer lab. My complaints continued to fall on deaf ears, and I was starting to get tired of antiquated courses and antiquated technology. I even put forth a plan to give the students laptops at a discounted rate and have wireless access on campus to the IT director but she turned it down (funny that after I left they instituted a laptop purchase program that charges significantly HIGHER than using a regular laptop purchase program).

I was then told around 2002 about teaching online for UOP. I thought, why not, and enrolled in their online training program. At the time I was teaching on line for Park University and Northeastern University and was using Blackboard and Vcampus, so I figured UOP would have the same and it would be a relatively easy and flexible position. I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of a great online tool to use for teaching, they used basically what amounted to bulletin boards using Outlook Express. I thought this was a joke and even said so to the online department, and they stated the reason they didn't use Vcampus and Blackboard was to "Cut costs and pass the savings on to the student"...if that was the case why did tuition go up every term? You were also required to be online several hours every day regardless of whether a student posted or not, which totally flew in the face of the flexibility of taking an online course. Who has 3-4 hours a night after working 9 hours a day to sit and wait for someone to post something? I told them I had enough after 3 weeks and dropped the online program as a total joke and waste of time.

Another joke is their class scheduling for instructors. They ask you submit your course requests 180 days in advance. Who knows what they are going to be available for 6 months in advance?? It was a total joke.

I forgot to mention the students....while a good number of them are hard-working adults, another good number of them are whining grade mongering children. You can't give anything less than an A out without a student coming to you and whining "I always get an A in my classes, you are going to ruin my GPA!"..I even had a student plagiarize an assignment in my class and I failed him and was told to raise his grade or give him another chance to do the assignment but I refused and the grade stood.

The last few months I was totally unhappy and the last straw was when I was asked to teach a course two hours away and was told I would be reimbursed for mileage and travel. I taught the course in September, but I wasn't reimbursed until December, and that was only after constantly bothering the expense personnel at UOP until I got my check in the mail.

After two and a half long years at UOP, I finally called it quits and walked away. It's funny because I still get their little spam flyers in the mail asking me to be a student and spam e-mails from them from time to time, and I just laugh and delete them. I am happy I escaped the clutches of the Apollo Group.

So there's the story...of course you'll debunk me and say I'm an idiot or have no education...but I can tell you this...every person that's ever asked me if they should go to UOP I now tell them to avoid it like the plague and go online to a REAL school.]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=26 Thu, 21 Jun 2007 03:09:26 -0400 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=25
On UOP's Treatment of Faculty...
No one here cares about subject knowledge, previous experience, teaching competence or any other factor or criteria commonly associated with teaching excellence. They care about student surveys, popularity, and most important, compliance with policy. Let's not confuse teaching with facilitation. I did my best in a system designed to limit faculty involvement. I can't make a reasonable comparison between what I deliver at a community college or traditional university and UOP. How can a five or six week course where the first and last sessions are either administrative, overviews or testing and presenting compare with double the exposure to content in a traditional class? Please don't tell me seat time doesn't matter. UOP promulgates the hoax that their team process is equivalent to seat time with an instructor. C'MON!!!!! Who really buys this?

On Team Learning...
When I began "facilitating" at UOP I became immediately concerned with the logic and efficacy of the team process. I asked how students in their teams could supply the same level of content and application that I did in class. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is they cannot. Teams should be utilized as methods for application not to deliver content - they don't have the expertise or even desire. As time went on student and even UOP commitment to the process waned. There use to be mandatory in-person meetings that were suppose to last five hours a week and to ensure compliance teams were required to submit a log stipulating who was in attendance, where they met, duration and topics. This itself was a sham, but at least it was something that the honest and committed students faithfully completed. UOP dispensed with it evidently because it was being systematically abused and then developed a new protocol allowing students to meet anywhere including online. This has resulted in students interacting for a few minutes online and discussing and distributing the work. It isn't even a legitimate team process anymore just a bunch of individual work cobbled together. It is crystal clear when grading that the work is not collaborative and just a copy and edit process.
Far from a joke, it is actually a hoax. If I was testifying under oath I would state students spend 20 to 24 hours in class (depending on 5 or 6 week courses) and a max of 5-6 hours total per course with team work. Remember team time is UOPs substitute for seat time in class. That amounts to about 26 hours of seat time in a 40 hour class or about 65%. However even if it is 15%, the 15% of the 65% is team time where content is not being delivered by a qualified instructor...........it amounts to self-instruction.

Another staff member (deesy) chimes in:
With many on-ground classes being dismissed at 7:30 or 8:00 PM, an undergraduate usually spends no more than 2 or 2.5 hours a week in a classroom, and many of them make sure to be absent for the one class they are allowed in each course. That means that some students spend as little as 8 hours in a classroom during a 5-week course. In addition, with the amount of plagiarism going on, some learning teams spend no more than 15-20 minutes a week on assignments, and they are only required to submit 4 assignments in a 5-week course. By "taking turns," each member of a learning team might spend as little as a half hour working on learning team activities and assignments in a 5-week course. This is, of course, not to mention the active market in professionally "ghost written" assignment papers.

UOPFac1 on UOP's Facilitator QA Process:
UOP has a token QA process. I am reviewed twice a year. The QUAV visit lasts less than two hours and constitutes a quality evaluation. There still is much more homage paid to the SEOCS than other factors. I agree it is a "token" effort to ensure quality. It hardly represents good faith.]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=25 Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:00:05 -0400 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=24
First, I must point out that teachers at UOP are referred to as facilitators rather than teachers. UOP faculty are not there to teach, rather their job is to present material and facilitate self and team learning (i.e., facilitating).

Consider for a moment the life of a fully employed facilitator who is also teaching part time at UOP. If they are successful at all, they most likely work 40 to 50 hours a week or more at their regular job. In addition to that, many of them have families, homes, and other obligations to pay attention to. On top of that, they take on the responsibility to teach at least once class at UOP. Some faculty facilitate for the extra income, and some do it because they just want to “teach.” Indeed, with such a large part-time staff, motivation, qualification, priorities, and facilitator bandwidth will vary greatly. Even the best intentioned facilitators have life events and priorities that will distract them from performing their duties to the fullest extent. There’s only so much time in a week, and there’s a good chance that the facilitator will put the UOP job on the back burner to deal with anything that arises.

Other challenges associated with the UOP part-time faculty model are the short duration of classes and last-minute class scheduling. During my UOP experience, I had numerous facilitators announce and apologize about lack of preparation due to being assigned to teach the class only a few hours before the class began. I personally had instructors announce that they didn’t know why UOP asked them to teach our particular class. Apparently UOP was desperate and hired these facilitators at the last minute so they were completely unprepared. That is an unfortunate consequence of part time staffing and short term planning. The short class durations are a problem because there is a lot of material being covered in a short amount of time, and very little time exists to interact with the facilitator.

It’s a further stretch to claim that a person with a master's degree who is employed in a related field is qualified to teach a given course. The problem is that UOP has to assume that the person is competent and knows what they are doing. There is an underlying assumption that the facilitators work or place of business is being run properly. Just because a business makes money it doesn’t mean that they are doing it using proper business protocols or doing it in the most efficient manner possible. Would you want an Enron executive teaching you how to manage a company? How about a manager from a failing business? What about a successful business that could be twice as successful if it were only being run right? How about the incompetent people you might be working with or under right now? Would your boss or previous boss make a good teacher? Are these people up on the last business theories, methods, and trends? Just because they are actively working in their field it does not mean that they should be educating the masses.

Contrast these factors to a traditional University’s full time staff who are (for the most part):
--Motivated and dedicated – it is their chosen profession and full time job - they are there for you
--Fully prepared to teach the classes that they are assigned or sign up for
--Conducting, participating in, or reading about the latest industry research and trends

Additionally, at traditional colleges, class scheduling is done months in advance. Professors are fully prepared to teach these classes, they are fully qualified to teach these classes, and they prepare and teach their own materials. Furthermore, students usually know who is teaching the classes that they are signing up for, rather than finding out on the first night of class.

Admitedly, there may be some great faculty at UOP. But clearly there are some severe pitfalls associated with UOP's model that will put people who shouldn't be teaching in front of your classroom. Is this really what you want to pay all of that money for?]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=24 Sun, 1 Apr 2007 05:43:00 -0400 http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=22
It is open to interpreation about what being the gold standard of accreditation means. The truth is, almost all schools have regional accreditation. Having regional accreditation is like having a driver's license. It's not that big of a deal because a) almost everyone has one and b) Having a driver's license does not mean you are a good driver. The regional accreditation guidelines are available here. If you take the time to read the guidelines, one will notice that there are no provisions for evaluating the quality of effectiveness of school or a school's programs. The guidelines ensure that the school has all of the basics required to be considered a real school. Most people do not understand that regional accreditation has little or nothing to do with quality and UOP takes advantage of this because most people don't know any better.

When pressed, UOP plays down the importance of program accreditation as if it isn't important. That is not so. AACSB International is the premier accrediting agency for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs in business administration and accounting. AACSB's website says:

AACSB International accreditation assures stakeholders that business schools:

* Manage resources to achieve a vibrant and relevant mission.
* Advance business and management knowledge through faculty scholarship.
* Provide high-caliber teaching of quality and current curricula.
* Cultivate meaningful interaction between students and a qualified faculty.
* Produce graduates who have achieved specified learning goals.

Who wouldn't want to make sure that their MBA program meets these criteria? How can one claim that these criteria aren't important? Evidently Intel agrees. Intel recently decided not to reimburse tuition for MBA program without AACSB accreditation. News Article.

Here is what others are saying about the importance of AACSB:

"The benefits of AACSB International accreditation are vast. Some employers only hire business graduates from AACSB International accredited schools. Also, many foreign governments will only send and sponsor students to study at AACSB International accredited schools of business in the United States. Students may experience greater success gaining entrance into top-tier graduate programs in business if their undergraduate business education is accredited by AACSB International."

http://www.acu.edu/campusoffices/development/programs/coba/vision.html

"Your degree will have a mark of distinction that will make it easier for you to secure employment (since some employers only hire graduates of AACSB-accredited programs) and allow you easier acceptance to graduate programs and transfer of credits to other accredited programs."

http://www.sbea.mtu.edu/sbe/prospectiveStudents/whysbe.asp

"“Some of the larger companies, such as Proctor and Gamble, only hire from [AACSB] accredited institutions,” she said. "

http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0410/07/news/4business_sch.htm

Why would you go anywhere that's not AACSB accredited?
]]> General http://uopsucks.com/blog/index.php?itemid=22 Sat, 3 Mar 2007 17:07:26 -0500