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Unqualified and Inappropriate Faculty, Part II

Want to know why UOP faculty are so inconsistent in quality? Here is some feedback from candidates who have gone through the interview process.


  • The "interview" process is a series of emails and a couple of phone calls with the recruiter. The emails have the applicants answer some trivial questions about why they want to work for UOP, there experience in the field, etc. Applicants have to send copies of their degrees or official transcripts to UOP from the schools they have graduated. UOP doesn't spend any money getting the transcripts themselves.
  • If all goes well, you get to attend two 2-week long training sessions with other 10+ candidates. The first session covers trivial things like the proper signature formatting, fonts, the learning model, etc. The second session covers grading, policies, etc. The candidates have to place 2 or 3 substantive comments 4-5 days a week (same thing as in the actual courses).
  • A few candidates were very vocal about how it was a waste of time to "learn" that way, and decided not to pursue the facilitator position any more.
  • The candidates that "pass" these two sessions go on to have a paid mentor-ship the courses they're deem to be qualified. There is a mentor who "guides" them on how to prepare the syllabus, materials, bio, DQs, etc.
  • Some of the candidates are horrible, and the quality of their work deteriorates quickly. One of the folks in the same batch as my co-worker threw in the towel at the end of the first week, and decided that facilitating wasn't his call. Apparently, this guy made that decision when he saw the amount of material he had to grade for week 1. It wasn't clear to me whether the mentor stepped in at that moment and finished teaching the class, or whether the class was canceled.
  • There can be facilitators that to minimize the amount of grading and work decided to make the DQs count for about 40% of the grade, and give no DQs for the last week.
  • Candidates are indeed being sensitized to the need of showing "academic rigor" in the courses by virtue of increasing the variance in the grades. As if having a few Cs and Ds or Fs is going to increase the "rigor" of UOP's education.
  • BTW, the maximum size of a class is 18 students, but if the class has more people, then the facilitator gets paid $50 for each student over 18. That should give you an idea of the amount of effort UOP expects facilitators to put per student.
  • Anyway, my co-worker also confirms what has been mentioned so many times: there are students who plagiarize the assignments. There are even sites on the internet that sell UOP papers, and students submit these papers verbatim for grading.
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    Our impression is that the hiring process does not appear to be a serious or rigorous process to ensure top quality. UOP does not seem to expend much effort to verify and validate credentials, particularly transcripts and degrees. This may explain why "Dr." Kleinplatz is still employed at UOP.

    *Note: The information presented on this website represents the true experiences of actual students at the University of Phoenix. All scanned materials are original and have not been altered. All accounts and opinions presented here are the opinions and actual accounts of actual students. This is not meant to be construed that all students will have the same opinions and experiences. Your results may vary.

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