wealth of under- and postgraduate degrees from accredited UK university

[ham]

www.lamp.ac.uk

Accredited UK University of Lampeter offers a wealth of distance education degrees, both undergraduate:

Archaeology and Anthropology
Theology and Religious Studies
Voluntary Sector Studies
Welsh Studies

and postgraduate:
M.A philosophy
M.A classics
M.A history
M.A anthropology
etc,
each with various pathways.
Furthermore research degrees (Ph.D/M.Phil ).

[Herbert Spencer]

Ham, was wondering if you have had first-hand experience with the UK distance education programs, and if so how you would compare them with those in the US.

I was briefly enrolled in a UK program and found it to be a directionless hodge-podge compared to similar US programs.  Perhaps I just got mixed up in a bad program, as I noticed they completely changed the format after I left.  

But it's hard for me to give a US students a "thumbs up" to these UK programs based on my experience.  In your view is there a significant difference between UK and US distance programs?  Or is it like anything, some good ones and some bad ones?

[ham]

I have this far studied only with Athabasca, a Canadian school, and no school in the USA, plus various UK schools.
However, I can tell there is a difference between brick&mortar universities that offer distance learning, and distance learning universities.
Oftentimes the DE/DL segment of B&M schools comes second and is handled in a very superficial way.
In the end it certainly is 'some good, some bad' because within the same university I found departments handled in completely different ways; it all depends on the person behind the computer screen.
I have 'met' teachers at Athabasca who were very aloof and demanding, and teachers at Oxford easy to deal with.
Oxford online courses are rather flawless, while Cardiff's courses are definitely on the 'amateur' side (and cost 1/3 than Oxford's ).
While flaws in DE/DL providers seem enormous, it is my experience that they are typically less of an inconvenient than flaws at B&M universities; if savings associated with DE are taken into account, DE becomes a must.
Your calls or letters may be ignored and/or the amount and quality of support and mentoring you receive -irrespective of 'quality assurance and student's rights' stipulations- may in most -if not all- cases leave a lot to be desired.
I finished last year two DE 'dissertations' with a UK accredited B&M university.
Dissertations are typically required at the end of a B.A and are expected to meet stringent requirements and to be assessed by three examiners (two internal, one external).
Now I am a lone wolf and working alone is what suits me best, but what about average Jimmy?
The amount of support I could draw was MINIMAL and dealt with oddities in referencing that mean nothing because every university enforces different rules; the professor had made clear at the beginnings how he had so many students and how limited his time for anyone would be.
It is my guess that some 22yo unskilled Jimmy whose biggest research involved wikipedia and encarta would only fail, because examiners expect works meeting a standard and couldn't care less of the rest.

I suggest people to test the waters as non-program students first.