John Bear Wrote:I always liked the Cimboco Cafe in the Grand Caymans.

Uncle Janko is on a roll with his commentary on the recent developments in higher education in South Africa.

Degreediscussion thread

The only problem I see, though, is that no one else seems to care. There was a time when Jack Tracey would have jumped with some remarks and maybe one or two other idiots but it doesn't seem as they want to talk about anything education-related anymore.

Absolutely nonsensical argument between Rich Douglas and Bruce Tait over total bullshit - Federal civilian pay grades. It's obvious that neither of them knows anything about the topic but it's also noteworthy that both felt compelled to post something. Typical DI/DD thread. It's not even worthy of a poll.

DI thread with dispute between Douglas and Tait

http://www.degreediscussion.com/forums/v...f=6&t=6073

Since they want to talk about statistics, let's do so shall we ?

As of the time of this writing, Degreediscussion has 46,519 posts.

20,263 are "off topic" related posts, thereby 44% of the total posts at Degreediscussion has NOTHING to do with education at all.

When you compare the largest forums they have, the "Off-topic" forum dominates everything with 19,600 posts.

Compare that to 11709 posts in the General Education Discussions, or 73% more posts about politics and posts about DLTruth.com then about Education !!!

And it only gets worse from there...

Compare 7298 Distance Education posts to "off-topic" or a whopping 277% more posts about Politics than Distance Education !!!

How about their supposed speciality ??? "Unaccredited Programs"

Not too much better either I'm afraid...

284% more posts about Politics than "Unaccredited Programs".

At what point does a website become an "Off-topic" Discussion board and no longer a Degree Discussion board ???

Let's get a bit more Micro and now things get really bad...


The Top 12 posters, Douglas, Janko, Jimmy, Jack, HG, Abner, Bear, etc.

Make up 23,822 posts,  Amazing !!!!

12 people make up 51.2% of all of Degreediscussion.com's posts !!!  That can't be good.


12 people out of 1087 "Members" make up...1.1% of the total membership.


In summary, 1.1% of the DegreeDiscussion.com community make up 51.2% of the total posts and I was being lazy too.  I only included posters that have more than 1000+ posts.  If I went a layer deeper like included the top 20 who had 500,600+ posts, I probably could've gotten the top 20 making up like 70/75% of the posts and they still only making up around 1 point something % of the membership.

But hey, they wanted to talk statistics, and there they are.

Cheers,

http://www.degreediscussion.com/forums/v...f=5&t=6069

George Gollin Wrote:Robert Markishtum's prison term begins 9/29
by g-gollin on Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:04 pm

Roberta Markishtum was sentenced to a four month prison term for her St. Regis activities.

"Ms. Markishtum has been ordered to report to Victorville, California, on September 29, 2008 to serve her sentence."

(See page 3, line 15 of the linked appeal document. The appeal was denied.)g-gollin
Senior Member
?
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:03 am
Location: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
E-mailWebsite

Gollins observations:

"It is refreshing to see something written by goonkers DuckMen that does not mention

* Uncle Janko
* John Bear
* Alan Contreras
* "Self accreditation"
* Libertarian principals
* Libertarian principles
* Brown teals
* [enter your choice of homophobic rant here]
* [enter your choice of racist rant here]
* [enter your choice of anti-semitic rant here]


Of course, ODA does come up, but you can't have everything."

http://www.degreediscussion.com/forums/v...f=5&t=5996


Why does Gus put up with bigots like Gollin who accuse those who disagree with him of racism? Gollin obviously doesn't like libertarians because he feeds at the government trough. He doesn't like the principle of self-accreditation which is the normal system in most of the world.

I don't know his fixation on Uncle Janko, John Bear, and Alan Contreras. Maybe it's a personal relationship thing. No homophobia here George, your free to do whatever you want.

As far as I can see the people on this website have a history of opposing comments from other sites such as referring to people as A-1 Jews.

Brown teals? I don't like the taste of duck so they're free to live.

One of the truly helpful guys around these forums Ted Heiks is looking to go back to school. I like his honesty and lack of prejudgment.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?t=28932

It looks like George Gollin (George Dana Gollin, George D. Gollin) may have even more of a motive for cyberstalking DE schools.

http://apnews.excite.com:80/article/2008...LBL00.html

University of Ill. virtual campus flounders


Email this Story

Sep 25, 5:07 AM (ET)

By DAVID MERCER

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - An $8.9 million online campus launched by the University of Illinois nine months ago has had disappointing enrollment and fewer course offerings than expected, but the man who created it isn't giving up.

Instead, University of Illinois President Joseph White said he wants to turn the school's Global Campus into an independent, accredited university to speed up development of degree programs.

So far 121 students have enrolled in just five degree programs - far short of the 9,000 students White projected would enroll by the end of the Global Campus' first five years.

When it started offering classes in January, White hoped his professors would quickly create online programs in business, engineering and other high-demand fields.


For the most part, "That has not happened," White told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "I'm not mad at anybody about that. I think we've come to realize that we have a university faculty that is at capacity."

White said the Global Campus is hamstrung by its status in the university system - it lacks the autonomy of the campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield - and by the fact that its degree programs have to be created by departments on those campuses.

Nicholas Burbules, a professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the Urbana-Champaign campus and chairman of the Faculty Senate there, said some departments White counted on to create degree programs may have decided - for whatever reason - that they'd rather not.

"I think everyone understands the current model isn't generating the kind and number and diversity of programs that any of us envisioned," said Burbules. "I think frankly there were a lot of questions about implementation details."

So, White plans to ask the university's board of trustees in November to let the Global Campus seek its own accreditation, giving it the same standing and independence as the university's three brick-and-mortar campuses.

White envisioned the Global Campus as a revenue generator. He estimated a fully developed virtual campus would pump $10 million a year into the university system by providing affordable access to higher education for people who can't easily take classes at a U of I campus.

White said the Global Campus could gain accreditation, create new degree programs and draw on interested faculty from the three existing campuses, all without initially spending more than the $8.9 million budgeted for the venture this year.

Online learning is not particularly new, and other institutions have had more success with it. The University of Massachusetts, for example, said in April its online program had 33,900 enrollments and revenue of $37 million last fiscal year. Nearly 3.5 million students nationwide took at least one online course during the fall 2006 term, according to a report last year by the Sloan Consortium.

Trustees David Dorris and Robert Vickery say they haven't seen the details of White's proposal, but support at least the idea of restructuring the Global Campus.

"We have not had the success thus far that we had anticipated, so I think it's appropriate," said Dorris.

If trustees sign off his idea, White says the Global Campus could win accreditation from the Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission in two to three years. That's shorter than the usual time required, he said, but he expects the status of the university's three campuses would help speed the process.

White hopes to launch at least one degree-completion program within a year, and he added he won't allow the Global Campus to lower the university system's existing standards to increase Global Campus enrollment and offerings.

"Access to mediocrity is no bargain," he said. "Our goal is that all the University of Illinois' programs be of the highest quality."

As you read the successive Nosborne posts, you can almost feel Nos' fear of insulting the éminence grise of DegreeDiscussion.  

BTW, I'm with Uncle J on this issue. I must also say that I find it bizarre that Nosborne, a retired Naval Reserve officer, so easily dismisses the candidacy of retired Naval aviator McCain because Gov. Palin gives him the willys.

DD thread

Hard to believe but true:

http://www.degreediscussion.com/forums/v...f=3&t=6028

Does anyone know if he still has his aircraft? Does his banker?