... and he did it at Sainz' own forum.

DD thread

Times have changed and so has Gus Sainz. There was a time when the notoriously thin-skinned and egotistical Gus would have either deleted the post and the offender's account at the snap of the fingers, or he would have launched into a multi-paragraph counterattack skewering the offending party. I guess Gus doesn't actually gave a crap anymore.

Here's what they are saying about American Military University(AMU)/American Public University (APUS) at Ripoff Report. Just like NCU, the shills come out of the woodwork to post phony, transparent rebuttals.

Quote:American Military University AMU Degree mill - setting the bar low
Submitted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Last posting: Saturday, March 19, 2011

AMU is a rip off when it comes to quality of education. If you are considering this for profit university please consider the following experiences and be critical with endorsements of current or previous students, their comments and recommendations are bias. I would defend this university too if I have invested time and effort towards a degree with them.

First of all I'm not a student of AMU, because for profit universities have an interest not for quality of education but rather profits. My sources come from many military students currently attending this university.

All my friends taking classes with this university laugh at how easy it is to get a degree. Basically if you put some minimal time, minimal effort and a ton of money you will eventually get a degree. Classes are about 8 weeks long, with very few being 16 weeks long. My friend takes 3 classes per 8 week period with no effort at all. At this rate anyone can have a 4 year degree in a little over 2 years. But my friend will be done way before that since he got a ton of questionable credits for being in the military.

The curriculum is a joke. The main part of the curriculum is based on on-line discussion between a bunch of students who try to answer one or two selected questions posted by the instructor. The questions are extremely easy but most of the time the conversation turns to an off-topic conversation. The instructors hardly instruct. The five people I have asked all taking different classes with different instructors told me about the indifference and lack of participation of the instructors. They are there just to post and grade assignments.

True some of the instructors are probably experienced people in their fields working full times. They don't have the time to be full time teachers like real universities. They are there for the easy paycheck not the passion to teach.

The books are free but most of the time they are not complete versions just excerpts. At the end of the semester you turn around and sell the book back to them, so in essence the price of the book is included in the HIGH tuition.

Some classes usually require a paper to write. Since instructors are not really there to teach, they leave it up to the students to pick a subject. One of my friends, submits the same paper for every class every semester. He is getting by and will get a degree and only had to write one paper. I took a look at his paper and I can only describe it as mediocre with grammar, and style errors. He gets an "A" every time so I know his paper don't get read. By the way he is a senior in AMU and don't even know how to reference a paper using APA or MLA!

Their quizzes and tests are all open book. There are not proctored tests. So why even bother with a test? if you have to look all the answers. They are not testing your knowledge gained but rather how fast can you look up information in a book. As a result none of the people I know who is enrolled in AMU even reads their free book.

Back to the conferences, my friends use Wikipedia and the web to answer their online discussions. They just cut and paste and maybe change a few words and pass it as their own.

The sad part about this, is that my friends honestly believe they are getting a good education. One of my friends was took an economics course, I quizzed him some basic principles and had no idea what I was talking about.

If you just want an easy degree, with little work then AMU or other for profits are for you. If you want a good education then seek a non for profit or a real university. There was an article in the news not long ago, where job recruiters admitted they don't hire people with for profit university's degrees for mid level management positions.

This comes to me directly from an AMU admin, who for obvious reasons shall remain nameless.

This is an actual weekly "forum" assignment in AMU class INTL 506 Analytics II. I'm told this is a required course in the AMU Intelligence Studies masters program.

Quote:This week you read two authors who discussed reforming the way we "do" intelligence analysis.

Please do the following:

1. Reply to the post.

2. Assess the arguments of each other and explain why you agree or disagree.

3. Answer the following question. Drawing on your own personal experience analyzing problems, do beleive that all "good" analysts need to behave the way the authors say they do? Why or why not?

4. Reply to the posts of two of your classmates.

It has been a while since Johann has posted. I wonder if he went back out on that sabbatical he claimed would keep him away until 2012? Alternatively, perhaps Johann, subconsciously influenced by the spirit of the Easter season, is planning on a return of his own sometime soon?

It is always possible that he has returned to the online.degree.net forum or the degreeforum.net, places where he would again be the big fish in a little pond.

Diploma mill? No, just an Alternative Credentialing System!

Quote:Solving the College Affordability Problem
Dan Lips

How much should a college education cost? According to the College Board, the average cost of earning a degree at a private, 4-year university is now more than $100,000. If tuition prices continue to rise as quickly as they did during the past decade, a college degree will cost more than $200,000 by the time today’s third-graders are applying. That price tag is enough to cause most parents to break into a sweat.

Is a college degree really worth this cost? Some bright minds think Americans are paying way too much. In fact, Bill Gates--one of the country's most famous college dropouts--thinks it should be closer to zero. He told an audience last summer: “Five years from now, on the web, for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.”

One could argue that the bright future Gates described is already here. The Massachusetts Institute for Technology has already put all of its instructional materials, including lectures, online and made it available for free. Other schools, including many elite universities, are following suit. For example, using iTunes University, you can already download free lectures from Stanford, Yale, and dozens of other colleges.

The trend of a free and open higher education system will revolutionize higher education, and fundamentally change the way that the world learns. As Gates argues, someday soon, anyone—anywhere in the world—with internet access will be able to learn from the best professors and teachers.

Of course, access to instruction isn't the only, or even primary, reason why most American students go to college. A big part of what today’s students are purchasing for that $100,000 is the degree itself—the credential that signals to employers and society in general that one is able to learn and can survive four years of classes and exams.

But alternative credentialing systems, like AP tests and CLEP exams, are already in place. And the realization of Bill Gates's vision of free online higher education will surely be followed by new credentialing systems that allow people who learn online to prove their accomplishments and signal their value to employers.

Forward thinking elected officials now have the opportunity to expedite the arrival of the free college era, and—in the process—solve a major problem for American families while providing big relief for taxpayers and federal and state budgets.

For too long, efforts to solve the college access and affordability problem have focused on increasing subsidies—grants, loans, and scholarships—for students to attend college. Increased student aid subsidies have contributed to today’s high tuition prices. The College Board reports that total federal support for all forms of college student aid programs was $146 billion in 2010—an increase of 136 percent over just a decade ago.

Instead of this continuing this failed approach—an approach we simply can no longer afford—elected officials should focus on dramatically lowering the costs associated with earning a college education. For example, Governor Rick Perry recently called on the Texas higher education system to develop a new program through which students can earn a college degree for only $10,000. Presumably, this initiative will take advantage of the exciting efficiencies that are happening thanks to online learning.

Leaders in Washington and in state capitals around the country should follow Governor Perry’s lead. Governors and state legislatures should require state-funded universities to follow schools like MIT—putting lectures and course content online for free. Like Texas, state higher education systems should create new credentialing systems to allow people who learn online to demonstrate their mastery and work towards a degree.

Congress and the administration have a responsibility to taxpayers to support reforms that will lower the $150 billion annual burden of student aid programs. For example, Congress could require a college that receives a certain level of direct federal subsidies place a percentage of its instructional content online for free. This initiative would follow the tradition of the Library of Congress—creating a national library of college lectures that all citizens can use. President Obama could use his bully pulpit to challenge universities across the country to do their part to solve a critical national problem.

Very few of our country’s many, big problems have simple and inexpensive solutions. We can’t afford to pass this one up.

MORE PLAGIARISM FROM THE SAME OLD CHOSEN FEW

Quote:The fact that it was not just any college student, but the Premier of Alberta himself engaging in a bit of cut and paste plagiarism, made for some scandalous headlines across most major Canadian newspapers. From composition instructors to university students, everyone wanted a chance to weigh in on this case of plagiarism involving Alberta’s Premier.

University students in particular were outraged that Klein was able to slide by with a 77% for such a derivative paper, and many academics criticized Athabasca University for not adhering to its own policy on “Intellectual Ownership and Honesty”. This case is a practical illustration of how a simple cut and paste composing strategy can quickly morph into a major political brouhaha involving Canadian university officials, top government officials, professors, university students, and members of the general public.

The alleged plagiarism in Klein’s paper came to light after some highly controversial comments about the Pinochet regime on the floor of Alberta’s legislature. With members of the Chilean-Canadian community demanding an apology from their Premier for his insensitive remarks, Klein made what he thought was a noble gesture intended to demonstrate that he knew what he was talking about and that he intended no offence toward his Chilean-Canadian constituents.

In this gesture, Klein offered up his paper for public scrutiny. This turned out to be a move he would deeply regret, since perceptive readers in this expanded public audience were quick to note that large sections of the paper had been copied from Internet sources without proper acknowledgment. The paper in question was a thirteen page discussion of “Allende, Pinochet and the Chilean Media” which Klein had submitted for a communications course he was taking from Athabasca University.

Once the allegations of plagiarism were brought out into full public view, Athabasca University had no choice but to conduct a review of such allegations. At one point in this review, Klein’s paper was submitted to Turnitin.com for an originality check. This originality report verified the previous allegations. Klein’s paper had been composed using a basic cut and paste strategy, and the chunks of lifted text lacked proper citation and quotation marks to indicate that portions of source text were being reproduced verbatim. Since Klein had made his paper available for close scrutiny by the public, there was no taking back the essay once the plagiarism had been discovered.

Many university students expressed dismay at Klein’s evident plagiarism. Students thought he should have received an “F” for such a cut and paste job on a university level research paper. One student remarked, “We as students get kicked out of school for that [plagiarism]”, making reference to Klein’s seemingly preferential treatment by university officials reviewing the case.

A social studies teacher from Edmonton wrote in a letter to the editor of a prominent Canadian newspaper, “My own (junior high) students could have done a better job citing their sources than the premier did”.

University professor Nancy Robbins thought that the passing grade of 77% which Premier Klein received on his paper was rather “generous” and that “for a premier, it says a lot about the type of politician that is running our province.”

Another instructor, Laurie E. Harnick, stated emphatically, “I would have failed him on my course”.

Meanwhile, the outrage and dismay over Klein’s academic infraction continued to be accompanied by demands from the Chilean-Canadian community that Klein apologize for his ill-advised remarks about Pinochet basically being “forced” to stage a coup to put an end to the socialist Salvador Allende’s rule. With regard to these comments--made during a legislative discussion about auto insurance--opposition leader Kevin Taft remarked, “I don’t know what connection was going on in his brain, it [the Pinochet remark] was just so bizarre it just left people shaking their heads.”

For Athabasca University officials, this was an indescribably embarassing moment. To have such a spectacle as the Premier’s plagiarized essay in full public view was nothing less than a public relations nightmare. Klein’s own office staff went into damage control mode and Klein’s line was “I did the paper according to the instructions received, submitted my paper, it was marked by a university professor, end of story. What is the big deal?”

For Athabasca university, however, it was not just “a big deal”. It was a really, really, big, BIG deal. Especially when their phone lines were bombarded with “calls complaining that large portions of the paper were copied straight from the Internet” reported CTV.

With pressure mounting, Klein is on the record as saying “This is crap!” at one news conference where he was pressed for more information on the plagiarism debacle. Expletives and outbursts notwithstanding, Klein’s attempts at damage control seem to have had some influence, particularly as the university review members would be quick to conclude that Premier Klein had done nothing wrong.

Quote:The premier declined to comment Friday but issued a news release saying he considers the matter now closed.

"Like any student would be, I am relieved to have been cleared on what is to me an important issue of personal integrity," Klein said. "It has disturbed me that Albertans might have been left with the impression that I behaved dishonestly in completing my course work."

Hughes stressed that the university took the complaint seriously.

"We have a pretty clearly prescribed process, and when someone in the community raises a complaint about possible academic misconduct, we are required to conduct a process, and we've done that," she said.

"We're satisfied and comfortable that the process was applied properly, that we applied the process that we would apply to any of our students."

Quote:March 9th, 2011

Does online education put traditional universities at a ‘grave risk’?
An expert on ‘disruptive innovation’ says ed tech could change the way powerhouse universities operate

By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor



Sixty-six percent of respondents to a recent survey said online college classes were “the same or superior” to face-to-face classes.

A university’s stockpile of faculty members with Ph.D.s soon could be irrelevant if online learning continues its rapid growth and provides flexibility for students of every age, said Clayton Christensen, an authority on how innovative technologies affect businesses and economies.

Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Prescription, delivered the keynote address to an audience of higher-education officials March 7 at the American Council on Education’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Christensen outlined the ways upstart, innovative businesses have toppled the giants of industry—such as Toyota’s rise coinciding with American automakers’ downfall—and how that model might translate to colleges and universities.

While online college classes have grown more available and affordable over the past decade, Christensen said a major shift had not yet occurred in higher education. Not until online learning grew in popularity was higher education even “amenable” to a major “disruption,” he said.

“When technology gets good enough, it sucks customers out of the old into the new,” he said, referring to institutions that have specialized in online learning, rather than traditional schools that have slowly adopted online college classes. “It doesn’t work the other way around.”

That move away from traditional powerhouses of education, he said, likely would happen in the next 20 years, and elite schools should be prepared.

“The way you define goodness at a university” used to be finding the most educated researchers and teachers to create and teach course material. But with the world “overcome by the amount of knowledge that can be taught” in the digital age, Christensen said, that old model is losing relevance.

He said “the traditional way of delivering knowledge” is standardized and inflexible, whereas online college classes allow—even encourage—customization that appeals to a wider audience of students, especially as college degrees become a requisite for career success.

In an excerpt from The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out, a forthcoming book written by Christensen and Henry Eyring, Christensen pointed to the latest generation of learning management systems that use algorithms similar to those used by commercial websites to predict what a web user is most likely to buy.

These algorithms “infer the ways that a student learns best, based on his or her learning performance and interactions with course material,” the authors wrote.

National data support Christensen’s warning to traditional universities. Online student enrollment increased by 21 percent in 2010, according to the annual Sloan Survey of Online Learning. Overall, higher-education enrollment grew by 2 percent.

The survey of more than 2,500 colleges and universities showed online college classes gained 1 million students from 2009. More than 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one web-based class in the fall 2009 semester.

In the excerpt from The Innovative University, the authors point out that traditional schools “have unique competitive advantages,” including “mentoring [young students] in a special community of scholars” and “physical campuses … built at great expense.”

The traditional university learning environment is not “invaluable,” however, with “new competitive alternatives” gaining traction.

“…That puts traditional universities at a grave risk, their unique physical and human assets notwithstanding,” the authors wrote. “For the vast majority of institutions, fundamental change is essential.”

Public perception of online college classes has gradually shifted since the early 2000s.

Sixty-six percent of respondents to a recent survey said online college classes were “the same or superior” to face-to-face classes, up from 57 percent in 2003, according to Babson College’s annual survey of online education in the U.S.

Three in four respondents from public colleges and universities agreed that online college classes were equivalent to or better than a traditional education.

Also, more campus decision makers than ever agree that online instruction is “critical to the long-term strategy” of their institution.

Sixty-three percent said online college classes were a central piece to their planning, marking a 14-percent jump since the survey was first taken in 2002.

The Babson survey isn’t without its caveats, however. Accommodating a massive influx of students looking for online college classes could prove untenable for many publicly funded schools that project more budget cuts in the coming years, Babson researchers said.

“There may be some clouds on the horizon,” said Elaine Allen, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group. “While the sluggish economy continues to drive enrollment growth, large public institutions are feeling budget pressure and competition from the for-profit sector institutions.”

The next time you read someone from the Dumbass Factory attempting to use the term "duck" as part of a put down, remember the U of Leicester's DUCKLING project, which actually does something useful for DL students, unlike said Dr. Dumbass.

Although, to tell the truth, I'm still not sure what Dr. Ray Randall was talking about, as I was trying to figure out whether or not he was wearing a Star Trek TOS uniform.

Quote:Delivering University Curricula: Knowledge, Learning and INnovation Gains

The DUCKLING project - funded by JISC - at the University of Leicester develops advanced delivery, presentation and assessment processes to enhance the work-based learning experience for students studying remotely. The project will demonstrate the practical marriage of sound approaches in delivery together with new technologies and work–based pedagogies for learning support, communication and assessment of professional adult learners from commencement to completion of the programme of study.

Video Spotlight:

Increasing student engagement using podcasts

Dr Ray Randall, from University of Leicester’s School of Psychology, speaks about his experience of using podcasts in teaching, as part of the DUCKLING project. Video produced by the University of New South Wales COFA.online media team.



Spotlight on: Shared Practice
As part of the 'Transforming Curriculum Delivery through Technology' strand funded by JISC we recognise the advantages of sharing good practice amongst the projects:

ESCAPE's Principles for providing good and engaging assessment feedback


Video Spotlight:

Creating eBooks for distance education

Terese Bird of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance describes the use of eBook readers in the DUCKLING project, as well as the process of converting learning materials into epub documents. Video produced by the University of New South Wales COFA.online media team.

ABA-accredited Southwestern Law School now offers an online version of their LLM in Entertainment & Media Law. Not cheap at $1,297 per unit for the 24 unit program.
http://www.swlaw.edu/studentservices/llm...m_entmedia

Interestingly, the program is offered in "collaboration" with Kaplan Legal Education, which runs DETC but non-ABA accredited Concord Law School.
http://kaplanlegaleducation.com/southwes..._education

George Gollin (George Dana Gollin, George D. Gollin, George Gollinsky, Gollum) is close to finishing his book on DL. Although Gollin and I are at odds on, well, about everything and I do consider him to be a pompous jerk, I'm sure that I will buy and read his book when it comes out. I just can't wait to see how he portrays himself in the whole St. Regis affair and how widely it will be from the truth.


DD link*

* Take note of Jack's inane comment