Non-Accredited Degrees

[Descartes]

I want to be clear that I'm not talking about hiring tenure track faculty here.

My question is "Are there any non-accredited degrees or institutions that you would entertain as legitimate?"  On a related topic, how about distance/online doctorates?

I know that we had threads about this at the old fora, but those were now many years ago.  I'm asking out of curiosity.  Again, not asking in the context of "Would you hire a person for a tenure track professor" with this kind of credential.  More so just wondering what everyone's general opinion is.  Are they all a joke?  Would you consider anyone who has one a joke even if they were an adjunct or outside of the university?

[Parasaurolophus]

For distance/online, definitely The Open University. Anywhere else? Meh.

[polly_mer]

How many qualified people exist in the pool?  If accredited degrees are rare and other ways to gauge qualifications exist, then people who are otherwise qualified will be hired.

For example, I remember an interpreter hired who was nationally certified with 10 years experience, but the bachelor's degree was from an unaccredited institution.  We hired her as the one qualified person in the three-person pool.

[Wahoo Redux]

Online doctorates are the Monopoly Money of degrees.

[polly_mer]

Online doctorates are the Monopoly Money of degrees.

That all depends on why and how the doctorate is online. 

For example, my current employer has many graduate research assistants who are doing their research here and taking their classes distance ed somewhere else.  You might be surprised at what institutions are doing graduate courses online and how low the on-campus residencies are to have an earned doctorate from a name-brand (and even elite) institution.

Since grad school isn't about classes for many fields, but is instead about the research, being at a non-academic place producing a steady stream of published peer-reviewed research can be a better experience all around.

That's a different situation than the graduate program that is a handful of classes and a semester writing a dissertation that's mostly literature review with a small project attached.  Even there, you might be surprised at what occurs on campus in fields where the doctorate is much more about following the process and not having one's life blow up during that process than performing original research that must mean the approval of current practitioners in the field.

[Descartes]

I'll say this: this virus pandemic (or near pandemic) is going to prove that almost anything can be done remotely.  Just look at all the universities already moving everything to off campus learning.

[spork]

I'll say this: this virus pandemic (or near pandemic) is going to prove that almost anything can be done remotely.  Just look at all the universities already moving everything to off campus learning.

I was thinking this, too. I think I'll start a thread about it.