Almeda Makes US News Directory

[Albert Hidel]

It was an "oversight" not "any kind of advertising deal." Sure it was.

Quote:Ranking the Online Colleges
June 30, 2011

U.S. News & World Report, which in the last three decades has become one of the most successful and controversial kingmakers in higher education, is taking preliminary steps to apply its rankings to the increasingly important realm of online colleges.

Meanwhile, a U.S. News spin-off site accidentally profiled a new program at an online institution considered by some authorities to be a "degree mill" — a mistake that, while it was swiftly corrected when brought to the attention of the editors, highlighted just how difficult it can be to size up online institutions in the current environment.

...At the same time that U.S. News was promoting its expansion into online college ranking, a spin-off site it opened two years ago unwittingly wrote a plug for a new program at an online institution, Almeda University, that is not recognized as a legitimate degree-granting university by the U.S. Department of Education or any mainstream accrediting agency, and which has been flagged as a “degree mill” by [perverts and civil rights violators in] the Oregon state government.

“Working adults who want to pursue a psychology master’s degree can benefit from the flexibility of online programs, such as the one offered by Almeda University’s School of Psychology,” said a news brief posted Monday on U.S. News University Directory.

The editors of the site took down the posting after it was brought to their attention by Inside Higher Ed, which was tipped off by the watchdog site GetEducated.com. “As a matter of principle we generally focus on accredited colleges and universities and the programs they offer,” the University Directory editors wrote in an e-mail. “On the rare occasion, such as this, when we learn that the institution’s accreditation is in question, we take appropriate action.”

The publication opened University Directory two years ago in bid to move into the business of lead generation through a partnership with Bisk Education, Inc.

The move raised eyebrows among some critics, who wondered whether U.S. News’s attempts to capitalize on its authority in the higher education world might in fact compromise its credibility as a disinterested observer of the industry.

Kelly said the news brief about Almeda’s psychology program was the result of simple editorial oversight, not any kind of advertising deal with Almeda.

Press releases might be parroted in the pages of University Directory, not always with attribution, said Kelly; not because universities are paying for the exposure, but because such releases are just “part of the news flow” in the content-obsessed world of the modern news industry. Another effect of the push for more content is that errors are more common than they were before — at U.S. News as elsewhere, Kelly said.

Indeed, the gaffe suggests that the opportunities and demands of the Internet age complicate matters both for higher education institutions and for those who cover them.

“As our model has changed to a digital model, we are publishing so much more content in so many different areas,” said Kelly. “The demand for the information we publish is enormous — it’s bottomless. And we are continuing to experiment and monitor the best ways to produce that information.”

[ham]

Since the full information age is at least ten-twelve years old and running, it is difficult to believe people cannot search the CHEA database. It is very possible that it all constituted a covert advertisement. I remember a documentary of the early 1980s (no information age) in which they exposed far right wing groups under a barrage of insults...but hey! they showed their publications, tapes etc and zoomed in onto the front pages with the "printed by XYZ press, ABC address"or " NMO video, JKL address"...what do YOU think? Do you think clueless Jack Fart might -just might- have written down the address of the accursed publisher of blacklisted materials? I always thought that the degreeinfo/ degreediscussion crew used to give visibility to SOME degree mills under the guise of heaping ridicule over them...I mean...anybody's interested in that bogus, immoral degree mill that falsely claims to be a French outfit, awards bogus degree according to a mysterious French law nobody knows anyways...and whose degrees have been transferred into the US or whatever system a number of times? Don't laugh...Diderot and Grimm used to exchange info about libertine and pornographic works under the cover of 'exposing' them and criticizing them.

[Albert Hidel]

(07-02-2011 08:38 PM)ham Wrote:  Since the full information age is at least ten-twelve years old and running, it is difficult to believe people cannot search the CHEA database.

If a self-appointed "expert" like CHEA director George "The Sphincter" Gollin and all his multiple fake doctorate degrees can't figure out how to work the CHEA database, you can't expect a billionaire like Mortimer Zuckerman to be able to figure it out.

That's the funny thing about liars and dirtbags; they bet nobody is going to bother taking the ten seconds necessary to verify the facts behind their lies, and they are usually correct.

[Virtual Bison]

I think its awsome! Maybe US News can print a story about Gollin, Contreras and the rest of the Accreditation Mafia. That would make for some interesting reading indeed.