Online Education Specialist Degree, Nova Southeastern, An Ra Degree Mill?

Q: Per Dr. Levicoff's suggestion, I checked out Nova Southeastern's program in Computer Technology in Education. Very expensive, very poor quality. I consider this particular program a "degree mill" program for the following reasons. http://scis.nova.edu/Doctoral/dcte.html 1) According to the Nova literature "A student may declare his or her degree preference (Ph.D. or Ed.D.) at any time during the program. The difference between these degrees is a name difference only.". I find this very disturbing and the statements highly irresponsible for an accredited University. A PhD is a research degree, designed to prepare specialized academians for a lifetime of continuing research. The Ed.D. is a practitioners degree, designed for those who are specialists in the practice of ideas explored by those with the Ph.D. In looking over the curricula of traditional universities, I notice a strong distinction between the program of study for the Ed.D. and the program of study for the Ph.D. At the University of Kansas, a person can earn either a Ph.D. or Ed.D. in Educational Leadership. At the University of Kansas, for example, the Ed.D. has a set program of coursework which is completed by a cohort of students and includes an internship in administration. The Ph.D. has a core of 5 courses, followed by a minor in a specialized area of research, and a set of courses in statistics and measurement, followed by the dissertation. KU's Education program is ranked 6th in the United States (U.S. News and World Report) and distinctions like this make that possible.

A:Is it more of a difference in dissertation though? In other programs, (I checked out a half a dozen at random), the coursework requirements were extremely similar, but the dissertation requirements differed. I can't say that any of the others had *identical* requirements though. Note that, while the same kinds of courses are required for the MCTE (see http://scis.nova.edu/Common/Catalogs/mcte.html), the material does seem to be different. I'm going to use HCI as an example, because I'll be taking it next semester for the MS in CS program: 1) For the MS in CS/CTE and Ph.D. programs, one of the books is the same and one is different. The second book for the doctoral course is an ACM publication and thus more academic than the second book for the MS programs. 2) The assigments are different, with the Ph.D. assignments being more involved. For example, the MS level assignments for HCI: http://scis.nova.edu/~cohenm/assign.cisc685.wi2000.html The (Ph.|Ed.)D. level assignments: http://scis.nova.edu/~cohenm/assign3.diss720.htm

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