[game_edu] Online-only degrees (was Re: Where to post academic job offers?)

[Stacey Simmons]

Hi Ian!

Speaking as someone who lives in the world of academics, and deals  
with online education- I can honestly say that there is a built in  
bias on the part of academics against online degree programs.  To me  
this is somewhat faulty- but I think I can briefly address the good  
and the bad.

 > Universities idealize themselves as a place where discourse  
advances the course of knowledge.  Therefore the idea of a student  
who "takes in" information and regurgitates it back- is against their  
"ideology" regardless of the fact that- the method used in  
universities often has exactly this effect.  The opportunity for  
exchange in most univsersities is more important than the actual  
method of learning.  And too often students don't have the  
opportunity to experience this exchange until they are pursuing a  
graduate degree (if they're lucky).

 > Professors consider themselves to be experts, and they often have  
a myopic bias about the importance of their contribution, and their  
role in the discipline.  Therefore, the idea that someone could learn  
WITHOUT them completely flies in the face of their often very fragile  
egos.

 > Academics do rightly pride themselves on being the gatekeepers of  
information.  I say this fully aware that it may send some folks into  
a tailspin.  However, in academia- whether they are adhered to or  
not, whether they are considered contributions or detractions, the  
academic rigor expected of folks who pursue advanced degrees, does  
create a system that carefully guards (in most cases) the  
distribution of knowledge.  Please note that for most academics this  
is knowledge for its own sake (even if it is often myopic, one-sided,  
or god-forbid, blind).  The idea is that knowledge must be pursued  
for its own sake, and not for the sake of profit, or as we have seen  
in the last few years with some for-profit institutions (in the U.S.  
primarily) profiteering.

 > On the down side, academics also do not give appropriate concern  
to the "real" world in most instances.  They focus on the theoretical  
because most of them have never had a job that wasn't somehow  
connected to their education.  This gives many (not all) academics a  
bias against the "real world" as they see it as all application and  
no innovation.  Unfortunately in the game and digital media  
disciplines this means that many faculty members have isolated  
themselves, not realizing that a great deal of innovation happens in  
studios, corporations and developers- and that they'll never have  
access to it because it is privately held IP- such is the disconnect.

I know I have not answered your question.  I think that academics  
will come around- the best opportunity for someone  with a great deal  
of experience and an online degree is to start publishing papers in  
academic journals.  That is the standard for academic acceptance.  If  
you are an academic with a PhD from Harvard and never publish, you  
will not earn the respect of your peers.  If you have a PhD from  
Podunkin' University and have published in Science or ACM, you will  
be respected as a world-leading expert.

Such is my experience anyway.

Stacey


On Mar 29, 2008, at 4:01 PM, Ian Schreiber wrote:


> I've been thinking about this a lot over the last week, and there's  

> one thing about this whole discussion that really confuses me.

>

> On the one hand, I'm hearing that online-only MFA's aren't taken  

> seriously in academia.

>

> On the other hand, I'm also hearing that people with game industry  

> experience are in a seller's market, and universities will gladly  

> bring in any qualified person as long as they can keep their  

> accreditation board mollified.

>

> These two views would seem to conflict with each other. How can  

> they be reconciled? Will a person with a ton of industry experience  

> and an online-only terminal degree have trouble getting hired, or not?

>

> - Ian

>

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