Accreditation is nothing but a hallmark for an educational institution to ensure that the institute meets the national standards as set by the concerned authority. Both the regular institutes and programs of study online in Nigeria have to conform to the rules specified by a ruling body to maintain the quality of education. To earn accreditation, an online university must impress the authority in convincing colors that the sufficient amount of quality hours is dedicated to each of its programs on offer. The process of accreditation is lengthy and tedious. Moreover, the institute of study online in Nigeria undergoes the same process every ten years.

An accrediting organization may be a national or regional body. They set the guidelines to be followed by the educational institutes. Timely evaluation is also done by the governing body to assess whether the universities of study online in Nigeria abide by the established rules and regulations. Accreditation is of two types – institutional and programmatic or specialized. The former type of accreditation is performed by the national or regional accrediting organization. On the other hand, the second type does not apply to the entire institute but to a program or department of the institute. Though it is mandatory for the institutes of study online in Nigeria to follow the laid-out guidelines but they are free to set the eligibility criteria and choose the courses to offer to the students.

As the distance learning education has received an overwhelming response from the students as well as professionals, therefore a strong need was felt to revamp the course structure. The industrial demand is not a static one rather it keeps evolving with the passage of time. The dynamic nature of demand has inspired the higher learning institutes of study online in Nigeria to go for timely review of the course structures so that the pass outs can brace up the emerging challenges confidently. Some of the programs offered through study online in Nigeria have got no accreditation from the regulatory board of education. The majority of these programs are of specialized type including software training or web design. But it is always better to join the courses accredited by the recognized agency. The non-accredited degrees are given no value in the job market. So, joining an unrecognized program means squandering money and time too. An accredited school of study online in Nigeria must provide the interested students with the details regarding its accredited status. In case you are not getting it, make sure to ask the school authority to get what you are in quest of. UK MBA in Nigeria is also a sort of distance learning program that aims at educating the budding managers. The course curriculum is designed by the UK education authority but approved by a recognized board in Nigeria.

ABA accreditation – According to the American Bar
Association, “Law schools approved by the American Bar
Association (ABA) provide a legal education which meets a
minimum set of standards as promulgated by the ABA. Every
jurisdiction in the United States has determined that graduates
of ABA-approved law schools are able to sit for the bar in their
respective jurisdictions. The role that the ABA plays as the
national accrediting body has enabled accreditation to become
unified and national in scope rather than fragmented, with the
potential for inconsistency, among the 50 states, the District
of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other
territories. The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education
and Admissions to the Bar is the United States Department of
Education recognized accrediting agency for programs that lead
to the first professional degree in law. The law school approval
process established by the Council is designed to provide a
careful and comprehensive evaluation of a law school and its
compliance with the Standards for Approval of Law Schools.”

State accreditation – Most states have their own
accreditation process and in most cases give accreditation
status to ABA accredited schools. However, there are many law
schools that for one reason or another do not meet all of the
ABA accredition requirements. Some of these schools, however, do
meet the states requirements. Note: State requirements can vary
by state. If a school meets state requirements it can apply to
that state for state accreditation.

Unaccredited – According to the California Bar
Association “An unaccredited law school is one operating as a
law school in the State of California that is neither accredited
nor approved by the Committee, but must be registered with the
Committee and comply with the requirements contained in Rules
XIX and XX of the Admission Rules, applicable provisions of the
California Rules of Court and relevant sections of the
California Business and Professions Code. A law school operating
wholly outside of California is unaccredited unless it has
applied for and received accreditation from the Committee or is
provisionally or fully approved by the American Bar
Association.” Rules in many other states are the same.

Most states require that you meet certain requirements
prior to being eligible to take their bar examination. The
California Bar states “To be eligible to take the California Bar
Examination, one must have completed at least two years of
college before beginning the study of law or must have passed
certain specified College Level Equivalency Program examinations
before beginning law study and must have graduated from a law
school approved by the American Bar Association or accredited by
the Committee of Bar Examiners of The State Bar of California or
have completed four years of law study at an unaccredited or
correspondence law school registered with the Committee or
studied law in a law office or judge’s chambers in accordance
with the Rules Regulating Admission to Practice Law in
California.” Most states have similar requirements.

The foregoing suggests that many states will not allow,
non ABA accredited out of state law school graduates to take
their bar examination, unless they attended school in that state
or a school that is certified by that state. Therefore students
graduating from non ABA accredited law schools may not be
allowed to practice in any state other than the state they
attended school. Note: Some states have reciprocal agreements
with other states allowing attorneys registered in one state to
become a member of the bar in another state without taking a bar
examination in the new state.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, there are many fine law
schools in this country that are not ABA accredited.
Additionally, many ABA accredited schools do not offer night
time or part time classes. Finally, there are many more
applicants that spaces available in ABA accredited schools,
forcing many good students to attend other schools. Therefore,
accreditation should not be your only criteria in choosing a law
school or in deceiding whether or not to hire a particular law
school graduate.

Permission is given to reprint this article providing credit is
given to the author, David G. Hallstrom, and a link is listed to
Resources For
Attorneys the owner of this article. Anyone or any company
reprinting this article without giving proper credit and the
correct link, is doing so without permission

It is important for you to know how and where to access the resources needed to make an informed decision about legitimate online degree program before you enroll into the program. When you plan to pursue your degree online, internet is the best place for you to search for your preference degree program offered by various online universities. Here is where diploma mills with a “fake” or “bad” accreditation set up their traps waiting you to fall into and hand over your money to exchange with their fake degree.

As a student and consumer, you must be careful and be smart enough to detect any potential signs of scam. Any online degree program offered by unfamiliar online university and if you are unable to confirm it is from legitimate accreditation, it better to eliminate from your list than taking the risk to enroll into the program. Online universities should provide their contact and address on their website, if not, you should straightly erase them from your list.

In searching for your preference program, you can request detail information from the university. In fact, information request is free of charge; you should utilize this service to get as much information as possible which can help you make your ultimate decision. Before you go and sign up the program, the most important thing that you cannot miss is check the online university that offers your prefer degree program with the accreditation database which is recognized by Department of Education. Go to ope.ed.gov/accreditation/search.php and type in the name of online university or go to CHEA.org and explorer it’s “database and directories” to confirm whether the online university that offer your preference online degree program is listed in the database. If you can’t the online university listed in these databases, don’t take the risk to enroll into the program unless you can confirm its accreditation is from a recognized accrediting agency from other reliable resources.

There too many “fake” accreditation agencies that accrediting diploma mills to make them look like legitimate. Those accrediting agencies are naming their agency sound alike with those legitimate accrediting agency and having website address that is similar but different domain extension. If you did not see it carefully, you will easily think that the online universities are accredited by legitimate accreditation agencies, but in actual they are diploma mills. Hence, you must watch out the details when you do the checking.

People will make complaints if they found they have been cheated. So, a good resource to check for the filed complaints of any online universities is at Better Business Bureau (BBB.org). Other than that, try to look at what other people talk about the online degree program offered by your selected online university, you should get some useful information that can help in your decision making.

In Summary

You want your degree to worth its value. Hence, it is important that you enroll into a degree program offered by online university that is accredited by one of accrediting agencies that are recognized by Department of Education. Always get confirmation on accreditation information of the online university from reliable resources before you sign up the online degree program.

Why Accreditation Is Important To Online Students?

Accreditation of online universities and their degree programs typically indicates these universities and their academic programs offered to their students had been undergone a rigorous review by one of a handful of Department of Education’s accrediting agencies. The accreditation is a measure of an online degree program offered by a school has followed the academic guideline of Department of Education. It’s also a common indicator of acceptance on a school’s degree in the job market.

That’s why if you are earning a degree online and you intend to use the degree to start your career or to make a career move, you need to ensure that the online degree program is offered by an accredited online school. Many employers use the accreditation information to determine the legitimate of your degree.

If you are apply a job position with a degree from an unaccredited online university, the employer might have doubt on the legitimate of your degree. They might ask you to provide proves on the legitimate of your degree. And, if there more candidates compete for the same position with you, then you might lose your competitiveness as employers will prefer to hire candidates who are holding a degree from universities they know. Most employers will have a list of accredited online universities or they can easily access to the list from CHEA.org or Department of Education website. Most employers are aware about the accredited universities, so if your degree is from an unknown online university or not listed in the accredited universities list, employers will have concern about your degree.

Beware of Fake Accredited Degree

Nowadays, as the important of accreditation awareness increase, many online students are concerned about accreditation. Hence, in order to compete with legitimate online universities in offering accredited online degree program, diploma mills (the organizations that issue fake degrees) do claim accreditation nowadays. The difference is the accrediting agencies that perform the accreditation process for diploma mills are not legitimate accrediting agencies which are recognized by Department of Education. The accredited degrees issued by those diploma mills are considered fake degrees.

You must carefully ensure that your selected online degree program is from a real accredited online university before you enroll into the program. Always check with the accreditation database from CHEA.org to confirm your selected online university is listed. The consequence of holding a fake degree to apply for a job position does not only affect your career, it may also causes you involve into a legal case if the employer found out that your degree is issued by the diploma mill. In order to ensure your brighter future with the degree you earn from a university, you need to spend some time and efforts to confirm that the claimed accredited online degree program that you are interested in is from a legitimate accredited online university.

Summary

Accreditation is important indicator on the quality academic program offered by online universities and it determines the acceptance of your degree in the job market. With the accreditation also being claimed by diploma mills, you must be smart enough to difference the real accredited and the fake accredited online university and avoid yourself from the trap.

For anyone willing to advance his career in his present field of activity, or wiling to get accredited in another domain, online degree providers offer the opportunity of getting masters degrees without being obliged to modify his everyday schedule. Online training courses are also available in a huge number of domains for getting undergraduate degrees.

A large number of institutions with accreditation from higher learning units provide Internet users with the possibility of getting online masters degrees and be able to continue and successfully combine work, family and school as well as other activities. An online masters degree may be a chance of getting a dream job and also be better remunerated at your work place as recognition for further qualification in your professional area.

Specialty web sites offer training courses for getting online masters degrees in fields of interest like computers and IT, healthcare and medical studies, economics, finance, marketing, engineering, arts and many others. Accredited online universities allow you to earn your masters degree online providing you with a challenge and energy of a traditional classroom; this combined with the flexibility of fitting education into the daily program.

A large variety of courses and student services are available to any person accessing the programs, continuous improvements are made online to contribute to an up to date learning that will show real relevant and benefit to you in any career. The highest benefit of online courses is the flexibility of the program allowing you to choose when and how to learn. Getting an online masters degree is possible by chance of online faculty-lead discussions and lectures as well as individual study lessons, conducted by latest technology innovations like live simulations and interactive learning.

Training programs for getting online masters degrees are held by accredited professionals in every field, trained for teaching online. Masters degrees are more accessible to anyone wiling to advance his career as they take less time than for example PhD degrees; an online masters degree will only take someone about two years to acquire and will also cost less and require less hours spent in practice.

Online undergraduate degrees are held by online professional and institutions accredited by the department of education. Undergraduate degree programs provide further education to high school absolvent willing to find a better working place; conditions for being accepted in the study are 18 years of age and employment or at least access to a work environment. Online undergraduate degrees are available in over 200 fields like health, computers, business, communications, education or psychology.

Specialized web sites offer the possibility of getting online undergraduate degrees such as bachelor of business, administration, management, human resources, criminal justice, finance or international relations. Although getting an online undergraduate degree may seem easier at first sight, appliers should know you must study learning chapters just like in a traditional program, discuss the course and submit assignments. You can choose online the way you want to communicate with professor.

Classes for getting online undergraduate degrees will be organized according to your time schedule and no designated class time is required. Students can earn a degree by only taking online classes and this seems to be the greatest advantage for persons with a very busy schedule. Taking online courses will prove to be well worth it and as efficient as any traditional learning method.

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