Talk:Breyer State University/Archive 1

Archive 1

People

Actually some of the people are in fact mentioned in the article. Not to mention, those vandalizing this article also contribute quite reqularly to the wikipedia entries of the people listed in the post. Seems rather self-serving? [1]

LOL! I can see why the guy doesn't bother with a domain name, what with them costing over ten bucks and all... Just zis Guy you know? 19:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Content removed

Removed lengthy diatribe from Talk page. It did not mention Breyer State U at all; it disparaged several individuals, none of whom are mentioned in the BSU article. And it referred to information found "at the link below" as if that offered some authority, when "the link below" was a cached version of material not currently posted at that blog. BuckRose 19:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Licensure

The user SimonP has repeatedly removed any information describing Breyer State University-Alabama's licensure and replaced it with clearly biased remarks including "claims to be..." . The school is a legally operating university.

Added factual information about incorporation (from Idaho and Alabama Secretary of State websites). Breyer's own website states that it is not available to Idaho residents. And the New Republic article, while clearly unflattering to Breyer (among others) is credible. BuckRose 16:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Anti-edits by Bsuinfosys (talk • contribs)

So, you have a problem with reproducing verbatim the Alabama college system's statement on licensing: "The license is issued to operate in the State of Alabama AND IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH ACCREDITATION." (All-capitals text reproduced verbatim). Sorry, I don't have any such problem. And if I did, I would certainly still want to see the text included, rather than removing it and leaving in the bit about approval, since that pretty much inverts the facts.

I see you also have a problem with "see also: diploma mill". Why is that, I wonder? It looks to me like an entirely relevant link, given the other verifiable facts about the place. Do we say it is one? Nope. Do we say that it displays some aspects of one? For sure. See also? Fine by me.

And I see you have a problem with List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning too. Is it accredited now? No? OK, that stays then. And you don't like List of unrecognized accreditation associations of higher learning? So the "accrediting" institution is now recognized? No? So that stays then.

And there seems to be a link you don't like: State of Michigan- cites Breyer as unaccredited. I checked it, it's OK - Michigan State is a reliable source, your concerns are laudable but misplaced.

And it's fine to re-state the comment from ODA linking the school to the St. Regis University fake degree scam, I know you think redundancy is bad, but it does save poeple having to trawl around the cited sources to find important related information. Less isn't always more, is it?

I can see why you want to remove Council on Higher Education Accreditation, since the place is not accredited, but the coucil is relevant to discussion of unaccredited institutions as well. Accreditation mill? Doesn't that rather describe the situation where the school's president "accredits" his own school? Seems like fair comment to me.

Oh, wait: bsuinfosys. Ah, now I understand... Just zis Guy you know? 20:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Notability

Subject is notable because the organisation is a diploma mill that continues to attempt to secure unustified credibility. Article is needed to alert the unwary. There has been a recent major scandal in the UK because of a self-styled "expert witness" whose only qualifiction was a $100 PhD from a diploma mill like this. --Red King 00:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed questionable external link

I removed the just-added external reference:

• IvyUniversities, a non-profit review group cites Breyer's lack of accreditation but suggests that its degrees may be recognized by companies on case to case basis.

I looked at the site -- there's nothing to indicate that it's a reputable source of accurate information, and a few warning flags. One, no one is named -- there's no board of directors, no founder; just the comment "We are a board of professionals from various Fortune 1000 companies involved in the consulting, IT, and marketing industries." Maybe, maybe not. Second, there's no indication of how long this "non-profit" organization has been around, how long they've been supposedly reviewing online schools. Three, some of the information seems out of date. Kennedy-Western has renamed itself Warren. Naropa is hardly "new." BuckRose 21:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

also VRTS ticket # 2008022610018138, VRTS ticket # 2008072210029161, VRTS ticket # 2008080410053684 John Reaves 01:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Archive 1

Removed new text

I removed the following text, added as a statement of Breyer's arguments why it is not a diploma mill: "because it gives students challenging exams,in core courses, make them take needed courses,and an adviser is assigned. For Ph.D., they follow all the processes required of a regular university." Not only does this text need copy-editing, but the arguments quoted are not in the cited source. (Note: Even if this were in the cited source, since the cited source is Breyer's website, this information could not be stated as fact, but merely cited as a claim by Breyer. --Orlady 19:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

General clean-up

I am attempting a general clean-up of the article because it's messy. I am removing some material that doesn't seem appropriate (e.g. synthesis, quotes in foreign languages) but mostly just eliminating redundancy, trying to word things better, fixing format, changing the section structure and sentence order so that similar things are grouped together, and so on. I have no agenda, connection, etc., and am not trying to slant the article in any direction other than being a better article here. So feel free to further improve or object if something I do makes it worse instead of better. Wikidemo (talk) 19:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Additional material

After finishing the cleanup, in the process of searching for additional sources I came across apparently reliable material linking this institution to James Monroe University, part of a defunct diploma mill chain whose operations were rather scandalous. Accordingly I made this edit, which I'm mentioning here because this new material, unlike the clean-up, does substantively change the article. Wikidemo (talk) 21:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Negative and Bias

After reading the article it seems to be very negative and bias. I don't think it really represents a neutral point of view. Additionally some of the citations don't even work or go to anywhere that is relevant. Also I would like to note how can you list something as a reference for something as negative as calling Breyer State a diploma mill when the source does not work? According to this logic I could make up a bunch of sources and list them praising this university as the best thing since Harvard and not have to back anything up! In an attempt to keep this neutral there should be a disputed claim put on it. capthonesty 10:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The information derives from the sources, which are real. Sources need not be online. If an institution is widely called a diploma mill and has been claimed to be an affiliate with and under the same management as others known to be frauds, that is highly pertinent information. That is bias. It would be bias to deny this in order to make it look good. In fact, the only activity from your account is to try to slant the article in favor of the subject. You have not raised any specific dispute. I am therefore removing the "disputed" tag. Wikidemo (talk) 15:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I think what you mean, capthonesty, is that the link doesn't work. This happens regularly with online sources, particularly newspapers and magazines, because most of them remove articles after some time. However, that doesn't mean that the article was never published, so it is still perfectly acceptable as a source. Readers can still access the article through a library or databases like LexisNexis, so the information can be verified. If you have another dispute, you should probably elaborate a little bit more here - so far you've only said that the article is negative and biased, but you haven't explained why you feel that way or provided any information that counters the claims in the article. Natalie (talk) 16:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

--Thank You--- I'm sorry I'm still a little green behind the ears to the whole wikipedia thing. Now that it has been explained to me in King's english I guess what I was doing did seem a little out there. From now on I will find sources to back up what I'm saying. I promise! capthonesty (talk) 8:30 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• Here are all the references I was able to uncover discussing Breyer State University:

(sections removed - please link and/or summarize; copying long stretches of text from a newspaper article raises copyright issues - Wikidemo (talk) 16:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC))

• I found no reference evaluating Breyer State University in any depth that did not characterize it as a mill, but feel free to search. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

OTRS ticket

Will be emailing to get clarification on the reason for the removal of apparently accurate, sourced information about this institution's now-defunct umbrella organization. The characterization of the material as "false statements" is clearly counter to the major newspaper and US government sources.Wikidemo (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand the reason for removing the child porn information, since the source cited in that section does not mention Breyer State in connection with child porn. However, given Breyer State's acknowledged affiliation with St. Regis, some description of the issues surrounding the closure of St. Regis needs to be retained in the article.

Also, the edit summary for the deletion does not indicate any reason for the removal of the link to the Breyer State University Istanbul website. The existence of that website seems like a notable detail; if the operators of Breyer State claim not to be affiliated with this Turkish website, perhaps they could supply a citeable source to quote saying that it is unrelated.

Finally, there was no explanation for the removal of the sourced information regarding the domicile of Breyer State's owner, but I know from past experience that Breyer State and/or Mr. Flarey assert that Mr. Flarey's domicile is irrelevant. (Perhaps that viewpoint can be communicated to the participants in WP:UNI who are adamant that the physical location of a school's main office is one of the single most important facts about any university article that must be included in every school's infobox, as discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Universities#Infoboxomania, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Universities#Consensus?, Template talk:Infobox University#Infoboxomania and Template talk:Infobox University#RfC on Proposed Changes to this Infobox.) --Orlady (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Has this ticket expired? I note that in the interim the school lost its state license, and there's a major New York Times article to shed some light on some of the parties and schools involved. It's pretty clearly a sham institution that profits by deceiving people about its true nature, so we should be very careful about letting it bury sourced coverage by gaming the Wikipedia rules. Wikidemo (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Wikidemo, I poked around a little bit and if we don't get an answer here then I think the next place to ask might be Wikipedia:AN. BTW, as mentioned in the article, BSU has apparently moved to California where there's currently a sad lack of any laws protect the public against academic fraud since the old almost useless law expired. see BPPVE There's no current laws protecting academic integrity in California except for generic fraud laws which can't do the job. TallMagic (talk) 16:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The OTRS has been resolved [2] Regards, TallMagic (talk) 02:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If any of the problems are related to edits I made, I have scans of the relevant articles that I looked up on microfiche that I can probably pull up. John Reaves 03:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of any problems. This was meant to be simply a question as to what the status was of the OTRS. I appreciate your effort and help. Thanks, TallMagic (talk) 05:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• The complaints centred on statements which should have been attributed (According to X, Y and Z, Breyer State is sa diploma mill) but which were instead stated as fact. There were also apparent errors of fact, such as the fact that Flarey states he has no operational responsibility for BSU. Guy (Help!) 07:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Diploma mill

If you say some article said that BSU was a diploma mill, then you should also give links to what a 'diploma mill' is and let the readers arrive at their own conclusions. BSU, generally speaking, is following on-line university processes, whereas a diploma mill just awards the degree without checking out the student's credentials, offer no courses, no real adviser, etc. I just finished my Ph.D. from BSU. I have a regular MS degree and have done Ph.D. work from an accredited University many years ago. They did a complete analysis, I had to prove my expertise in my area, had to take Doctoral Philosophy course and had to take an exam, a course on doctoral dissertation writing course, exam, and then Ph.D. dissertation proposal. My adviser is a british college professor. He ripped me apart with my first draft! and finally I got the approval and got my degree. What I am saying is that while BSU may not be accredited, they do follow processes of an on-line university. ** kannan38 - Sept.24, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kannan38 (talk • contribs) 13:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kannan38, I moved your text to the bottom of the page. Adding new comments to the end of very old threads will probably be missed. I hope it is okay that I did that? Anyway, in response to you comments. I disagree with your suggestion of adding a definition of diploma mill. There are widely differing views on the definition of diploma mill. What is important here is that everything on Wikipedia that is at all potentially controversial must follow the wp:verifiability policy. Regarding your personal experience with BSU, it may or may not be true for your specific case. It doesn't mean that it is true for any other cases, a majority of cases, or all cases. This question of your experience is not relevant to Wikipedia because it would fall under wp:no original research policy and therefore can't be used on Wikipedia. Regards, TallMagic (talk) 00:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking diploma mill would be all that is required. Guy (Help!) 07:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Correct, thank you, and that is done. TallMagic (talk) 19:25, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

More State Actions on Diploma Mills

In addition to the Alabama actions on diploma mills, New Jersey has also been active, sending cease and desist orders to Breyer State "degree" holders.

www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?...

9/4/2008 Three Freehold Regional school administrators who gained advanced degrees from a suspected "diploma mill" were ordered by the state yesterday to remove the degrees from their titles, while the state also alerted all districts to the laws against using such institutions. The state Commission on Higher Education sent the "cease-and-desist" letters to Freehold Superintendent James Wasser and two of his assistants who had gained doctorates from Breyer State University, an online program that had at least twice lost its certification.

Captinron (talk) 21:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

NOt sure where to fit in the details of this diploma mill that was selling degrees soley for "experience" or "monetary donations", but here is the letter that Alabama sent them for an eviction notice.

7/14/2008 - No more diploma mills: Chancellor Bradley Byrne announces new initiatives to shut down sham schools, better regulate other for-profits

MONTGOMERY – Alabama has a reputation as a good place to do business, but there’s one industry that is no longer welcome: diploma mills.

In a news conference Monday, Alabama Community College System Chancellor Bradley Byrne announced an aggressive new initiative to shut down fraudulent for-profit colleges and better regulate the legitimate ones.

“Fraudulent institutions do not belong in this state – period,”

While many of the institutions closed for legitimate reasons, some – notably Columbus University and Breyer State University – were operating apparent diploma mills and taking shameful advantage of hundreds of unsuspecting students.

Breyer State University was issued a license to operate in the state in October 2004, and was non-renewed this June. One of the institution’s many violations included conferring honorary doctorates on individuals based on life and work experience, a one-time application fee and a monetary contribution to the institution. In addition, the institution offers an unheard of self-design degree program which allows the creation of a curriculum based on mentoring.

Breyer State, according to its website, offers 74 associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs. Breyer State claimed to have 120 faculty members holding bachelor’s, graduate and post-graduate degrees, however, it was discovered that many of the faculty’s degrees did not come from accredited institutions.

Since losing its license to operate in Alabama, Breyer State moved to Idaho.

Captinron (talk) 18:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Captinron, a number of months ago I added the delightful quote in the article that you copied above. It's also already reported that BSU has apparently moved to Idaho. So what changes are you proposing to the article? Regards, TallMagic (talk) 02:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, don't pop in enough to stay current. Let me look. After they were booted from Alabama, I believe they did stop in Idaho for a few weeks, were rejected there, and then moved again to California. I'll source it.

Captinron (talk) 14:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Here it is. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/08/19/california

Captinron (talk) 14:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

EAA

Hello, you reverted a recent edit of mine, here. Can you please tell me what constitutes "appropriate recognition or authorization to grant an accreditation?" Or in other words, what source makes that statement for us? As Wikipedians in compliance with the WP:NPOV policy, we can't be making statements like that on our own authority. I'm asking the same question of the original author of that edit here BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Becritical, I copied your message here from my talk page because I think it is a more general discussion about this article rather than a discussion about either one of us. The answer to your question is CHEA and/or the US department of education. Zugman (talk) 00:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, well in that case re-stating that these institutions haven't given their commendation is redundant. However, what the edit says is that it lacks appropriate recognition or authorization. You need a source for saying that. And re this edit, the page states "Since the mission and goal of EAA is to provide international/transnational recognition for its accredited institutions, EAA requires accredited institutions to comply with the UNESCO-CEPES standards and requirements for accredited institutions," so I think the assertion that "EAA does not claim to have appropriate recognition or authorization to grant an accreditation" is incorrect. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 00:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The statement may or may not be correct. I don't know what EAA is claiming. If you you'd like to see a better source for the statement "EAA doesn't have appropriate recognition to accredit academic institutions" then how about http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/accreditation.html ? Zugman (talk) 01:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean, but there's a difference between recognized as legit and lacking appropriate recognition. Who's saying what's "appropriate?" Wikipedia? And there isn't anyone who gives permission to grant accreditation- else they'd be in trouble for naming themselves accreditors. Anyway, it still very much seems like Wikipedia speaking, not the sources. Summary: we have sources saying what is legit, not what is not legit. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 02:19, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. Did you look at the the ODA website that I pointed at? It explicitly says, "These bodies are not approved by the U.S. Department of Education and therefore any so-called “accreditation” by these bodies is meaningless in Oregon and in some other states." It also uses the word unrecognized. It is saying that EAA is not legit. Isn't it? Zugman (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Um, well let me first say that I don't think EAA is legit. However to answer your question: no, that's not what it's saying. It's saying only that EAA "does not meet legal requirements." That doesn't mean it's not legit. It doesn't even mean that it "lacks appropriate recognition or authorization to grant an accreditation." It just means that it's not state recognized, period, without any opprobrium or statement about appropriateness. The word "legitimate" in this case is about whether the listed institutions are recognized legally. As far as accreditation being "meaningless," that again is legal, as meaning is individually assigned. So yes, it's saying that EAA is not a legitimate legally recognized accrediting agency, but not making statements about what is generally appropriate etc. To give an example, you can have a real puppy who doesn't have a pedigree, and which isn't a legitimate pedigreed puppy. It may nevertheless be purebred, and you can't say it lacks the appropriate genes because it doesn't have a pedigree. All this not to advocate for EAA. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 03:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I would simply say "The institution is accredited by Educational Accreditation Association (EAA), an accrediting institution which is not recognized by The U.S. Department of Education." BE——Critical_{__Talk} 03:09, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The word "appropriate" appears to have come from the lead section of List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations. That article never explicitly defines what "appropriate" means, but it talks about the differing legal requirements and terminology around the world. In some national and subnational jurisdictions, a government agency is the only entities that can certify the acceptability of educational institutions. In some other countries (notably including the U.S., but not just the U.S.), there are multiple public, private, or quasi-public organizations performing this function, and there is some form of government overseer that has "blessed" certain accreditors as valid. Some jurisdictions don't have any mechanism for validation of higher education (for example, because they are too small or too poor to have any higher education institutions). The entities on List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations are reliably identified as lacking any identifiable recognition or authorization from any entity reliably indicated to have relevant jurisdiction. The statement that an entity lacks "appropriate" recognition may mean that the entity itself acknowledges that it lacks recognition from any government authority, or that the entity claims recognition from an entity that isn't in the business of providing such recognition (for example, UNESCO or a chamber of commerce), or that the entity claims recognition from an entity that might possibly be in the business of providing recognition but obviously lacks jurisdiction (for example, an entity that accredits schools in the United Kingdom under authorization granted to it by the government of Lesotho). --Orlady (talk) 06:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for the great explanation (: If I remember right they are recognized in some other countries, so maybe we should clarify that it lacks recognition in the U.S. In that instance, I would not object to the word "appropriate," because it would obviously be referring to official institutions in the U.S. not to some abstract notion of appropriateness made up by Wikipedia authors. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 20:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The EAA does say that it is recognized in some countries, but their website doesn't bother to identify those countries, which makes their claim non-credible. Anyway, an accreditor that is (like EAA) located in the United States and that accredits U.S. institutions should have U.S. recognition. Similarly, an entity that accredits UK institutions should have UK accreditation. The EAA website lists accredited institutions in both countries (US list, UK list), so it should be recognized in both if it is a valid accreditor in both. The EAA website says that EAA is recognized by "The Network of Oxford Institutions" and "The Russian International Academy'; since I can't find evidence that either of these entities exists (much less is an entity with jurisdiction to recognize accreditors), that does not convince me of anything. Additionally, it says that EAA is recognized by "Numerous International and State Ministries/Departments of Education," but that vague statement is completely lacking in credibility. Not only that, but all of these statements are the EAA's own claims -- no third-party reliable source backs any of this. --Orlady (talk) 06:25, 4 December 2010 (UTC)