Do You Know These CRITICAL Signs Of Online Degree Scams

Very few people would disagree that online education is now becoming a very lucrative business.

As it continues to grow scammers are not having a field day cheating honest and desperate folks out of their hard-earned money.

If you are interested in online degree you should be careful so as not to fall for these many online degree scams. The scammers that sell fake online degree programs and degrees send millions of emails and even pay good money to advertise their dubious offers.

Many people have fallen victims of these kinds of online degree scams and have lost thousands of dollars in the process. Apart from the thousands of dollars they have also wasted their time, only to find out months or even years later that they had been scammed.

If you want to prevent falling for such scams, below are some of the common signs of online degree scams:

- Be wary of any online degree site that allow you to negotiate your GPA and tuition fees.

- Be wary of any online degree site that also allows you to pay for honors designation, such as all flavors of cum laude).

- Be wary of any online degree site that require payment or a resume listing work experience, without any coursework.

- Be wary of any online degree site that charge you tuition on a per-degree basis.

- Be wary of any online degree site that have names that are knock-offs of well-known colleges and universities.

Such fraudulent online degree awarding sites have sold fake degrees and diplomas to thousands of people. According to a recent article on MSN, “The biggest, by far, is called the ‘San Moritz Group’ since ‘University of San Moritz’ was the first of the 12 names they have used (others: Harrington, Shelbourne, Glencullen, Palmers Green, Kingsfield),” says Bear, who, from 1979 to 1990, was also a consultant to an FBI task force on degree mills.

“I have reliable information (from a person who works there) that they have sold 70,000 diplomas, including medical, in four years, with revenues of more than $150 million.” The group churns out 5 million to 10 million e-mails a week and has sold about 70,000 degrees over the last four years, he says.

Don’t fall for such online degree scams. Any time you receive an email spam promising you “University Diplomas/Bachelor degree in 30 days or less” simply delete the email because it is nothing more than an online degree scam!

Follow the above tips and use your common sense before enrolling for or paying for any online degree program or online degree.

King J. For provides completely FREE and extremely helpful guide on online-bachelor-degree-guide.com Online Bachelor Degree Guide == online-bachelor-degree-guide.com www.online-bachelor-degree-guide.com

Academic Corruption of Research

Academically speaking it is rather obvious that the integrity of our research and development facilities, academic institutions and University research departments be maintained at all costs. Yet we are seeing a paradigm shift in that it is amazing the lack of oversight in the research, which is produced. There are many reasons for this of course.

The biggest being that funding of such research may come from the private sector with a profit motivation, which is predicated on the research reaching a specific conclusion to validate the use of their product, service or drugs. Another huge issue is politically motivated research, which so often funded thru grants made possible by political favoritism to research results.

We must be able to trust our academic research and it cannot be compromised for a political cause or a pure profit motive. If we use skewed data sets, selective information or conditional circumstances, we will make poor decision based on the; garbage in, garbage out principle. No one in the end wins when academic research is compromised or we are fed corrupt research, because in the end the corruption is uncovered and the plot found out thus hurting the politician, corporation involved or the University willing to play along. Everyone loses.

Currently it may look enticing to cheat for short term gains, increased research budgets or political momentum, but trust is something you cannot buy back once you are caught cheating. So, we must consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/ Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; WorldThinkTank.net www.WorldThinkTank.net/

Academic Copying and Cheating

So many kids are cheating these days on tests in school, term papers and class assignments it makes one question the ethics in business, government and just our general population as a whole. Some have blamed the Internet where many students go to find information for their assignments and simply copy it.

Back when I was in school we did not have anything like the Internet and copying information from the Encyclopedia was impossible due to the way they were written. Teachers and Professors are indeed onto this and now they specifically check the Internet to see if any of their students are cheating. Fortunately they can catch a lot of them, but unfortunately they catch over 45% cheating.

I ask you what does this say for the future of our nation? If everyone grows up cheating, how are we suppose to expect to keep our nation in check? And it is not only our nation, as in China they found that 60% of the white papers coming out of their colleges and Universities had either bogus data, plagiarism or some other form of academic nonsense.

If our students are cheating and China is even more then what does this say for the future of the human race? You say today we have a problem with academic copying and cheating, but tomorrow it is fraud, traitorism and misrepresentations. Surely we can do better than this and indeed the forward progression of our species depends on it. Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/ Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; WorldThinkTank.net www.WorldThinkTank.net/

Effective Teaching and Learning

Teaching means to change the behavior of student towards positive direction.
For effective teaching, it is very important to know the behavior of student. Behavior means any overt (observable) response or activity by an organism or the way in which an individual behaves or acts. It is the way an individual conducts herself/himself. It can be seen in reference to society norm. Or the way in which one treats others or handles objects.
To change the negative behavior of the student we have to know the factors effecting on it. We can divide these factors into three categories:-

1. Societal factor

2. School factor

3. Family factor

Common behavior problems are stealing, absenteeism, lying, fighting, cheating, lateness, rudeness, destructiveness, smoking, disobedience, abusing.

The factors behind problems behavior can be seeking attention, change in social relationship (example romantic breakup and rebuff) , change of status or group membership, disengaged with school staff, humiliation, impulsive remarks or response, no real harm intended, joking and teasing and you tend to believe it,
Lacks ability to carry out threats, other family or life stress (example divorce, death, move) recent disciplinary action, socially isolated from peers, target of teasing or bullying, other. To overcome on these behavior problems here are some strategies to modify behavior:-

 Set behavior standards: Define classroom rules clearly to everyone and be reasonable, firm but fair, be consistent with student. For the most part, practice what you preach and insist on the general behavior that students must abide by all the rules before they speak/do.

 Keep students busy and motivated: Start class on time, plan for the entire class period, be definite about your lesson plan, relate assignments to students’ interests and use various teaching methodologies according to the need of the topic.

 Keep a positive attitude: Give praise, encouragement and inspiration, be kind but “positively” demanding. Be consistent and tolerating when dealing with a behavioral problem. Be fair when dealing with behavioral problems. Favoritism breeds resentment.

 Control your emotions: Before assigning a task to the students. Keep yourself in place of them. Don’t be tinned-skinned (sensitive to criticism) .Don’t argue with students; however, you may discuss and / or explain. Admit errors if you have made a mistake. Project confidence in yourself. Don’t mind if students ask again and again.
To follow these strategies we can make our teaching effective and modify student’s behavior towards positive direction.

Samer Iqbal

Academic Credibility Called into Question

So often we are given reports and feed supposed research data from academia which is indeed nothing short of pure horseshit. Rarely do we call academic research into question, yet we need to. Why? Well we see that more than 60% of the Chinese students admit to cheating on data in research projects.

People were quite alarmed when they learned this yet, you may be surprised that cheating or fabricating data is not a Chinese only thing, imagine how much US based academic research is also utter hokum. I bet although not nearly as high as in the US, that it is a significant figure? So is it 30%, 20% or maybe only 10%?

Well considering the massive cheating in High Schools, Colleges and Universities; not to mention government and also considering that these people also come from our educational system we should not be surprised if the research data is corrupted. In fact I call academic research into question.

Especially those research projects funded by businesses with a profit incentive in the results or government-funded projects with a political agenda. They say you can only believe half of what you read? Well what is it for academic research?

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and let’s say you can believe in this venue about 75% of what you read? Fair enough right? Well is that good enough for you? Not me, we must hold academia to a higher standard and tell them to stop BS’ing and cheating or feeding us bogus research. Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/ Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; WorldThinkTank.net www.WorldThinkTank.net/

Why Students Plagiarize

After more than six years in higher education and discovering dozens of incidents of plagiarism among my students at various schools, I have realized that the purposes for plagiarism can be categorized four different ways.

1) Laziness. The student waited until the last minute to do the assignment and panics, knowing he won’t have time to do it right. So, he pulls an essay or paper from the Internet—and either just adds his name to it or uses parts of it and other online essays—and turns it in as his own work.

2) Too high of expectations. Last year I had a student who came from a long line of writers. Her father was a writer, mother was a writer and grandfather was a writer. She felt her own work never lived up to the “household of writers”. When asked to do an essay for my class, she struggled through her own words and feelings of inadequacies and began to interject these words with whole paragraphs or pages she had taken from respected, expert sources, of course without attributing a word of it to them.

3) Doesn’t care or thinks the teacher won’t know. A partial team of lacrosse players actually said they didn’t think I’d catch them after they turned in papers downloaded from the Internet. They didn’t care that the work wasn’t theirs. They didn’t care that they could get thrown out of school for violating the honor code. They just figured the papers were easy to download, the papers were well written, and that I couldn’t possibly be familiar with ALL of the papers on the Net so I probably wouldn’t catch them.

4) Just doesn’t understand what plagiarism is. This happens often with international students. Sure, if you have a school honor code and a plagiarism notation on your syllabus, they probably can quote it to you word-for-word. But, in some cultures, regurgitating words of esteemed experts is considered honorable to the esteemed expert—and is a sign of a well-educated student. These students may not understand that they must document who said the words originally, otherwise it is akin to cheating. As a professor, you want these types of plagiarizers if you are to have any. Once they understand why they must document their sources, they will do so readily. The other three types of plagiarizers aren’t as easy to “teach” or change.

Jill L. Ferguson is a writer, editor, public speaker and professor of creative writing, literature and communication. Her book Sometimes Art Can’t Save You, published in October 2005 by In Your Face Ink ( inyourfaceink.com inyourfaceink.com), is about teenage angst and survival in a dysfunctional and violent household.

“Books for Them or Book’em”

Darien Collier is a seventh grade student who attends an “urban-city school.” He has been diagnosed with a behavior disorder and is one of fourteen students in the behavior disorder (BD) class. His behavioral disorder is further aggravated by an emotional disorder (ED). Earlier this school year, his education was interrupted due to a sixty-day sentence and imprisonment to the department of correction.

One day at the dismissal of school (which is at 1:15 pm for some special education students), Darien asked for permission to wait inside a grade level office until his aunt arrived. I believe this is a tactic Darien uses to disassociate himself from the “special ed” kids for social purposes. I’ve noticed that many of his friends are “regular ed” kids. He was granted that permission and did in fact go and sit in the grade level office until the regular dismissal of school at 2:15 pm.

At the dismissal, Darien walked out into the hallway to socialize with some of his peers. Moments after he had began mingling with the other students, he was confronted by a school security officer. This particular security officer and Darien has had a rough history. Darien has received long-term suspensions on a few occasions because of his defiance when given directives from the security officer. Darien has expressed to his mother and the principal that he feels threatened and targeted by the security personnel.

When the security officer saw Darien, he approached him and told him that he had no right to be on the property. The security officer ordered Darien to leave the school’s property. Darien tried unsuccessfully to tell the security officer that he had been given permission to stay and wait for his aunt. The security officer continued to order him to leave the property. Finally, Darien became defensive and angry. He became argumentative and verbally abusive. He then took his coat off and threw it to the floor as he took a fighting stance. The security officer called for backup. When Darien heard the call, he gathered his belongings and began to walk through the hallway.

Two more security officers arrived within a couple of minutes and someone pointed Darien out to them as he walked away. The security officers caught up to him and ordered him to turn around and leave the property. Darien became angry and belligerent. The security officers eventually had to physically restrain and handcuff him. Darien received a ten-day suspension from school for verbally threatening a staff member and he was also arrested for Disorderly Conduct. When his probation officer was notified, Darien was also charged with probation violation.

Well, this story sounds rather typical for an inner-city, poor, black, male, student. And the truth of the matter is there are too many of these stories being told everyday in schools where the demographics are similar to this one. But I submit to you that there are many critical elements of these stories that are not being told. And I want to share a few issues that I have with this one.

First and foremost, the entire incident involving Darien and the security officers took place while an assistant principal stood nearby but looked the other way. In fact, it was that assistant principal’s office that Darien had been sitting while he waited for his aunt to arrive. But yet the administrator did nothing to resolve the conflict between the security officer and the student. Once that conflict escalated, the administrator amazingly stood there and said or did nothing to intervene. After the situation was brought under control and a second administrator was charged with handling the investigation of the incident, the first administrator did not even offer information even though he was a first hand witness to the entire incident. Oh…and by the way, the inept administrator was Darien’s grade level principal the year before. So he was very familiar with the student’s disabilities. What could have possibly been the motive for the level of incompetence demonstrated by this administrator? And since Darien was being held to a high level of accountability for his actions, what about the administrator?

Darien is a behavioral disorder student who receives special educational services. Everything we know about students with Darien’s disability, tell us that they are not likely to make good choices when left unsupervised. Since he also suffers from an emotional disorder, it is understandable that he might become easily frustrated and angry when he feels mistreated. So, why did the teacher leave him unsupervised for approximately an hour? Why did she not communicate with other staff members that she had given the student permission to break from his normal routine? And where’s the accountability for her?

The security officer who first confronted Darien refused to allow him to explain why he was still at school beyond his normal dismissal time. Even though he (security officer) saw the assistant principal standing there, he never requested assistance to help manage the escalating situation. After he realized that he had lost control of the situation, he called for extra security instead of the assistant principal. The security officer has worked in the school for years and never received any formal training for dealing with students with disabilities. In fact, the security officer has received no training in how to manage difficult students. Who will hold the security officer accountable for his poor judgment and handling of this situation? After the investigation was done, the assistant principal who handled the discipline for this situation went to the head principal for advice and guidance. The head principal offered little help except to say, “suspend him for ten days”.

I don’t remember things happening this way when I was younger. When I attended public schools in the same socio-economic community as Darien, this could have never happened. The schools I attended may not have had the most talented instructors nor the most capable administrators. Security officers and other support staff might not have had the highest level of training and certification. But there was never a day when I felt unsafe at school. I never had to think about whether or not the staff truly cared about me. In fact, many of the difficult questions I had about my future, I could depend upon adults at the schools I attended to help me find answers. I guess you might say that I was “school dependent.” A lot might have changed since I attended public school, but I know one thing that has changed for the worst. More and more of our children are school dependent.

School officials must understand that they often represent the last hope in determining whether or not our youth in low socio-economic communities will be able to overcome the many challenges they face. I am very concerned that our children go to school every day and have to ponder the reality of whether there will be books for them or if they will hear the words “book’em.” We may talk about all the ills in society that lend themselves to broken families and homes. And sociologist and other behavioral scientist have analyzed, theorized, and standardized us until we’ve become paralyzed from all the information about why these particular youth are not being successful. It is all too easy for school officials to treat these kids as though they are just some statistic. But I submit to you that we ought to look deeper into the hearts and souls of these precious young people who so desperately need us.

You see, earlier that day, Darien surprised the teacher and asked for a pass to go and speak with the head principal. This was a surprise since he usually was sent reluctantly as a consequence for misbehavior. But this day he respectfully went into the office and began to cry for a different reason. After he gathered himself, he poured out his heart. He took responsibility for many of the bad choices and decisions that he had made in his young life. He went on to express his frustration with feeling “targeted” by teachers, security officers, administrators and even his own peers.

But Darien didn’t stop there. He made a commitment to “turn his life around.” Instead of cheating, stealing, and lying, he decided he wanted to try a different route. He wanted to be honest, hard working, and make something out of his life. He said he was determined not to “end up in prison” like his father. The principal told him that he was proud of him.

But I wonder what is going through Darien’s mind today as he sit in a jail cell at a juvenile detention center? Are our children entering our schools and leaving them feeling confirmed that there is no justice? At age fourteen, how much could Darien have contributed to his life’s circumstances? How did all the black males involved in this incident allow one of our sons to experience the violent injustices that our fathers gave their lives in an attempt that we might have hope? Where is the compassion for our youth?

The juvenile code in the state of Illinois, as well as in all other states, is supposed to be rehabilitative in its philosophy. But at every level of the continuum of that system (e.g. arrest, detention, probation, confinement to department of corrections, etc.) Darien and other youth that look like him, are disproportionately represented. Is this happening in part because our schools are becoming nothing more than “feeder programs” for a criminal justice system? I wonder if our young black men are realizing the self-fulfilling prophecies they so often hear spoken to them by so-called professionals whose job should be to give them hope.

While I realize school officials have a monumental challenge in today’s society with educating the nation’s youth. And I recognize that an ever increasing violent society is cause for us all to be concerned. But I pray that we will not lose our way and our focus. All of us as stakeholders must persevere for a high quality education to be afforded to all our nation’s youth. We must not give in to the temptation of allowing the kids that need us the most, to be passed on from school halls to prison cells. We must work hard that our youth do not see us as the enemy. They must not see in us the demons that they face every evening as they see their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters arrested and drug off to fill our prisons. Instead, they should be met with a sense of dignity and respect at our school doors. We must never allow Darien’s day to end in this way again.

Dwayne Cotton founded the School Resource Officer Program for St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department and Cahokia School District in Cahokia, IL. He was born and reared in East St. Louis, IL. He attended East St. Louis public schols and received his formal education at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn.

For the last ten years, Dwayne has concentrated his law enforcement career in the field of school-based policing. He shares a philosophy of community-based policing that enables him to work effectively with both those who serve in the discipline of education and law enforcement. He has worked tirelessly to help leaders in both field better understand how much they need each other in today’s society.

Dwayne has trained and consulted with school board members, administrators, teachers, and support staff. He has also served as a trainer/consultant to law enforcement agents on the local, state, and federal levels. He has received many awards and recognition for his public speaking and as a trainer.
His work on several boards allow him to continue to impact policy in schools and law.