The Great Doctoral Degree Hunt: Part II

Photo by Weedah 

By Leah MacVie













A few things I have learned so far:

1. Although I started out searching for 'hybrid' programs and had some decent results, I found out another applicable search term is 'low residency', which is a term I have never heard of before.
2. You have to specifically search for Ph.D. or Ed.D. if you want one or the other. 'Doctoral' can be used for both types of programs.
3. I am surprised to see how much the credit hours range with the programs. Most are 60, but one in my search is over 100.
4. I plan on having a colleague help me out with the accreditation category because I'm not sure how to easily rank the results.

Great resources: Curtis Bonk's list of Instructional and Ed Tech Programs: http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/Instructional_Technology_and_Educational_Technology_Programs.php

Mission 4: Organize Results

For the past few weeks I have been collecting Ph.D. programs in my Google bookmarks list. To organize the information, I started a simple Google Spreadsheet to compare the programs. This will make it easy to order the programs when it comes down to the final ranking.

Mission 5: Ranking

I believe that I should first rank the categories by order of importance to me, and that will help me to attribute the scores. These are my top categories:

1. Accreditation
2. Degree
3. Cost
4. Credit Hours

I am still searching for more individuals who have documented their hybrid Ph.D. searches and hybrid programs, but this info is not easy to come by. If you know of anyone or programs not currently listed, please send me the info. I will be very grateful!

Leah MacVie is a blogger, instructional designer, photographer, and former graphic and Web designer. She possesses a BFA from the University at Buffalo and a Master’s in Educational Computing from the SUNY College at Buffalo. In her spare time, she is focusing on finding out more about DIY and informal learning. You can read more at www.leahmacvie.com.