UoP: Still Wondering

The horrible writing quality of some of the posts in my communications class have caused me to wonder if everyone is given a passing grade. If so, the University of Phoenix is undermining its credibility by bestowing master's degrees upon these folks.

The prose from some students can be a real chore to read. Here are some snippets from one of the more painful posts I was exposed to this week:

" . . . Business should be gender natural . . . " ". . . It is becomes publicly aware that two employees are dating . . ." ". . . needs to cracked down on to really inforce the policies . . ." " . . . Having a three stikes policy . . ." " . . .I know this seems harse . . ."

What I find "harse," my dear and loyal reader(s), is having to read this garbage. What makes it even more unbearable is the knowledge that at least some of this offensive drivel could be fixed by the spell checker that is already provided by the UoP online. These are master's-level students; how did they finish their baccalaureate degrees?

To make matters more interesting, the plagiarism that I stumbled upon early in the program is evidently still rampant. One student whose writing is consistently awful turned out a very nicely written post this weekend that positively astonished me. I pasted a paragraph into Google, and voila - there was the original source! No quotation marks or source credit in the post, just blatant copying and pasting - not a skill that should carry a student through a master's degree program, but at Phoenix it appears to be a real possibility.

It shouldn't be difficult for facilitators to spot plagiarism in the forums. When one student submits posts with very different writing styles, a warning bell should go off. The student I noticed this week usually put out such gems as:

" . . . There was also an unsaid understanding or organizational to not communicate any opinions . . . ," and, from a different post in which nearly every sentence was unintelligible, "I believe that my analytical skills and attention to detail is higher than most of my colleges. I perform reconciliation's on a daily basis. I am communication with auditors financial information. I am always double checking myself and trying to look at the situation from all perspectives. I do not perform all reconciliation independently. I sometimes have to depends on information from others."

"I am always double checking myself . . ." Umm, really?

It is easy to see how even the rankest of amateurs should be able to spot most of the plagiarizers, who aren't bright enough to avoid using readily checked sources such as web pages. But, as I've pointed out before, dropouts don't pay tuition. The greater the number of students that stay in a program, the more a school makes. The quality of an education in the United States may be trending steadily downwards, but profit margins are up.

Ka-ching!