The UConn School of Business’s online master’s degree program in accounting received high marks in the U.S . News and World Report’s first annual rankings of online degree programs.
According to UConn Today, the magazine evaluated a total of 523 online master’s programs. The business programs were evaluated in four categories: admissions selectivity, student engagement and accreditation, faculty credentials and training and student services and technology. UConn’s program ranked seventh in the admissions area and 17th in student engagement.
“We are very pleased with these rankings, given that this was an inaugural survey,” said Andrew Rosman, executive director of the program, in an interview with UConn Today.
Rosman said that the program is UConn’s first online graduate degree program and that it has been offered completely online since 2003. The program was also recognized for best practices in online education by the United States Distance Learning Association in 2007 and 2011.
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“The online learning environment allows us the opportunity to create learning environments that would be difficult to duplicate in a traditional face-to-face classroom,” Rosman said. “For example, Steve Pedneault, teaches a course on forensic accounting by using a simulation or role-playing technique in which his students work for him as forensic accountants throughout the semester. Rather than passively learn forensic accounting, they actively engage the learning environment to request and evaluate information in a way that is more consistent to actually working in the field.”
Even with the program’s high marks, Rosman told UConn Today that the program’s rankings would have been even better if the survey had taken its best practices into account.
“Some of the criteria look through the lens of evaluating a traditional face-to-face course,” Rosman said. “For example, the question in the survey about offices hours considers that a faculty member should have set office hours in order to score well on this dimension. Instead, faculty in our program, along with their teaching assistants, are available as close to 24/7 as possible.” Because the survey doesn’t take this into account, the program was ranked lower, Rosman said.
Rosman remains optimistic and says that he foresees that the program will be ranked even higher in the next survey. “We believe that over time the survey will begin to reflect some of these best practices, which will be to our advantage.”
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