Education Q&A

Online University of Maryland Online Vs U of Phoenix?

Q. I'm looking for an entirely online BS program in MIS or CIS and I'm looking at UoP or UoM. Apparently University of Phoenix has been doing distance education longer and has a much more slick and streamlined program that is likely to go smoothly. U of Maryland is new to distance education and my have a clunky and experimental online education pilot program. Anyone have anything else to add? I will look at other schools, but I won't be interested in any programs like Regents College that require you to take classes elsewhere and merely consolidate the courses into a single degree. I thought of City U, but I would rather get a degree from a fully regionally accredited program from a name that people of heard of . Doesn't Florida State University have a complete online degree program also?

A. I've been enrolled at UofM for four years, since I started my degree, and now only have a few credits to go. They are past the experimental program stage now, and I have found their courses to be quite well designed. They used to have this awful Telnet-with-graphics-type online classroom, but now they have Webpage-based classes (two years ago I think), so the format is easy to navigate. They have a great student services staff and are pretty flexible about transferring credits (cheaper credits!) from other universities. I don't know, actually. But the full name of the online division of U of M is University of Maryland University College, similar to campus designations like U of M College Park, U of M Baltimore, etc, so probably the certificate would have just U of M on it. I didn't know UMass has an online degree program, they only had CyberEd certificates when I took courses there. Anyway, both UMUC and UMass have good, well-organized courses that can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. They both have semester-based enrollment, though. UMass charges (or used to) a little less per credit hour than UMUC.