Hello,

I am an American lawyer who would like to study via the external program for an LLM in jurisprudence. In the US external programs and distance learning are viewed with suspicion--often the degrees are not seen as worth the paper they are printed on. I'd like to hear from UCL grads and students on how UCL and its distance program are viewed. I especially would like to hear from Americans who are in or have graduated from the program.

This is something I really want to do, I just need to make sure of its value.

Thanks

Bill

My understanding is that suspicion of distance learning in the US stems from paper mills offering "pay-for-paper" degrees. Whilst you have excellent examples of distance learning (e-cornel and phoenix are frequently cited over here), these have suffered under the shadow of nefarious institutions and the publicity they inevitably grab.

It's not the same here in the UK. We've had the Open University pave the way for distance learning for decades, and now that more and more recognised higher and further education institutions are developing their e-learning portfolios, there's more choice than ever before.

If you choose a recognised higher education institution that already has a good standing on the international stage, then you should feel confident that their distance learning courses are of a similar calibre as their on-campus courses.

Of course, that's not a guarantee, and some institutions, in the rush to catch up, may over look one or two aspects of their education provision online, but that should be easy to spot with a few well placed questions:

1) How many staff members are on the programme team?
2) which staff members?
3) what level of support is available? is it dedicated distance learning support?
4) How does the programme compare to their on-campus programme?
5) What is their accreditation procedure?
6) How often is the material updated, or brand new content created ?
7) How many hours tutor contact per week?
8) How many graduates to date?
9) Mode of assessment?
10) Does the certificate contain the words "distance learning" or "e-learning"?

These are questions which I see are asked regularly via our website, email, phone and IM of our LL.M courses via distance learning.

Hopefully you'll decide to go for a UK distance learning LL.M, but if you haven't done so already, contact UCL and see what they say.

hope that helps,

Colin
distance learning
School of Law
The University of Edinburgh
www.law.ed.ac.uk/distancelearning/