Unmanned Vehicle University Obtains License; Offers Free Book Publishing

I've been following Unmanned Vehicle University (UVU) on this blog for abut a year (previous articles: 1, 2). I keep an eye on it for two reasons. First, it's in the geospatial/GIS/remote sensing arena and second, it's a for-profit institution. I regularly receive e-mails from the school about upcoming courses and new offerings such as videos and books, but I do not receive news about the school itself. That information I have to dig up myself.

So, what's new at UVU since late 2012? Quite a lot!

In November university president Dr (Col Ret) Jerry LeMieux contributed to Big Beacon, a website about new ways to teach engineering. In his post titled Innovator’s Notebook: A New Approach to Unmanned Systems Engineering Education he scoped out the unique vision for UVU. It included decisions to:

• Start from a student’s perspective. [Connect course content to job (job market).]
• Recruit world-class expert faculty. [Require a PhD in engineering and tons of experience. Use social media to find faculty all over the world.]
• Keep content real worldly, relevant, and applicable. [Mix delivery systems for content (lectures, videos, reading) and for student work (problem sets, papers, take home evaluations).]
• Set a realistic business model and competitive pricing. [Make course fees low to serve areas with limited income (South America, India) and use off-site adjunct faculty to keep overhead manageable.]

Also in November I learned from LiDAR News' Gene Roe about the university's journal. "The International Journal of Unmanned Systems Engineering – (IJUSEng) is the official journal of Unmanned Vehicle University and the first journal exclusively dedicated to unmanned systems engineering." The January 2013 is the first issue and includes three free-to-read articles. There are also details on how to contribute and subscribe. The quarterly online publication is $495 for individuals and $150 for students. The publication is based in the UK. The editor, Dr Pascual Marques, has a company called Marques Aviation, which sells aircraft related products and services (website copyright 2010). He is UK Director for UVU.

On December 12 the University announced by press release a license to grant degrees in Arizona.

Unmanned Vehicle University just received a university license from the Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education. The license grants UVU the authority to grant Doctorate and Masters Degrees in Unmanned (Air/Ground/Sea/Space) Systems Engineering. A Certificate in Unmanned Systems Project Management is also available for Undergraduates.

The Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education license shows no accreditations. I'm guessing that means that the board does not recognize the accreditation from International Association for Distance Learning UVU holds. Or perhaps that accreditation ran out? (I noted the IADL membership in a previous article.)

Interestingly,"fully accredited degrees," a phrase on the UVU homepage for some time, is no longer mentioned anywhere on the website. While exploring the Arizona license, I learned that the school does not operate in Washington State.  UVU "is not a legal degree-granting school in the state of Washington," per the Washington Student Achievement Council.

In late December the University posted a job for a recruiter noting a salary of 10K per month (120K per year, wow)! I saw it on several job boards including SimplyHired.com. 

At the end of December UVU announced, again via press release, a program to pay for the publication of the first 50 approved texts about UAVs submitted. The gory details are on the UVU Press page; it suggests publication could cost between $3K and $5K without this aid. The press already has one book approved: Dr Oren Gal, who is working on his PhD at the Technion in Israel, had his book titled "Marine Robotic Concepts and Science" approved.

To start off 2013 the University received the trademark (press release) for Unmanned Vehicle University, describing it as "Unmanned vehicle training and education."

UVU is clearly working hard to keep both its educational integrity high while boosting its bottom line.

A Look at Unmanned Vehicle University

Unmanned Vehicle University opened its online doors in February of 2012, after about a year of planning. The school currently offers online courses using Webex. Some are non-credit "executive certificate" courses (you receive a certificate of completion) while others are part of certificate programs (a one year post-baccalaureate program) or Masters and PhD degrees related to UAVs/UASs. Short courses, typically three days, are offered in person. The faculty includes some 30 experts in the field located all over the world. In August the school had about 50 students.

Jerry LeMieux, a retired Air Force colonel, commercial airline pilot, and college lecturer founded the university and is leading the marketing charge. You can hear him on this podcast interview with Small UAS News.

UVU received its accreditation in July 2012 from the International Association for Distance Learning. Wikipedia includes that association on its list of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations.

Executive non-credit courses cost $999 (eight weeks) while certificate/degree courses (12 weeks) run $1600. A masters degree requires eight courses (no masters thesis is required) and runs $12,800. A PhD requires ten courses, plus 36 credits of dissertation preparation and a defense. I calculate the cost at $25,600. The Unmanned Vehicle University Graduate Course Catalog and Student Handbook, 2012 – 2013 with details is available in a PDF titled "graduate catalog" on this page.

The university shared recently that it is looking to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification, is writing a first textbook on UAVs, and hopes to open a physical campus at Lake Havasu City, AZ. An e-mail to prospective students in early September included plans for financial aid and Veterans Administration benefits for students:

FINANCIAL AID AND VA BENEFITS
We are working very hard to get financial aid and VA benefits approved. Please be patient with this certification process. We anticipate this occurring in the later part of 2013. Once we have this approval, the course prices will increase by 100%. Anyone who enrolls now, willl [sic] be grandfathered into the lower price structure.

I wanted to be sure members of the GIS education community were aware of this university and its programs.

More Information:

- Unmanned Vehicle University
- Washington Times
- Las Vegas Review Journal

---
update 10/11/12: You can now buy the UAV Fundamemtals Course
on DVD for $650 via Amazon.

Learn the basics of unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs). This DVD includes 16 hours of lectures from the popular Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) Fundamentals Executive Course offered by Unmanned Vehicle University.

- e-mail from UVU 

How to Get an Entry Level GIS Job at Jacksonville Electric

Jessica Gray sounds like a sharp student. After graduating from high school, she attended college and graduated as valedictorian with an associate degree in Computer Drafting and Design. Among her other academic achievements are induction into the National Technical Honor Society and Alpha Beta Kappa and a grade point average of 4.0. She's leveraged all of that into a full-time position as a GIS/CAD Technician with Jacksonville Electric Authority in Florida.

The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey, would say, goes like this. Gray graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School in Juneau Alaska. Her parents live in Yakutat (pop 662, but claimed to be the largest city by area in the U.S. at about six times the size of Rhode Island) about 100 miles from Juneau. Gray is a shareholder of Sealaska, Goldbelt and Shee-Atika, all native corporations. and a member of Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska and Sitka Tribes of Alaska. From what I understand, being a shareholder of several corporations is pretty normal for native Alaskans.

Here's the interesting part, from the geoeducation perspective. Gray left Alaska for Jacksonville, FL where she earned her degree at ITT Technical Institute. ITT Technical Institute, which advertises heavily here in Boston, is a for-profit institution with national, rather than the more prestigious regional accreditation (source: Wikipedia, the school website does not seem to make its accreditation readily findable). The school offers many degrees but has a large portfolio in technology and IT. Her program at the Jacksonville Campus includes just one course that I could find that touches on GIS and mapping: 3D Civil Drafting. Other degree programs at other campuses have a course titled Civil Drafting and Introduction to GIS.

I point out all of this out to wish Gray the best in her new job and to highlight that while efforts in the U.S. to offer GIS and geospatial training at public institutions and in particular at community colleges grow, so do efforts at private for profit schools.

- Juneau Empire

Are We Ready for Advertising Funded Degrees?

I'm a sucker for new education business models, so when the Chronicle detailed the still fuzzy plans for World Education University, I took note. Scott Hines, the university’s chief executive holds firm to the idea that students will know that their degrees are being funded (mostly) through advertising.

What degrees? The programs website notes, "WEU expects to be able to offer credentialed diplomas in a variety of industries, Associate Degrees, Bachelor Degrees, Master Degrees, and Ph.Ds." About 20 disciplines from computer science to theology are listed as possible areas to earn a degree.

The school doesn't share its location, nor the specific accreditation it hopes to capture. A commenter found an address in California and suggest accreditation via DETC (one of the national level, lower level, accreditors focusing on distance education) or WASC (one of the six highest level or regional accreditors in the U.S.) would be logical, though that would require a few years at least in the making. WASC, by the way, recently earned kudos from a Chronicle commentator when it denied accreditation, publicly and tightened its stance of graduate percentages.

For his part Hines shares the plan for national, regional, and international accreditation. There's also a plan for competency-based accreditation where corporate partners "stamp" the university as properly preparing students for a particular industry. ("GIS company X says students who complete a course of study at WEU are competent to do GIS.")

The article shares three methods of monetization of students via advertisers (Remember, if an online product is free, you are the product!):

- targeting advertising to student interests (like running)
- outright advertiser sponsorship of students
- academic achievement points that can be exchanged by students for advertisers prizes or discounts

A fourth money maker does not involve adverstising. The school may charge for tutoring or premium content (unclear if that means specific lessons, courses, degrees or what). That last option is essentially a freemium model. (You read Free, right? Worth a read if not.)

The source of the content? In the long term the school plans to create original content; at the outset materials from two undisclosed institutions will be offered.

The faculty? Here's the recruiting blurb regarding salary.

We pay our professors based on academic performance. Each student will grade you, the professor, and the course you create for our online community. The more students who rate your course highly, the more students will take your course and the more you will get paid. We can’t wait to meet you and have you join our team.

If something sounds too good to be true....