Presentation by Dean Hoke, President-Elect of USDLA at the 2019 European Distance Learning Week's first-day webinar on "Distance Education: Challenges on the European and the Global Level" - 11 November 2019 Recording of the discussion is available: https://eden-online.adobeconnect.com/pymtl303yih1/ & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7AzzgjReps

1. How to protect respectable institutions and good quality
programmes from the fake ones
Dean Hoke – President Elect USDLA

2. How Big of a Problem is it
According to Retired FBI Agent Allen Ezell in the August 16, 2019
ACCRAO article Diploma Mills and Counterfeit Operations
“As an expert in the field for nearly 40 years, I
believe there are at least 5,000 diploma mills are in
operation today, 1,500 accreditation mills, and
more than 500 counterfeit diploma and transcript
Web sites. There are even diploma mill review sites
that feature reviews (typically submitted by a
competitor) as means of generating more business”

3. In the December 12, 2017 article titled Diploma Mills: 9 Strategies
for Tackling One of Higher Education’s Most Wicked Problems by
Hanna Park, Senior Manager of Training, WES, and Ashley Craddock,
Editor, World Education News Review estimate the scale of Diploma
Mills

4. Numerous Media Outlets are Reporting
including the BBC

5. Al Fanar Media and Dean Hoke of Edu Alliance
in 2015 collaborated in exposing Bogus Degrees

6. Al Fanar Media and the Chronicle of Higher
Education

7. How many people bought degrees in the Gulf Countries
Source: Gulf News 2015

8. What Can Be Done
Prosecute Bogus Schools and Its Leaders

9. Sanction Employers and Recruiting
Firms
Source The National Nov. 2, 2019

10. Pressure Social Media to Ban Adverts from Bogus Schools

11. Institutions Increase Public Awareness with Additional
Media Attention
Help Mainstream Media Identify
Bogus schools

12. Distance Learning Worldwide take a lead in exposing
bogus schools via media and lobbying