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October 20, 2004 - Capella "University" unveils a new home page and, guess what?! Once again, it fails to meet established guidelines for accessibility! Apparently, it's too much to expect an entirely online "school" to focus on the needs of their students - profits are clearly far more important. Running Capella's new home page through two "Bobby" checks reveals:
Rather disgusting, to say the least, that an online "university" that teaches courses on web design, usability, etc. can't even build a home page that is accessible! By the way, if you think Capella's new home page is an embarrassment - their online course room, WebCT, is far worse! Take a look at the reviews for WebCT on our Resources Page.
October 2004 - in yet another feeble attempt to cover their tracks, Capella "University" decided to develop and implement an "official" university policy pertaining to every students' right to obtain a complete copy of their education record. These rights are already guaranteed by an important Federal Law, enforced by the United States Department of Education, Family Policy Compliance Office - the "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act" (FERPA). It is believed that Capella "University" decided to come up with this policy because the student who filed the complaint against them for Civil Rights Violations (now under investigation by the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights), also filed two FERPA complaints against the "University" - one against one of Capella's highest ranking legal counsels for the disclosure of confidential student information and a second against the University for their refusal to provide information as required under FERPA. It should be noted that the second complaint was filed AFTER Capella decided to cover their tracks. The fact some of the highest ranking officials at Capella were fully aware of their requirements to turn records over to students and then intentionally refused to do so while, at the same time, they were creating a new policy pertaining to FERPA, is further evidence that Capella University deliberately engages in illegal and unethical activity.
September 2004 - the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights has opened a retaliation complaint against Capella "University's" provost, one of their deans, and an instructor! These individuals are all personally involved in taking, what we believe is, grossly unethical and illegal adverse actions against a graduate student who was studying the incompetent design of one of Capella's online course rooms - WebCT. More will be reported on this site when information becomes available.
Don't be deceived by the slick ads and high-pitched sales tactics used by the Internet's "premier" for-profit nonline school, Capella University - it is highly recommended that you take a look at this site, first, before you spend a huge amount of money for an "education." Visitors will find comments from Capella students and former students who have been scammed into thinking that they could receive a quality education online. While the concept is good, it is our belief that Capella University falls far short of anything that resembles a quality education. Capella seems to be more interested in bilking extremely high tuition fees out of unsuspecting students than in providing a quality education. As an entirely nonline school, it must be assumed that Capella's overhead is extremely low in comparison to real "brick and mortar" universities that have classrooms to maintain.
This site will also serve to document what is, in our opinion, Capella's abuse and harassment of students, who often pay more than $1,600 per course for speaking out about Capella's substandard practices. Yes, this site is designed to provide a one-sided view as we believe that students who rightly express their opinions at Capella are subject to harassment, retaliation, and intimidation by school officials. We also believe that the same unethical officials and instructors who engage in censoring materials that are posted in Capella's "classrooms," as well as in other areas of their site, act in direct opposition to the concept of the First Amendment and Academic Freedom.
Capella University recently decided to implement a new, nonline "learning environment," WebCT, with just two of their "schools" (we use that term loosely) - the School of Technology and the School of Business. While there is a tremendous amount of information on the Internet regarding WebCT's long history of not being accessible to all students, Capella University simply ignored the obvious. Instead, Capella claims to have spent more than a year "researching" WebCT and that their "pilot study" was overwhelmingly positive. In the now infamous "apology" from Capella's President, Michael Offerman, dated April 9, 2004, he stated:
"The situation arose unexpectedly as we implemented a planned, phased migration of learners to the new Courseroom from our current learning platform, LearningSpace. The new learning platform is a software product called Vista from WebCT, one of the nation's leading providers of premier e-learning solutions. We conducted several months of testing and analysis of Vista, including a pilot in March [2004] with more than 250 learners and faculty. During testing and pilot periods, we encountered no technical issues. In fact, learners and faculty in our pilot universally praised Vista for being exceptionally user-friendly and intuitive, and providing new and useful online learning tools."
Since then, Offerman has buried his head in the sand and has refused to communicate any further with students who are rightfully disgusted at the ongoing problems they continue to experience with WebCT - constant down times, inability to post, lack of support, inability to edit (hey, wait a minute, it is now known that Capella University can delete posts, why can't students edit or delete their own posts?), etc. Additional details will be provided as this site develops.
At this time, it is known that at least one student has filed a complaint against Capella with the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on charges that WebCT denies equal access to students with disabilities.
If you have been subject to abuse by school officials or incompetent instructors, Capella University Sucks.us strongly encourages your comments.
Please come back often as this site grows.
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Page established: 07/13/04 - Last revised: November 16, 2005