Advice about Saylor Academy

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by decatur3, Feb 16, 2018.

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  1. decatur3

    decatur3 New Member

    Hello,

    I was looking to take the Intro to Statistics course through Saylor Academy. I have never taken a course with them and I just wanted some information about taking a course through them. What is the best way to get through a course through Saylor? Should I pay close attention to the course materials or the quizzes? Are the final exams for credit transfer through a proctored exam?

    Thank you
     
  2. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I've never used Saylor so I really can't answer your question. I'm wondering though, there are lots of places to take a Stats course, how did you decide of Saylor?
     
  3. msganti

    msganti Active Member

    You may find more info on our sister forum.
     
  4. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    Proctoring
    To earn recommendation for college credit, your exam must be proctored (that is, your attempt must be monitored). https://www.saylor.org/credit/#proctoring

    As far as I know, you can, without cost, take a course without credit to see how you do and then, if need be, take the course again with a proctored exam and for credit.
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    An interesting and good idea. Or you could "MOOC it"

    https://www.mooc-list.com/course/introduction-statistics-udacity

    https://www.coursera.org/learn/basic-statistics

    https://online.stanford.edu/course/probability-and-statistics-self-paced

    https://www.edx.org/course/subject/data-analysis-statistics

    http://www.openculture.com/introduction_to_statistics_a_free_course

    https://www.sophia.org/online-courses/introduction-to-statistics
     
  6. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    My take is that how you study is your business and going through the course more than once is a way to study. Seems a good strategy for an independent learner.

    A problem I see with a MOOC as study for a Saylor exam is that you're not studying for the Saylor exam.
     
  7. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    Saylor only requires you pass their final exam. The content is free, so if you use your own proctor, you have the potential outlay of $0 for 3 college credits. If you want to use ProctorU (their 3rd party proctoring service) you pay only $25 - still a deal.
    DSST is close to $100, so as a credit by exam option, Saylor is the best price out there.

    Saylor's content is going to be wide AND deep. I know they include quizzes as well as a practice exam, it would seem that those would be helpful. In the past, several people on the "sister forum" have taken Saylor courses, and few have been successful. That could be explained by the amount of TIME it takes to go through an ENTIRE Saylor course vs indy study or something like Straighterline, but free is free. I took the DSST years back, but if I needed more undergrad credit today, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a try as a first choice. There are plenty of fall back options if you don't pass.
     
  8. decatur3

    decatur3 New Member

    I plan to use this for a Business degree that I am thinking of pursuing and I saw that Saylor had this course for credit. I have not taken a course at Saylor and I just wanted to know the best strategy for doing well on the exam and to study for a course on there.
     
  9. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    If it fits your plan then you can take the Saylor course with or without taking the exam. Or leave the course midway if you don't like it. That would at the least be studying statistics.
     
    decatur3 likes this.
  10. Davewill

    Davewill Member

    Saylor can be hit and miss. Their problem is that they don't develop or host any of the course content. So some courses are disjointed, with redundant material, uneven use of terminology, and broken links. For instance, when I took Env. Ethics a course section would say, "at the link, click on XXX, then read the 1st heading followed by the 4th heading" and there were at least 4 broken links that made whole sections useless. Sociology, on the other hand, used a single online textbook and was very easy to go through. So my advice is to try it. You can always quickly peruse the course and see it it looks good. You can also just go straight to the quizzes and use them as mini-study guides. It's also nice that you have both a practice final, and the non-proctored final that's used for Saylor certs to use as practice for the proctored for-college-credit final. I recommend doing a copy and paste of those practice questions as you take them and using them for review as well.

    Note: I don't recommend the Sociology course as they only offer 1 credit for it. I was using it as a study base for the CLEP, which worked well.
     
  11. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    I want to post an important point about Saylor courses. Note that not all are ACE evaluated- some are NCCRS and as of today (March 1, 2018) 8 are only evaluated for college credit via the Alternative Credit Project Ecosystem which will close up shop on March 31, 2018. I have rec'd a message from Saylor's exec director telling me they are fast and furiously pursuing ACE credit independent of ACPE and he expects no "gap" in credit to occur, however..... life being life, my suggestion is to try and finish your ACPE courses before March 31, but if that is not possible, stall until they are renewed in the ACE database. If what I just wrote is confusing or you need links, just say so.
     
  12. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    For clarity, NCCRS is not through ACPE, right?

    BTW, both NCCRS and Saylor have Twitter accounts: https://twitter.com/NCCRS https://twitter.com/saylordotorg
     
  13. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    This is interesting:


    Proctored exams not recommended by ACE or NCCRS
    Some courses that have not been recommended for credit by ACE or by NCCRS also provide the option to take proctored exams. (Typically, these courses are directly recognized for credit as part of a specific partner program). Saylor Academy will issue a paper transcript for these exams; use the same transcript request form as for courses recommended by NCCRS.


    https://www.saylor.org/credit/#available-courses
     
  14. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    Saylor used 3 types roads to validate their MOOCs for college credit.
    The first 2 roads cost THEM money, the last road was at no cost.

    ACE and NCCRS cost Saylor money- you have to pay big bucks to have your courses and exams evaluated, but ACP actually PAID PARTICIPATING PROGRAMS through a grant to sign up and become evaluated for college credit- in other words, Saylor had 8 courses added to their "college credit" catalog because of the grant program Alternative Credit Project - what's not to love? Pre-ACP they were just MOOCs.
    Saylor is a non-profit organization, so this was an excellent opportunity to expand their offerings (unlike some of the other participants who are businesses and are well-funded to obtain ACE / NCCRS on their own).

    So, since ACP is going to be done this month, those 8 courses have to either become evaluated by ACE or NCCRS, or risk going back to the way it was before the grant - MOOCs.

    I wrote a long post about this yesterday on my blog (which is not monetized - just informational) because the real rub with the closing of the program isn't that the COURSES are a big loss, rather the grant program built partnership programs (articulations) with colleges that GUARANTEED TRANSFER of the courses that appeared in the ACP. There are a number of colleges in the program that agreed to accept Saylor (or any other ACP) course per the agreement, but now that the agreement is closing, they no longer accept the credits. Two parents who follow my page wrote me in a panic because they were counting on that articulation agreement - but two isn't probably enough to push anyone to do anything. But, it's a loss imo.
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.

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