3 New Ace Courses Coming to Sophia

[FastTrackDegree]

All new courses at Sophia seem to have written assignments, not a fan!

[msa145]

All new courses at Sophia seem to have written assignments, not a fan!

Actually it is a good thing from one perspective. Sophia is going to maintain the academic quality by doing that and bringing in proctored exams. We dont want institutions kicking out sophia credits.

[MNomadic]

All new courses at Sophia seem to have written assignments, not a fan!

Actually it is a good thing from one perspective. Sophia is going to maintain the academic quality by doing that and bringing in proctored exams. We dont want institutions kicking out sophia credits.

I was going to say the same. To be fair, not all of the written assignments I've seen on sophia are rigorous essays, either. Some, like communication at work, are just writing a short email/memo and can be done in half an hour.

[ctcarl]

Sophia touchstones, with the exception of very modest ones as has been pointed out upthread, tend to slow down course completion times substantially, especially for touchstones that require subsequent revision and resubmission.

But what concerns me more is the suggestion that they may be transitioning to an online proctoring service, like RPNow or ProctorFU.  It's difficult to imagine that Sophia could maintain their aggressive new monthly subscription pricing if they were to subsidize or include the cost of third-party online proctoring.  I'm troubled by the specter of Sophia's business model looking like Study.com's...a low, heavily promoted "come on" price, with a much higher "Oh, you'd like to actually get credit?" price.

That is to say nothing of having to deal with ProctorFU's minefield of "premium fees".  "Oh, you'd like to take that tomorrow, or the next day?  Premium fee!  You say you'd like to take it today, while your memory is still fresh?  Extra Premium fee!"  And the potential hassles of dealing with any online proctoring service...sterile rooms, photo and room scans, extraneous voices or other noise, bathroom breaks, etc.

To me, one of the most satisfying aspects of Sophia courses was that you complete the Final Milestone, click, and get your score and your credit, wham, just like that.  There's no doubt in my mind that, coming back to college after so many years, rolling up credit for those first few Sophia courses helped to get me back on track in a way that I couldn't have imagined previously.  I'd hate to see that experience eroded for anyone down the road.

[dfrecore]

Sophia touchstones, with the exception of very modest ones as has been pointed out upthread, tend to slow down course completion times substantially, especially for touchstones that require subsequent revision and resubmission.

To me, one of the most satisfying aspects of Sophia courses was that you complete the Final Milestone, click, and get your score and your credit, wham, just like that.  There's no doubt in my mind that, coming back to college after so many years, rolling up credit for those first few Sophia courses helped to get me back on track in a way that I couldn't have imagined previously.  I'd hate to see that experience eroded for anyone down the road.

I'm wondering if they will allow you to take a 3rd (or 4th) course while you're waiting for grades to come back.  If you've completed the course in full and submitted a written assignment, and are just waiting for your grade to come in, are you going to be stuck with no option to take another course while you wait?  If so, I think this is going to be a major issue - you just can't do more than 2 courses in a month because of holdups on their end. That would really stink.

[ctcarl]

I'm wondering if they will allow you to take a 3rd (or 4th) course while you're waiting for grades to come back.  If you've completed the course in full and submitted a written assignment, and are just waiting for your grade to come in, are you going to be stuck with no option to take another course while you wait?  If so, I think this is going to be a major issue - you just can't do more than 2 courses in a month because of holdups on their end. That would really stink.

My understanding is that you can only have two courses open at any given time, at least at this point.

[dfrecore]

I'm wondering if they will allow you to take a 3rd (or 4th) course while you're waiting for grades to come back.  If you've completed the course in full and submitted a written assignment, and are just waiting for your grade to come in, are you going to be stuck with no option to take another course while you wait?  If so, I think this is going to be a major issue - you just can't do more than 2 courses in a month because of holdups on their end. That would really stink.

My understanding is that you can only have two courses open at any given time, at least at this point.

That's the entire point of my post - since you can only take 2 courses at once, if you're taking 2, but are waiting for grades, can you start another course while you wait?

[ctcarl]

That's the entire point of my post - since you can only take 2 courses at once, if you're taking 2, but are waiting for grades, can you start another course while you wait?

I know that it is.  I thought it was obvious, if you haven't completed the course, it's still open, and therefore accounts for one of the two you're allowed to have open at any given time.

I suspect that if all the course requirements have been completed and you are waiting only for one touchstone to be graded, you might be able to get them to manually override this so you can start another course.

Depending on how the new courses are structured, maybe they'll change this policy, if for example, the last assignment of a given course is a touchstone.

[ss20ts]

That's the entire point of my post - since you can only take 2 courses at once, if you're taking 2, but are waiting for grades, can you start another course while you wait?

No you can only have 2 courses open. Doesn't change because you're waiting for grades. I tried awhile ago because Eng Comp 2 was taking 10 days to get graded. I was told no.

[dfrecore]

That's the entire point of my post - since you can only take 2 courses at once, if you're taking 2, but are waiting for grades, can you start another course while you wait?

I know that it is.  I thought it was obvious, if you haven't completed the course, it's still open, and therefore accounts for one of the two you're allowed to have open at any given time.

I suspect that if all the course requirements have been completed and you are waiting only for one touchstone to be graded, you might be able to get them to manually override this so you can start another course.

Depending on how the new courses are structured, maybe they'll change this policy, if for example, the last assignment of a given course is a touchstone.

I'm wondering if they'll change their policy since they're changing the structure of their courses.