Has anyone finished Saylor classes quickly? If so what is your go-to study method?

[davewill]

One of Saylor's problems is the haphazard way they link to resouces all over the web. You end up sifting through a lot of extra material finding what you really need. However, in the end they are essentially test based. If you already understand the material, you can give the material a very light scan and pass. You can also use the quizzes and the non-credit final to help you study.

I used them successfully for a credit course and to help study for a TECEP (Env Ethics), a DSST (Anthro) and a CLEP (Sociology). I'd say if you want to try it, go ahead, but if it starts to become a time sink, bail and do it another way.

[LevelUP]

OnlineDegree has the best videos of all the alt credit providers. They are fun to watch. 

Downsides to OnlineDegee courses
1. Take a long time to do (still faster than a brick and mortar school)
2. Difficulty of quizzes
3. NCCRS credit which lots of schools don't take
4. Limited amount of courses
5. It helps if you have a deep understanding of how the system works, which many don't

Many people don't understand that only the 1st video of each chapter is the only one that matters in terms of knowledge and quiz questions. The others are reviews or supplemental videos.

There is no text for the videos. They don't tell you which quiz questions you get wrong, so you never know. Studying for the final, all you can do is print out the quiz questions and learn the concepts. Luckily, the finals aren't too hard.

[Vle045]

OnlineDegree has the best videos of all the alt credit providers. They are fun to watch. 

Downsides to OnlineDegee courses
1. Take a long time to do (still faster than a brick and mortar school)
2. Difficulty of quizzes
3. NCCRS credit which lots of schools don't take
4. Limited amount of courses
5. It helps if you have a deep understanding of how the system works, which many don't

Many people don't understand that only the 1st video of each chapter is the only one that matters in terms of knowledge and quiz questions. The others are reviews or supplemental videos.

There is no text for the videos. They don't tell you which quiz questions you get wrong, so you never know. Studying for the final, all you can do is print out the quiz questions and learn the concepts. Luckily, the finals aren't too hard.

Yes!  When i think of it, sometimes I play their videos for background while I am working.  Today I listened to some really interesting interviews on cybersecurity and fraud.   How dumb does a “Doctor” have to be to get scammed into buying black construction paper and be told that it’s black cash that needs a special chemical to clean it off?

[studyingfortests]

OnlineDegree's history course is actually pretty interesting and fun, IMO. Not sure about the others. OnlineDegree is still faster than a typical B&M course, though having to watch all the videos is going to be frustrating when compared to Sophia/SDC.

Interesting.  I read a couple of articles from when they launched.  (Apparently they hired a PR firm.) They certainly had grand plans to completely disrupt college education. 

But from what I can tell (viewed a couple of courses, and a friend took their Intro to Public Health), it looks like they basically took already existing public domain courses -- Public Health is literally a camera in the back of a classroom filmed at Pomona State maybe(?) in 2012 -- and wrote their own quizzes and exams.

I got the sense that they had a grand plan that they were going to sell leads to the schools from students interested in pursuing college and make a bunch of money in the process.  But given that I don't think they've had any new courses since their initial launch several years ago, it doesn't seem like the idea caught on. A pity. 

It would not have been hard to take the assets they have and reposition them into SDC-style bite-sized chunks, provide transcripts, and *then* they'd have something. At least in my opinion.

[LevelUP]

OnlineDegree's history course is actually pretty interesting and fun, IMO. Not sure about the others. OnlineDegree is still faster than a typical B&M course, though having to watch all the videos is going to be frustrating when compared to Sophia/SDC.

Interesting.  I read a couple of articles from when they launched.  (Apparently they hired a PR firm.) They certainly had grand plans to completely disrupt college education. 

But from what I can tell (viewed a couple of courses, and a friend took their Intro to Public Health), it looks like they basically took already existing public domain courses -- Public Health is literally a camera in the back of a classroom filmed at Pomona State maybe(?) in 2012 -- and wrote their own quizzes and exams.

I got the sense that they had a grand plan that they were going to sell leads to the schools from students interested in pursuing college and make a bunch of money in the process.  But given that I don't think they've had any new courses since their initial launch several years ago, it doesn't seem like the idea caught on. A pity. 

It would not have been hard to take the assets they have and reposition them into SDC-style bite-sized chunks, provide transcripts, and *then* they'd have something. At least in my opinion.

Ya, I saw that too.

[dfrecore]

I think Saylor has SOME good courses, and some not so great ones. My advice would be to give one a shot and see what you think. If you get a bad course, bail immediately and move one. Try another one until you get a good one.

The $5 you pay is only for the exam, the course is free - so no loss except some time.

[Insert Name]

2 questions, that have probably been asked already:
-how does the proctoring work for Saylor exams?
-is there an age limit for Saylor?

[jch]

Saylor recently transitioned their proctoring system from synchronous ProctorU to asynchronous SmarterProctoring. It's just $5 per session, 24/7/365. A thread about the change is here: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...tead-of-25
I've used the new proctoring service a handful of times with no issues, though others have had problems. I like that everything runs through a single browser collection instead of ProctorU's janky combination of programs and scripts.

[natshar]

I think the age limit would be 13+ because that's the age you have to have a valid email which is what you need to sign up.

You also don't even have to do the course you can just go straight to the test. I wouldn't advise that but you can if you want to.

[bjcheung77]

2 questions, that have probably been asked already:
-how does the proctoring work for Saylor exams?
-is there an age limit for Saylor?

You can't go wrong with an ACE/NCCRS or CLEP & MS combo, for example, using Saylor.org, Sophia.org and Study.com for taking courses not offered by CLEP/MS. The bulk of the ACE/NCCRS providers require the student to be 13 of age due to COPPA, Study.com's age is 16, and Onlinedegree.com is 18. Age really isn't a barrier as a parent/guardian just needs to be with the student when they sign up if they're under that age, the parent is going to pay for courses or exams and will be granting them permission to take them.