The official guide to courses by Straighterline, Study, et al: We want YOUR input!

[wow]

Provider: Sophia
Course: Anatomy II + Lab
Course content: The content of the main course is pretty much an adaptation of the OpenStax anatomy textbook with a few short clips from youtube video sprinkled here and there. The labs are interactive simulations on Labster.
Final exam format: 75 multiple choice questions in two hours (maybe a little less time? I don't remember and I can't see the length on the dashboard anymore)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams:  Final exam was a mix of  familiar material and curveballs. They seemed to like to throw a lot of curveballs in this course since everything was open book -- I guess they figure it's a way that students will familiarize themselves with the material before tests, because if you get too many curveballs you don't know how to handle, or at least know where to look up the answer, there's no way you're going to pass the tests in the time limit. To be fair, though, I did not fastidiously read through the text because it was mind numbingly boring and sometimes confusing. More about that below.
Time taken on course: >2 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course:  Somewhat to fairly familiar, though it's been a few years since I actively studied most of these topics, especially in detail.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Wow, this was a slog. And I *like* anatomy. But the way the material was presented, you just had to memorize or half-memorize a lot of stuff without really understanding why things work the way they do. I tried making things easier for myself by watching Khan Academy videos and stuff from interactive biology. They did help, but they weren't detailed enough. About halfway through the course I discovered Ninja Nerd on YouTube and that was a lifesaver. He was 100X better than the text. I would watch the relevant Ninja Nerd videos and then skim over the text. Also, I highly recommend taking this with the lab. For most units, doing the lab before the unit or concurrently is extremely helpful in learning the material. If you are planning to take the anatomy courses and do not want to have a multi month sofia subscription, I recommend doing Khan Academy and ninja nerd before you sign up for Sophia. I had no access to other Sophia courses while I was doing this.
1-10 Difficulty level: 7 or 8

[wow]

Provider: Sophia
Course: organizational behavior
Course content: text adapted from the OpenStax textbook and 11 or 12 short case-study videos about a fictional company
Final exam format: I don't remember. They gave plenty of time to finish, though.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Most was familiar, but the questions were terribly written so a lot of times you just had no idea if you picked the answer they were looking for.
Time taken on course: A few days because the assignments were time-consuming
Familiarity with subject before course: I had previously read a lot of the textbook for a different class
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I actually enjoyed the touchstones for the most part (maybe about 55-65% enjoyment). The problem was that Sophia lists so many questions that you're supposed to answer in each assignment that there is no way you can keep it to the low-end of the required word count. As I said elsewhere on this board, the milestones and tutorial questions were frustrating: "Many of the questions are neither aligned with previous types of questions nor with the text, and I spend a lot of time trying to mindread what the exam writer was looking for. Many also have multiple correct answers-- I have flagged as many as I have the energy to for Sophia to look over. Hopefully this is all because it's a new course and they will incorporate feedback, but it is frustrating to be one of the guinea pigs." Doing it over, it might have been less of a headache to go through Study.com.
1-10 Difficulty level: 5—the material itself wasn't difficult, but putting up with the poorly written exam questions and the overly detailed assignment specifications made the experience challenging

[MISin08]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 308: Globalization & International Management
Course content: 118 quizzes (one after each lesson), 2 papers (1500-2000-word minimum), and a proctored final
Final exam format: 100 questions, multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final exam questions were extremely similar to the quizzes and practice tests. I actually found it to be super easy! 
Familiarity with subject before course: I was slightly familiar with some of the concepts and had already completed some of the quizzes thanks to previous courses. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The only thing for me was that there is so much information! It got a bit long to read through all the lessons.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2-3. Overall not a bad class. The information is pretty straightforward.

Does anyone (lol active users) have recent feedback on this -- specifically the papers?  I'm probably overthinking these papers, but once I flesh them out for the fictional scenario (energy drink company in Oregon and electronics company in Vermont, each wanting to expand internationally) they get long...and more sources than "required".  

Thanks for an insight

Phillip

[wow]

Note: ACE recommendation for this course expires April 30, so I rushed this course. Surprised to find I could complete the whole thing start to proctored exam in 7 days.
Provider: Saylor.org
Course: Physics 101
Course content: Text and videos
Final exam format: 51 Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I got around 75% (passing). Final proctored exam was a little easier than the practice (certificate) exam; some questions required knowing formulas and unit conversions that were not on the Physics Formula sheet permitted to be used in the exam; familiarize yourself with the Physics Formula sheet before the exam because some use different symbols than in the text
Time taken on course: 6 days of study, 6 to 8 hours/day - read text, worked problems, made and reviewed flashcards each day
Familiarity with subject before course: High school and college physics decades ago (TESU won't accept my college physics for transfer for complicated reasons so I need to take it again sigh). I would have failed the final without preparation, maybe like 10% score?
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I skipped a lot of the videos. If you are good at logic and math, it makes things easier. You need to understand algebra and basic trig--I'd forgotten most trig so had to look up and make flashcards about how sin, cosine, tangent etc worked
1-10 Difficulty level: 5

[wow]

Note, same as above: ACE recommendation for this course expires April 30, so I rushed this course. I am doing this review even though the chance of others attempting this are slim because I want to say that, overall, this is a pretty good course for self-study of electromagnetism, and better than just teaching it to yourself out of a textbook. I knew that, even if I couldn't pass the test, I would be in a good position to take and pass the study.com electromagnetism course within a one-month subscription period.
Provider: Saylor.org
Course: Physics 102
Course content: Text and videos
Final exam format: 51 Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams:  There were no practice problems at the end of each unit like there had been with Physics 101, which sucked and made taking the certificate exam as practice absolutely essential. (There were practice problems with step-by-step solutions within the readings, and I did most of them.) Final proctored exam format was similar to practice (certificate) exam, which had a mix of conceptual and math questions; as with Physics 101, some questions required knowing formulas that were not on the Physics Formula sheet permitted to be used in the exam; familiarize yourself with the Physics Formula sheet before the exam because some use different symbols than in the text. The Physics formula sheet contains NO formulas for specific relativity or RLC circuits, so prior to the test I spent time memorizing relativity formulas or, in the case of RLC circuits, figuring out how to use other formulas (such as RC circuit formulas) as memory joggers to remember the RLC formulas. Shockingly, I got above 80% (minimum to pass is 70%) on my first attempt, even though my score on the certificate exam was 62%. (I took the certificate exam the day after the practice and studied in between, focusing on areas I knew I'd done poorly on in the certificate exam.)
Time taken: 9 days of study, 6 to 10 hours/day - read text, worked problems, made and reviewed flashcards each day
Familiarity with subject before course: Familiarity with many of the concepts from two semesters of less math-heavy college physics decades ago; familiar with and good at algebra; needed a refresher in some trigonometry.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I skipped a lot of the videos in Physics 101, but needed to watch most in 102 to grasp concepts and/or problem-solving approaches. You need to understand algebra and basic trig--soh cah toa.
1-10 Difficulty level: 7