Wow - Saylor now has 34 FREE credits available!!

[AquaDragonfly]

Saylor now has 34 credits of classes reviewed and recommended for college credit by ACE and NCCRS (plus the ones aligned with SL, CLEP, and APs). That's in addition to the courses that go along with the UExcels and Teceps.

I will still need to pay the proctoring or test fee, but I can't wait to plan these into my son's courses for next year! Here's the list: http://www.saylor.org/pathways/earn-college-credit/.

Happy Veterans' Day!

Lori in NY

[sanantone]

I shuddered at the stupid announcements made by TESC and Saylor this past week. The NCCRS-approved courses have been around for awhile (like a year or more). The ACE-approved courses have been around for several months. Saylor has always been free, but you always had to pay $25 to take a proctored exam. TESC made an announcement about a partnership to accept 34 credits from Saylor, but this is not anything new. TESC has LONG accepted ACE and NCCRS-approved courses. They've probably been accepting them since before I was born....in the 80s!

I think it is important to clarify some terminology. Their courses are not aligned with ACE and NCCRS; they are recommended for credit by ACE and NCCRS. That means they are worth credit on their own. When they say their courses are aligned with SL, CLEP, Uexcel, TECEP, etc., it means that you can use their materials to study for these courses/tests. You still have to pay for these courses/tests. The 34 credits they are bragging about are ACE and NCCRS-approved. They aren't referring to the credit-aligned courses because tests and Straighterline courses cost nearly $100 or more.

[AkaiOkami]

Make sure to email his school he plans to go to, to see what courses are accepted and how they get accepted or time may get wasted on useless courses. For example, I emailed Excelsior back in July about the Business Law and Ethics course and here is the reply I got.

Admission Counselor- Our faculty has looked at this course some time ago and determined that it
can ONLY be used as a Business Elective. It does not duplicate courses in
Ethics or in Business. Therefore, it does not satisfy the Business Core or
the Ethics Core requirements.

Forgot to mention**, all courses are LL. Biology and Chemistry are the two that ACE recommends and the rest are by NCCRS. Hope this helps with planning what to take.

[sanantone]

Saylor has listed TESC's official equivalencies for their NCCRS-approved courses on their website for a year or more, which makes it even more stupid how they're pretending that this is a new partnership. Just click on the Thomas Edison State College logo to see them.
Credit Transfer Partner Schools | Saylor Academy

Excelsior hasn't given Saylor their equivalencies. All that is mentioned is that you should check with Excelsior first. COSC has given their equivalencies, but they aren't very favorable.

[geissingert]

Still new to this. Can someone please explain Saylor? My son is going for his bachelors in IT at TESC and my daughter is going for Liberal Arts at TESC. She really wants graphic animation, not sure where to go for the least amount yet.

[cookderosa]

Still new to this. Can someone please explain Saylor? My son is going for his bachelors in IT at TESC and my daughter is going for Liberal Arts at TESC. She really wants graphic animation, not sure where to go for the least amount yet.

Saylor is a collection of curriculum online. It's designed to be a class, but it's totally free (links to youtube vids, scanned in pages of text, etc) without the access to a teacher. They have a great product for the price. Within the past couple years, they started aligning several courses with CLEP/AP/DSST tests so you can use Saylor to study and then take the test. Then, they've added ACE/NCCRS evaluation to some of their courses. That means, in a nutshell, that some schools will award credit for passing those classes (a proctored exam at the end of the course vs a non-proctored exam if you're doing it for fun). Since your kids are going to attend TESC, you should know TESC awards credit for them. It's very very cheap ($25). One HUGE disadvantage that we encountered last year, is the lack of answer keys. So, one of my kids would do the math lesson, but in order for me to grade it, I had to check his work myself by working out each problem. Of course the problem with that is obvious. When I messaged them, they said they had no plans to add keys, so that's a big check mark in the con column for us. HOWEVER, a work-around might be to do indy-study and then go back in and do the Saylor exam.

[geissingert]

What is indy-study? My kids are going to take 3 math classes & statistics through Aleks. Thank you for this info. I will have to figure out which classes they can take, that will go towards their degrees.

[alleycat]

What is indy-study? My kids are going to take 3 math classes & statistics through Aleks. Thank you for this info. I will have to figure out which classes they can take, that will go towards their degrees.

Independant study is Indy-study.

[AquaDragonfly]

Sorry, sanantone, about my misuse of the terminology and thinking it was something current. I'm new at this and saw the article on a board, so I thought it was news.... I corrected it.

[HorseManiac]

Here's an article that Saylor wrote explaining what they do and what OER is all about! Saylor contacted me about my experience taking their courses and wanted some feedback for their article. I thought it might help explain a little about Saylor to those who are interested.

Journal article on OER and college credit co-authored by Saylor Academy staff | Saylor Academy