Diploma Mills

[posabsolute]

"And I still hold concerns that people will remain to look at non-traditional paths as inferior to legacy methods"

I think this will always be the case. Let's face it, when you use our method you earn a pass with 70. You could have 71 or 95, it doesn't matter it's all the same on your transcript. You cannot use your grade to distinguish yourself to potential employers or other universities. It is an easier path because you can optimize for 70, and as I remember it, people with 70 at my CC were certainly not people that understood the course very well, I'm not sure how much more competent they are than us.

I don't know about all the programs that can be done this way, but I think having the capstone course not testable is a good barrier. With the capstone, you can demonstrate that you learned the material and that you earned the degree. At least this is what I feel about the BSBA capstone.

[cookderosa]

I think it is important to consider that accumulating college credit outside of a college and then transferring it into a college (in full or part) isn't something that everyone feels comfortable with- but who cares? I've been here a long time, and there is a difference between advocating for something (selling it- trying to convince people to believe the way you do) and just doing something for yourself. When I tested out of my AA, I was about 100% sure that everyone on the planet would want to do that too - WRONG. Even when I enrolled at TESU as a STUDENT taking CLASSES, most of the students hadn't heard of CLEP and didn't realize TESU was one of the top 3 most accepting colleges of assessment credit in the world. Had no clue. Didn't care.
Here are the facts: over 3200 regionally accredited colleges in this country will accept credit by exam in some amount. If you want to save money and time, you can LEGALLY and ETHICALLY take advantage. If you don't want to- that's also nobody's business but your own. However, when someone comes here and says that using credit by exam or non-college courses at a regionally accredited college is the same as buying a degree from a diploma mill, they are spreading lies and it needs to be called out.

[davewill]

... However, when someone comes here and says that using credit by exam or non-college courses at a regionally accredited college is the same as buying a degree from a diploma mill, they are spreading lies and it needs to be called out.

I agree with you except ... nobody said that.

[posabsolute]

The fumble with the degree mill I don't know, but I think jsh1138 main point was that a lot of people aren't doing those courses in an ethical way, which, I think, is a fair and debatable assumption. Doing 8-10 courses a month with the tabs open may be legal but is it really ethical?

[jsd]

It's legal and ethical if you're actually learning something, i feel. some people might learn this way, but for most people it seems like more of a shortcut to completion than an endeavor in learning.

But jsh1138's point was that if you're not learning anything, you might as well use a diploma mill. somehow this got twisted in to TESU being called a diploma mill, which jsh1138 never actually said, and which he clarified wasn't what was meant. but here we are.

[originalamyj]

The fumble with the degree mill I don't know, but I think jsh1138 main point was that a lot of people aren't doing those courses in an ethical way, which, I think, is a fair and debatable assumption. Doing 8-10 courses a month with the tabs open may be legal but is it really ethical?

"Having the tabs open" is no different than an open book test. If I had a textbook next to me that I highlighted and tabbed pages so I could find infoagain, it's the same thing. And I've had many other courses besides Shmoop (B&M University) that utilize an open book format. If you don't read the book it's still not really passable. Most open book tests are harder, on purpose, because you have to know your book.

[posabsolute]

I'm sorry but I really can't agree with you, I never saw a course in any CC or uni that was completely open book, or had just the last exam closed, only quiz based. Granted tho, I don't have much experience with the US system.

You are saying that open book tests are designed harder, I think you are making an assumption based on your experience. Several people here described a technic of searching the answer as you take a quiz with SL without having to read the book. To be harder, I think open book tests would, at least, need an essay portion.

To be fair, SL moved to a 70% (quiz) / 30% (final) grading. But under the old system (80/20, 75/25), it was totally possible to pass without reading it.

[jsd]

It's a question of the effort of the individual to learn the material. If they're actually learning or already know this information, it's not an issue if they're speeding through. If they're not bothering to learn anything and just using this to speed through, that's a different story.

[dfrecore]

I'm sorry but I really can't agree with you, I never saw a course in any CC or uni that was completely open book, or had just the last exam closed, but granted I don't have much experience with the US system.

You are saying that open book tests are designed harder, I think you are making an assumption based on your experience. Several people here described a technic of searching the answer as you take a quiz with SL without having to read the book. To be harder, I think open book tests would, at least, need an essay portion.

To be fair, SL moved to a 70% (quiz) / 30% (final) grading. But under the old system (80/20, 75/25), it was totally possible to pass without reading it.

I've had several courses at B&M schools with open-book exams - up to and including the final.  And those exams were HARD if you hadn't read the book.  A LOT of questions, and a lot of them were worded so that if you didn't know where to look for them, you weren't going to find the answers easily.  A 3-hour exam with 100 difficult questions is not easy if you haven't read the book, period.  You can tell who read the book, because we were the people who would read the question, and then either quickly answer it because we knew it, or knew exactly where to turn in the book to verify what we thought was the correct answer.  We were also the ones who finished 90 minutes in, while the rest of the class was frantically scrambling through pages trying to find answers because they didn't have a clue.

If you've never taken a SL exam, then you don't know how it works.  I took some of those tests, and they were not easy.  You had to spend a LOT of time reading through to be able to answer some of the questions.  So basically, you end up reading plenty just by taking the exams.

I did a Study.com course with the quiz on the right and the course on the left, and had to read the entire lesson (most times) just to be able to answer the questions, almost every time.  Again, it sounds like this open-book or open-tab would be a piece of cake, but it just isn't.

[cookderosa]

It's a question of the effort of the individual to learn the material. If they're actually learning or already know this information, it's not an issue if they're speeding through. If they're not bothering to learn anything and just using this to speed through, that's a different story.

I've earned A's in a lot of classes that I haven't learned much in. Read a chapter, write an essay, do an assignment, post on the forum, reply to 2 posters, lather-rinse-repeat. I'm a good student, so "doing school" is easy for me. I also know a lot of things that I've never been tested on (because I did that learning outside of a classroom). What I learn has nothing to do with the credentials I've earned.I still maintain that learning is a personal experience and not easily measured.
If someone thinks that a system is flawed, they can report it, improve it, or opt out. But just being mad at people who are following the rules seems silly.
PS we've seen programs like ALEKS fold. It could happen.