Review of Empire State College/Saylor PLA Program

[sanantone]

My plan is to take the patent bar after finishing my PhD. In order to qualify for it, I need lab credits for biology I and II. Because Central Texas College already awarded me lab credits for biology I and II after passing the CLEP, I don't really need them. However, I wanted to complete TESC's ASNSM in Biology which requires biology I and II with lab, but TESC does not award lab credits for the Biology CLEP.

Last year, a member of this forum informed everyone that ESC started a pilot program where students can complete a PLA with them for free using Saylor courses. A maximum of four credits could be attempted. I signed up hoping to knock out the biology labs for free. I also attempted to get lab credits for human anatomy lab and human physiology lab.

Saylor's lab courses do not have a final exam, so I asked my advisor if this was okay. She received word from some higher-up in the program that it was okay. I started the program around 05/30/2014. The original deadline for submitting the portfolio was 08/31/2014. In the middle of the program, they changed the PLA evaluation form. It made the process look simpler, but I eventually found out that it made it worse. The form provided very little guidance for what the evaluators were looking for, and my advisor seemed like she didn't know much more than I did. The new deadline for submitting the portfolio was changed to 10/31/2014.

After submitting the portfolio, it was supposed to take two to three weeks to be contacted by an evaluator. I waited much longer than this because, apparently, evaluators were saying that they would be available at a certain date and it turned out they weren't. I was finally assigned an evaluator at the end of December 2014, and did my interview in the beginning of January 2015. This was an awful experience. The evaluator gave me a long list of general biology questions to answer ahead of time in order to be prepared for the interview. Most of the questions pertained to what one would learn in the lecture portions rather than the lab portions of the courses, but I answered them anyway. During the interview, she barely touched upon any of that material.

The evaluator kept me on the phone for a couple of hours first complaining about MOOCs and online education. She said she was instructed to mostly evaluate the program rather than evaluate my portfolio. She said my evaluation didn't have much information to go off of, and I told her I didn't have much guidance in completing it. She kept on trying to place the blame on Saylor, but all of the blame belongs to ESC. Saylor just provides the course materials; ESC is responsible for designing and overseeing its PLA process. She complained for a long time that schools are trying to replace full-time instructors with online courses and MOOCs. After that, she complained for a long time about creationism and biological criminology (after finding out I was studying criminal justice). The interview was a waste of time.

A couple of months later, the head of the PLA program said that the evaluator could not recommend credits because she did not have enough information. Then, I was asked how come I did not take the final exams. I reiterated that there were no final exams for those courses, and that I had received approval to go ahead with them anyway. I also expressed my concerns about the evaluator I was assigned. So, the head of the PLA program said I would be assigned another evaluator. This also took a long time. Apparently, they had a hard time finding someone else who was qualified to evaluate my portfolio. I ended up being assigned an academic advisor with a degree in education instead of something science-related. Still, she was much better than the first lady I was assigned.

She told me that she didn't feel that the Saylor coursework was sufficient enough for credits in anatomy and physiology. Well, that was something they should have determined at the beginning, but that didn't bother me much. I really just needed credits for the general biology labs. She said that she felt the coursework for ecology and evolutionary biology was sufficient, but wasn't so sure about molecular and cellular biology because it didn't have labs for plant cells. At the end of the interview, I was informed that she would submit her credit recommendation in two or three weeks.

I waited a month, and emailed the head of the program for an update on my evaluation. She told me the recommendation had been turned in, but that a team would review it to make a final decision in a few days. Well, I waited a couple of more weeks for this to happen. Finally, I was informed to day that I was awarded 1 LL credit for Exploring Biological Concepts Through the Laboratory Experience. I don't even know what that is. I couldn't even find it in their catalog.

I know the program was free, but they needed guinea pigs, and they wasted dozens of hours of my time. If this is how they are going to conduct their PLA program, then they should quit now. Taking almost a year to award credits is beyond ridiculous.

[ronaldemail1]

Interesting. When I read their procedures I had the impression that they were quite complicated
and that the amount of time was going to be extensive. So I decided no to continue with them.
Your review confirms this. While a pla does not need to be easy, still needs to be doable I believe.

Maybe they should ask for advice to another institution more experienced in such endeavors.

[sanantone]

Their PLA process would be doable if it had directions. What they changed to is this worksheet that asks you what you learned, how you applied the knowledge, what was your favorite part of the learning experience, and things like that. It looks like a short essay exam. The questions only warrant a one or two-paragraph response, but they seem to want you to regurgitate everything you learned. If that's what they want, then they should ask for a long paper.