Straighterline: Introducing IT Fundamentals and Survey of World History

[RANSOMSOUL]

Straighterline officially launched two new courses today. At this point, neither are listed under their Course Equivalency Guide for the partner schools. Both courses carry a decent amount of modules and higher price point of $74 per course. The modules show value in percentage and not points as most other courses are structured with Straighterline.

SURVEY OF WORLD HISTORY
Survey of World History course online | StraighterLine

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FUNDAMENTALS
IT Fundamentals course online | StraighterLine

Glad to see Straighterline adding credit opportunities. Hopefully, this continues with a focus on UL courses.

[NC Coach]

It also appears neither require a separate text book so the price is not too bad considering.

[dfrecore]

They are both considered LL courses. But I'm glad to see them branching out a bit and offering a course that's much harder to find at a decent price (IT Fund.). That's what we need, are more unique courses, rather than something we can find anywhere (another way to get College Algebra or Intro to Sociology is unnecessary).

[Mamasaphire]

I was looking at those yesterday. Glad to see new subject areas. They are both closed book tests. Since they don't require the purchase of a textbook, I'm interested to see how exactly info is presented/learned and tested on.

[JohnnyHeck]

The content of these courses are provided by "acrobatiq" www.acrobatiq.com developed by the Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative, OLI. The cost to the student $70 for 5 year access, but to sign up directly with acrobatiq you must have the course key from your sponsoring institution. I am currently using the OLI version of the course "Statistical Reasoning" which is free http://cmu.edu/learn-with-oli/see-our-fr...n-courses/ The course list at OLI is more restrictive than acrobatiq as both these new courses from Straighterline are not available for free on OLI.

I have contacted acrobatiq to confirm or deny that my course Statistical Reasoning in OLI is essentially the same one as in acrobatiq. If it is, I can provide more experience on course formats and typical content. I may also be able to sign up for a faculty account at acrobatiq and obtain a course key to provide to my students. That's would be all of us here at DegreeForum. Then you could try out the acrobatiq courses for $70 each before committing to Straighterline. It will be a natural for outfits like Study.com to soon be offering acrobatiq courses under their banner. However, acrobatiq itself is not yet an ACE evaluated organization, so I don't know enough about ACE to know how that process would work.

ACE does not yet show these two courses in their ACE approved list. But perhaps someone can checkout Straighterline's credit earning position on these 2 courses.

[RANSOMSOUL]

Thanks for the additional information JohnnyHeck. Attached is confirmation on both credits with ACE approval.[ATTACH=CONFIG]1651[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]1652[/ATTACH]

[nataliedujour]

I've confirmed with TESU advising that SL's new IT Fundamentals will transcribe as CIS-107 and fulfill the CIS requirement for ASBA/BSBA degrees:

"Natalie,

The Straighterline course, Information Technology Fundamentals, will transfer over as CIS-107, Computer Concepts and Applications. It will complete section E, Computers/CIS for your ASBA degree if you no longer plan to take CIS-102."

[dfrecore]

I've confirmed with TESU advising that SL's new IT Fundamentals will transcribe as CIS-107 and fulfill the CIS requirement for ASBA/BSBA degrees:

"Natalie,

The Straighterline course, Information Technology Fundamentals, will transfer over as CIS-107, Computer Concepts and Applications. It will complete section E, Computers/CIS for your ASBA degree if you no longer plan to take CIS-102."

That makes no sense! That's the same course number as the Computer Concepts & Applications TECEP.

The BSAST IT requires "Fundamentals of Information Technology", this course should fulfill THAT requirement. TESU's own IT course is CMP-202. If this is the case, then the Computer Applications course should fulfill the Fund. of IT requirement in the BSAST-IT, and I'm willing to bet that it won't.

[JohnnyHeck]

I've confirmed with TESU advising that SL's new IT Fundamentals will transcribe as CIS-107 and fulfill the CIS requirement for ASBA/BSBA degrees:

"Natalie,

The Straighterline course, Information Technology Fundamentals, will transfer over as CIS-107, Computer Concepts and Applications. It will complete section E, Computers/CIS for your ASBA degree if you no longer plan to take CIS-102."

This SL course is powered by acrobatiq as I noted in my earlier post in this thread. I have instructor access from acrobatiq. For $70 paid to acrobatiq as a fixed fee a student can have 5 yr. access to this course. However, the acrobatiq course itself provides no direct path to credit. If you bypassed SL you would still have to earn credit via a CBE such as CLEP or TECEP. If someone is interested in taking this course outside SL, shoot me a PM and I'll see if I can adopt this course for student access. This course is designed for self-paced student learning using a Carnegie Mellon Smart Course feedback design. I would not recommend it for "ticket punching" credit. But if you are really a novice in this field, you won't be after this course or any other acrobatiq course that comes along. I am currently reviewing other offerings including STATs and A&P. There are many more soon to be available. I don't know if SL will be adopting them all or not.

[Leedeedee]

I am currently using the OLI version of the course "Statistical Reasoning" which is free http://cmu.edu/learn-with-oli/see-our-fr...n-courses/

OMG, how did I not know about the free Carnegie Mellon OLI? It's great for learning Biology, A&P, Chemistry etc in order to test out on UEXCEL or similar. That's why I'm addicted to this forum, I learn something new and awesome every day.