OnlineDegree.com Is Finally Open

[MNomadic]

Well, that's college courses for ya. These and other online courses allow high levels of convenience, though. No commute, no waiting on the professor to show up. Pause if something comes up. Watch at double speed. Work on it in small chunks spaced throughout the day in between other tasks. Read the transcripts and leave the video playing in the background on silent while you work on the exercise. Multitask and watch the videos while eating, meal prepping, folding clothes, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Besides testing out of material you already know via CLEP/DSST/etc or taking classes that you're already knowledgeable on, most any college level class be it B&M, ACE or others are going to require a time commitment to learn the material and do assignments. This will vary by class and by person, but typically it can be 40-120 hours for a 3 credit course.

[TexasTink]

watch the videos as 2.5x speed

I've been watching the main lecture in particular at 2x speed because he speaks unbearably slow.  However, I then have to wait several minutes before I'm allowed to hit "mark complete".  That seems to happen on any video over a certain length for me.  So it adds to the time a little bit.  And you're seemingly not allowed to move around to another video until you have completed the previous one.

[Murdockb]

If you want to get through the material faster (perhaps you already know a lot of the material) you can just speed up the video (as long as the set time is met, which is apparently half the length of the video, per eriehiker). Then again, you don't really have to watch each one fully (or read the transcript/CC) if you don't care about the "participation" score, which is pretty insignificant. So, given that, you can technically move through a course as fast as you're able to.

I've completed 2 of the 24 lesson in the Nutrition class. If you want to pass the class I think you need to watch the entire video and maybe take notes. The two quizzes I've taken were mostly random statistics that you can't guess on or google the answers to. I'm not taking because I need the credit but because I'm interested in the topic so I've really been listening.

[eriehiker]

I'll add just a little more detail on the time requirement for the videos. I have looked at the code now for three or four video pages. Basically, the pages have a set number of seconds that a student is required to be watching the videos. The number of seconds required appears to be unique to each individual video page. It is very generally about half of the time of each video, although I have now seen a couple that are a bit longer. I have now completed the first two segments of the public health class. I played the videos in the background and did other things and then took the quizzes and scored 5/5 and 5/7, so this can be boiled down to a test out situation. It seems very doable to me.

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And, again, watching the videos at an accelerated speed does not improve completion time.

[dfrecore]

Has anyone been able to figure out which courses would potentially transfer into any of the Big 3 degree plans yet? Would hate to take a course to find out it won't count towards a goal, but since both this site and myself are still so new, it's hard to research.

I know, work backwards....But, NCCRS acceptance seems to be a little less favored than ACE credits. Not finding much info on the websites about equivalencies and acceptances.

For excelsior, you can see the transfer guide on this page:
https://www.onlinedegree.com/full-transfer-guide/

For the other 2, we won't know unless the colleges perform an evaluation of the courses and set up a transfer agreement like excelsior did OR until people start transferring the classes in to TESU and COSC and post their results on this forum.

So the first wave of us sacrificial lambs will be taking a minor risk by taking these courses without knowing exactly how they will be accepted.

This is exactly what's been done in the past.  A few people decide to be guinea pigs, and then report back.  I would offer to be one, but I'm no longer enrolled at TESU after graduating.  Bummer.  I'd make my kids take a couple just to see what the equivalencies were, because I'm MEAN!  

[docmarvin]

I haven't a taken any courses that are NCCRS recommended. Is it the same process when requesting transcript? Is the fee per course transfer or it is the same as ACE where I can take all I need and request one time?

[Merlin]

I haven't a taken any courses that are NCCRS recommended. Is it the same process when requesting transcript? Is the fee per course transfer or it is the same as ACE where I can take all I need and request one time?

Unlike ACE, which has a built-in credit banking system, NCCRS transcripts work a lot like traditional college transcripts. Unless they offer an automated way to handle this, you have to contact someone at the origin of your credits and ask them to send a copy of the transcript directly to your school of choice. The fee, if any, is usually applied at the time you request the transcript, and each transcript typically lists all the courses taken up until that point. So, if the school charges a fee, waiting until you're done to send the transcript is a good way to save money.

To date, places like Study.com, Davar, and Saylor haven't been charging extra to send NCCRS transcripts. We don't know for sure if onlinedegree.com will follow this model or not. It looks like it should be free, but since I haven't completed any courses yet, I don't have the transcript option available, and the FAQ only shows how to request them to be sent to Excelsior. It looks like the Excelsior option requires you fill out a form and send the $40 check to Excelsior directly. So if that is something you're interested in, I'd wait until you get all your courses done first to save time and money.

It looks like they have a second option (not recommended apparently) to send a transcript directly to another college, but I can't tell why it isn't recommended. Maybe because they don't get a kickback from it from Excelsior? Dunno. Either way, it suggests that they have (or will have) a process in place to send an NCCRS transcript directly to a school without going through Excelsior, which should ideally be free (or perhaps with a minimal fee, to cover admin time and postage, given the courses are free.) In the latter case, you could request a transcript whenever you like and it would include all courses taken up until that point.

We'll know more once people have completed the courses and have had them submitted to TESU or elsewhere. I expect to take 2-3 courses through them eventually, but it'll be next month at the earliest, so I'm sure others will have tested the waters sooner than that.

[xjarhead1999]

I've stayed away from NCCRS courses since there isn't a way to bank them. I do want to try some of these though. One thing that bugs me is the video watching requirements. I prefer to read. I can read the information faster than watching it. I understand and retain it better too.

[Merlin]

I've stayed away from NCCRS courses since there isn't a way to bank them. I do want to try some of these though. One thing that bugs me is the video watching requirements. I prefer to read. I can read the information faster than watching it. I understand and retain it better too.

Yeah, I'm the same. I skip all the videos on Study.com as well. People who are actively taking classes with OnlineDegree.com may want to send feedback and express their preferences. Who knows, if enough people request it, maybe they'll add an easy way to do that and still get credit for the participation and proper completion.

[acamp]

I've stayed away from NCCRS courses since there isn't a way to bank them. I do want to try some of these though. One thing that bugs me is the video watching requirements. I prefer to read. I can read the information faster than watching it. I understand and retain it better too.

Yeah, I'm the same. I skip all the videos on Study.com as well. People who are actively taking classes with OnlineDegree.com may want to send feedback and express their preferences. Who knows, if enough people request it, maybe they'll add an easy way to do that and still get credit for the participation and proper completion.

For those videos that are required to watch, do they offer a transcript of the lesson? I can’t find one.