Hello Degreeforumers! Hope you're all having a good Christmas Eve! Thanks again to the administration for giving this thread the okay.
To begin with, a little background about myself and my project. I'm a fairly recent Thomas Edison graduate and current graduate student at George Washington University. I went from zero credits to 120 in less than three months using Instantcert, and as much as I enjoyed pounding out a whole degree in the span of a single semester, I came away feeling like the CLEP/DSST model was a bit lacking.
I realized that the vast majority of credit-by-examination tests are targeted for lower-level course work. This makes sense, being that every student should need to take, say, college mathematics, but only a few would need to take Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. Out of the 79 bachelor's degrees Thomas Edison offers, only 19 can be completed completely online through a combination of TESC courses and examinations. Of those 19, the vast majority of students end up choosing between four: Liberal Arts, Psychology, Social Sciences, and Business Administration - General Management. Why? Simply put, because these degrees can be almost completely, or else completely finished through CLEP, DSST, SL, and so forth. That leaves 75 fairly unobtainable degrees that many would be interested in, but can't earn because of the lack of upper-division coursework available.
Secondly, most students that earn their degrees at Thomas Edison are perhaps-vaguely defined as "non-traditional" students. Oftentimes, these are working adult students returning to school, or even active duty military students stationed abroad. Though CLEP and DSST make leaps and bounds over brick-and-mortar schools in this regard, many students are unable to take time off work to schedule a test, live too far away from a testing center, or may be deployed abroad where CLEP/DSST tests are not available.
That's where AbleU comes in. AbleU meets both of these criteria by offering examinations that are fully online, and count for upper-division coursework. You can take an exam from anywhere in the world at any time, as long as you have access to the internet.
...Or at least, that's the goal.
Right now, we've completed a few examinations that we'd love to have tried and critiqued by you fine folks at Degreeforum. Over the next few weeks, we'll be working with Thomas Edison's in-house academic program review to have our examinations approved for credit at TESC. Student and participant feedback is absolutely critical at this stage, and we'd love your help.
So what's involved?
If you'd like to be a part of the beta test, please send me a private message with your first and last name, and email address, and I'll get back to you with the details as soon as I can. The exams are timed and must be completed in less than an hour, and each exam is 80 questions long. The specific subjects of the exams are Mythology and Folklore and Western Religions.
What's in it for me?
If you'd be willing to complete the beta test and you pass the exam(s), we'll hopefully have the examination you took retroactively approved at some point in the future so you can use the exams for upper-division credits towards your degree.* If you've already graduated, or you're just happy to help in the furtherance of accessible college education, then that's great too. The beta testing is completely free -- and we'll also waive a transcript fee if you want to send your exam scores somewhere later on.
Special note: If you hold a terminal degree (i.e, PhD) in a humanities or humanities-related subject, we would love your help assessing specific examination questions. Please feel free to send me a private message.
In the meantime, you can check out our website at: http://www.ableu.org/
Thanks again everyone! This forum was extremely helpful to me when I was earning my bachelor's degree, and I hope this project can do some good in returning the favor.
Have a great Christmas,
-Peter
(*In compliance with state law, earning college-level credit is contingent on 1) passing the exam with an acceptable score, 2) The program review approves the exams for credit at TESC, and 3) The program review allows us to retroactively assign credit.)
To begin with, a little background about myself and my project. I'm a fairly recent Thomas Edison graduate and current graduate student at George Washington University. I went from zero credits to 120 in less than three months using Instantcert, and as much as I enjoyed pounding out a whole degree in the span of a single semester, I came away feeling like the CLEP/DSST model was a bit lacking.
I realized that the vast majority of credit-by-examination tests are targeted for lower-level course work. This makes sense, being that every student should need to take, say, college mathematics, but only a few would need to take Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. Out of the 79 bachelor's degrees Thomas Edison offers, only 19 can be completed completely online through a combination of TESC courses and examinations. Of those 19, the vast majority of students end up choosing between four: Liberal Arts, Psychology, Social Sciences, and Business Administration - General Management. Why? Simply put, because these degrees can be almost completely, or else completely finished through CLEP, DSST, SL, and so forth. That leaves 75 fairly unobtainable degrees that many would be interested in, but can't earn because of the lack of upper-division coursework available.
Secondly, most students that earn their degrees at Thomas Edison are perhaps-vaguely defined as "non-traditional" students. Oftentimes, these are working adult students returning to school, or even active duty military students stationed abroad. Though CLEP and DSST make leaps and bounds over brick-and-mortar schools in this regard, many students are unable to take time off work to schedule a test, live too far away from a testing center, or may be deployed abroad where CLEP/DSST tests are not available.
That's where AbleU comes in. AbleU meets both of these criteria by offering examinations that are fully online, and count for upper-division coursework. You can take an exam from anywhere in the world at any time, as long as you have access to the internet.
...Or at least, that's the goal.
Right now, we've completed a few examinations that we'd love to have tried and critiqued by you fine folks at Degreeforum. Over the next few weeks, we'll be working with Thomas Edison's in-house academic program review to have our examinations approved for credit at TESC. Student and participant feedback is absolutely critical at this stage, and we'd love your help.
So what's involved?
If you'd like to be a part of the beta test, please send me a private message with your first and last name, and email address, and I'll get back to you with the details as soon as I can. The exams are timed and must be completed in less than an hour, and each exam is 80 questions long. The specific subjects of the exams are Mythology and Folklore and Western Religions.
What's in it for me?
If you'd be willing to complete the beta test and you pass the exam(s), we'll hopefully have the examination you took retroactively approved at some point in the future so you can use the exams for upper-division credits towards your degree.* If you've already graduated, or you're just happy to help in the furtherance of accessible college education, then that's great too. The beta testing is completely free -- and we'll also waive a transcript fee if you want to send your exam scores somewhere later on.
Special note: If you hold a terminal degree (i.e, PhD) in a humanities or humanities-related subject, we would love your help assessing specific examination questions. Please feel free to send me a private message.
In the meantime, you can check out our website at: http://www.ableu.org/
Thanks again everyone! This forum was extremely helpful to me when I was earning my bachelor's degree, and I hope this project can do some good in returning the favor.
Have a great Christmas,
-Peter
(*In compliance with state law, earning college-level credit is contingent on 1) passing the exam with an acceptable score, 2) The program review approves the exams for credit at TESC, and 3) The program review allows us to retroactively assign credit.)
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