The official guide to courses by Straighterline, Study, et al: We want YOUR input!

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 109: Intro to Computers
Course content: standard study.com stuff
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final is based on the course work pretty closely
Time taken on course: about 3 days while working full time
Familiarity with subject before course: I have used computers for 20+ years 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Some of this stuff is absurdly simple, like what a keyboard is, or what a microphone is, and some of it is very complex. Also this course had more typo's on the tests than any other study.com course i've taken. One was on the "right" answer to a question but the answer was literally gibberish. I reported it so maybe they'll fix it
1-10 Difficulty level: 5ish for me. I know all about computers from the user end but some parts of the course, like naming 5 programming languages and asking which was best for a given task, were well outside of my experience. your mileage may vary

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 111: Principles of Supervision 
Course content: standard study.com
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: the quizzes get you ready for the final
Time taken on course: 3 days? something like that
Familiarity with subject before course: I've been a manager of a small business for 20+ years
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course had the most typo's on the exam questions of any course I've ever taken. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 4ish, maybe. The business stuff itself is pretty simple but there's a fair bit of business theory where they want you to know who came up with what system etc. That can be challenging to keep straight

[aviator guy]

Provider: Straighterline
Course: Introduction to Religion/REL 101
 Course content:  12 lessons, with four unit quizzes (25 questions, 125 points available.)  One midterm exam consisting of 50 questions with 200 points available.  The slide show presentations do present the material a bit differently, but I relied mostly on the book. 
Final exam format: 50 multiple choice questions, 300 points available
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No surprises.
Time taken on course: A weekend
Familiarity with subject before course: This is an area where I’ve done a good bit of my own reading, so fairly familiar.  I had at least some familiarity with most of the religions covered.
 Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  E book is pretty good, and information is easy to find.  Unlike many other Straighterline courses, it’s only possible to “pass” this one before the final if you get a perfect score on all quizzes and the midterm.  I thought the most difficult questions were about the names of individual religious leaders, historical figures, texts, etc.  Fortunately, they don’t go overboard with them.
Difficulty level:  As this is an “intro” type course, just the basics are covered – don’t be intimidated by the multitude of topics and different religions.

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Provider: Straighterline
Course: Introduction to Environmental Science/ENV 101
 Course content:  14 lessons, with four unit quizzes (25 questions, 125 points available.)  One midterm exam consisting of 50 questions with 250 points available.  I liked the e-textbook and found it to be a good source of info, and it aligned well with the quiz/test questions.
Final exam format: 50 multiple choice questions, 250 points available
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No surprises, and I thought the course materials actually prepared me quite well.
Time taken on course: A weekend
Familiarity with subject before course: I used to work with environmental construction/remediation projects, so somewhat familiar.  There were quite a few questions where I would have been very embarrassed to get them wrong. (lol... I didn’t)
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  If you’re curious, there isn’t a lot of “earth science” in this one, instead covering all sorts of topics like ecosystems and waste management.  Since it’s an “intro” course it’s pretty general and wide ranging.  A good gen ed course. 
Difficulty level:  I didn’t think it was too terribly difficult, although I could see how some might find it boring. 
 

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 106: Human Resource Management
 Course content:  103 lessons/quizzes, plus a 100 question final exam.  You can earn a maximum of 100 points via the lesson quizzes.  Scoring 100% on all quizzes within the first three tries on every quiz means you only need 55% on the final to pass.  There is a placement test available, which helps knock out some of the material and meaning you don’t have to take the quiz.  Overlapping lessons that you’ve worked through on other courses also count.  With these two and decent familiarity with the subject you can cut the number of quizzes you have to take in half. 
Final exam format: 100 Multiple choice questions, 200 points available.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The questions on the final were more “storylike” (maybe scenario based is a better term) than other questions, but that was the only real noteworthy difference.
Time taken on course: About a week.
Familiarity with subject before course: A good bit from work experience and other business courses.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  Most people I’ve known consider HR topics to be boring at best and eye rolling at worst, so I think a good number of people would likely classify much of the material as “dry” and “boring.”
Difficulty level:  Fairly straightforward, although more irksome and boring than “difficult.”
 

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 111: Principles of Supervision
 Course content:  73 lessons/quizzes, plus a 100 question final exam.  You can earn a maximum of 100 points via the lesson quizzes.  Scoring 100% on all quizzes within the first three tries on every quiz means you only need 55% on the final to pass.  There is a placement test available, which helps knock out some of the material and meaning you don’t have to take the quiz.  Overlapping lessons that you’ve worked through on other courses also count.  Given that there are only 73 lessons/quizzes, this one is fairly easy to run through quickly if you’ve done other study.com business courses.
Final exam format: 100 Multiple choice questions, 200 points available.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No surprises, though names of philosophers/theorists/etc received more attention on the final (I may as well leave this caveat in for every study.com course)
Time taken on course: About a week.
Familiarity with subject before course: A good bit from work experience and other business courses.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  I worked this one along with the HR course; they complement each other well.  A decent amount of practical material in this one.
Difficulty level:  Pretty straightforward.
 

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 312: Advanced Operations Management
 Course content:  64 lessons/quizzes, plus a 100 question final exam, and a final project (an 800 word essay with a choice of three topics.)  You can earn a maximum of 100 points via the lesson quizzes.  Scoring 100% on all quizzes within the first three tries on every quiz means you only need 110 additional points to pass.  The final and the project are worth 100 points each, so if you do well on the quizzes you need at least a 55% on the final and the project.
Final exam format: 100 Multiple choice questions, 100 points available.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Nothing shocking, seemed to align well with the rest of the course.
Time taken on course: About a week for the quizzes.  The project took me half of a day.
Familiarity with subject before course: Decent overlap from other business courses.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  There is no placement test available for this one, but my other study.com business courses allowed me to knock some out beforehand.  If you don’t like your grade on the final project, you are allow to resubmit twice.  Grading took five business days for me.  Bear in mind that you can resubmit your project twice (without extra cost) but there are some deadlines – be careful if you plan to cancel your account.
Difficulty level:  Nothing earth shattering here, and while the project/essay requires a little time, thought and effort, it wasn’t horrendously complicated or difficult.

[aviator guy]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 309: Digital Marketing and Advertising
 Course content:  83 lessons/quizzes, plus a 70 question final exam worth 100 points, and two final projects.  The first project is to create a digital marketing plan (roughly 3,000-4,000 words) and the second is a 10-20 slide presentation that goes along with the marketing plan.  The written plan is worth 80 points, the slideshow is worth 20.  You can earn a maximum of 100 points via the lesson quizzes.  Do well enough on the quizzes within the first three tries, and do well on the final and you can have a pretty low grade on the project(s) as 210 points are needed to pass for credit.  Note that no placement test is available.
Final exam format: 70 Multiple choice questions, 100 points available.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No surprises and fairly straightforward. 
Time taken on course: About a week for the quizzes.  The project took me every bit of a day and a half of working on it full time.
Familiarity with subject before course:  I took an intro to marketing course previously, and I know my way around the internet and have heard of most of the stuff covered so it was pretty easy to get up to speed.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  There is no placement test available for this one.  The project sucks and is labor intensive.  I also thought the stupid project instructions were a little too ambiguous in some regards.  For instance, you have a marketing budget to work with and you are supposed to break down the budget.  How are you supposed to get service rates?  Most people aren’t going to help you with service pricing for a company that doesn’t exist.  They could have at least given some fake service pricing or something.  Additionally, they have a pretty set way they want you to structure your marketing plan, and they don’t provide a sample.  Any of the plans that you find by Googling are structured completely different… it would have been nice to see what they were expecting with a bit more to go on than just a textual description.  If I told you to draw a banana, would you do better if I told you what a banana looked like, or if I actually showed you a banana? With all of that being said, I thought I was going to do horribly but ended up with (what I considered) a great grade on the project.  In retrospect, I believe the goal is to make sure you can apply and understand the lesson concepts as opposed to making a professional level product.
Difficulty level: The course material is straightforward.  The project is an absolute pain in the...
 

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 308: Globalization & International Management
 Course content:  118 lessons/quizzes, plus a 100 question final exam worth 100 points, and two final projects.  The final projects consist of two, 1500-2000 word business case studies, worth 50 points each.  You can earn a maximum of 100 points via the lesson quizzes.  Do well enough on the quizzes within the first three tries, and do well on the final and you can have a pretty low grade on the project(s) as 210 points are needed to pass for credit.  Note that no placement test is available.
Final exam format: 100 Multiple choice questions, 100 points available.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No surprises and fairly straightforward. 
Time taken on course: About a week for the quizzes.  I was able to knock out both case studies in a solid day.
Familiarity with subject before course: While no placement test was available, I did have a good number of lessons covered going into the course.  The rest of it was globalization specific.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  I took a little bit of an issue with the assignments, as they want you to write a case study, but the scenarios given want you to write more of what I would call a plan.  Even their “how to write a case study” lesson that the assignments refer to treats a case study as a historical account of something that has happened as opposed to a plan of action for a future event.  Despite this confusion, I wouldn’t call the assignments too taxing, and it was pretty evident as to what they were looking for.  As with my review of the digital marketing course, I would have liked to have seen a sample of exactly what they are looking for, but I also believe the ambiguity was intentionally introduced just to see how you would run with it.  Fair enough.
Difficulty level: The course material was kind of boring to me, although I didn’t take issue with the teaching or the presentation.  Again, the assignments were a bit confusing but I believed the instructions were clearly stated enough to where you should be able to develop a workable product.

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Provider: Study.com
Course: Accounting 301: Applied Managerial Accounting
 Course content:  124 lessons/quizzes for 100 points total, plus a 100 question final exam worth 100 points, and two final projects worth 50 points each (need 210 points to pass).  The first project was an 800-1200 word report where you have to analyze the financial data of a company and recommend whether or not more people should be hired.  The second assignment was to make a budget for a company. 
Final exam format: 100 Multiple choice questions, 100 points available.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No surprises and fairly straightforward.  Accounting was not my favorite subject but I did better on it than I thought I would.  No heavy duty calculations are required. 
Time taken on course: About a week for the quizzes.  The assignments took most of two days.
Familiarity with subject before course:  I had taken accounting 1 and 2 with Straighterline before this, but as the course title suggests this is more “applied.”  Other concepts from other business courses are addressed from an accounting standpoint, so I had seen a lot of it before.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  Study.com final project ambiguity strikes again.  For example - for the report about hiring people, one major issue I saw was the fact that the assignment asked you to recommend whether or not the company should hire more people, but the job description was vague at best.  In my case, the grader thought I made the wrong decision (and drew his or her own conclusions as to the function of the new employees) but ultimately my grade wasn’t really hurt because my analysis of the financial data was more or less solid.  Again, I believe the name of the game here is understanding and using the concepts taught in the lessons.  Capture that and present it in a professional manner and you’ll probably be just fine.  Otherwise, the course was pretty long and boring.
Difficulty level:  I don’t much care for accounting and I thought this course was going to be excruciatingly difficult, but I ultimately found it to be very doable and educational.  Despite the ambiguity, the projects were actually very helpful in tying everything together.

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Business 104: Information Systems & Computer Applications
Course content: standard study.com stuff
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final is based on the course work pretty closely
Time taken on course: about a week but tbh i was avoiding it for maybe 3 days of that. you could prob do it in 3 days
Familiarity with subject before course: I have used computers in a business setting for the last 20 years
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: if you do Business 109 first it fills in 46% of this course before you start, which is nice. Other than that the material is dry in places but its nothing you can't do. Some of the technical stuff is hard to keep straight because basically everything is a 3 or 4 letter abbreviation
1-10 Difficulty level: 5ish for me. This might sound childish but I got most of the way through this course and I just really didnt feel like finishing it. Obviously individual interests will vary but I do not find the world of business computing to be super exciting and it was tough to apply myself to this course. I don't blame the course though, it was entirely my mental attitude towards it

[Meika]

Provider: StraighterLine
Course: Accounting I
Course content: The material is presented in a usual SL format, which is just a slideshow. One lesson is approximately 30 slides including some quizzes. Mostly no videos, and if there are any they are irrelevant, I skipped most of them.  They provide a book, it is helpful to the extent.
Final exam format: Proctored exam with ProctorU (not a fan tbh, showing the room felt a bit invasive, but I get it). The exam is 200 points out of 1000, so I didn't need to get a high score, so I just tried to finish it quickly. It was 40 questions.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: No questions were in the quizzes within lessons but similar or even the same questions were on previous exams. However the questions themselves were not the best, to understand some of them I needed to read them a couple times, they were not phrased very well.
Time taken on course: Took me about a week to complete
Familiarity with subject before course: I am not familiar at all, but honestly if you passed all the previous exams with 90% and higher you do not need to do anything for the final at all.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Just google every question pretty much or look it up in the book, this way a final will be a breeze.
1-10 Difficulty level:Like a 2, but only because you don't need to score on the final exam.

[a2jc4life]

Provider: StraighterLine
Course: Business Ethics
Course content: Uses an e-textbook.
Final exam format: Proctored exam with ProctorU.  2 hours, 60 questions, all multiple choice.  Open book.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final only covers topics 10-14, but question styles/content were as expected.
Time taken on course: Other than scheduling my final (around kids/illness) this took me less than a week (and I wasn't working on it full-time).
Familiarity with subject before course: I've not studied ethics before, but...this is ethics.  Some of it is fairly common sense.  (Some, however, is specific to laws, industry codes of ethics, etc.)
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Some of the questions are worded kind of weird, so I had a hard time finding some of the answers on the final, even with an open-book test.  It's still a pretty easy, passable course.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2

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Provider: StraighterLine
Course: IT Fundamentals
Course content: This is an Acrobatiq class.  Maybe it's just me, but I HATE this format.  It's difficult to navigate and very hard to get a "big picture" view of the content or where your current location fits into that.  This covered everything from the difference between hardware and software to how networks work, to the various roles within the IT department, to "the internet of things."
Final exam format: Proctored exam with ProctorU.  2 hours, 60 multiple choice questions.  CLOSED book.  (No review of answers once submitted, either, like most SL finals have.)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I had a rather large delay between my class and my final, but I think these were pretty comparable.
Time taken on course: Other than scheduling my final (around kids/illness) this took me less than a week (and I wasn't working on it full-time).
Familiarity with subject before course: Varied.  Some of this is pretty fundamental if you use a computer.  Some of it was completely new.  Maybe 50/50-ish?
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: It felt harder than it was.  On the final, for instance, I was really nervous that I wasn't managing the roughly 30% I needed to pass the class -- I almost didn't feel like I was even reading questions in English -- but I scored about 67%.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3-4

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com/Uexcel 
Course: Business 221: Business Information Systems
Course content: Standard Study.com stuff
Final exam format: 120 Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: big problems, see below
Time taken on course: 3 days maybe
Familiarity with subject before course: i've taken other business courses that covered maybe half the material before this course
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  I decided to use Study.com's course to prepare for taking the Uexcel test at a local college. I did fine on the study.com material and had no problems with the practice questions provided by Excelsior for free. I did not take a practice test. When I sat down to take the test for real I discovered to my horror that maybe 20% of the material was totally foreign to me. Several things I not only didnt know, I had literally never heard of before. There is obviously a gap in the design of the study.com material & the actual test. I had heard similar complaints about other study.com/uexcel match ups in the past so I was not totally surprised by this; I had thought my command of the subject matter was strong enough that it wouldn't matter if it happened and that it probably wouldnt happen anyway.

I got a C on the test and I consider myself lucky to have done that well. If I try another Uexcel test I will prepare for it some other way


Difficulty level:  i'd say maybe 3 or 4 if you're properly prepared

[jsh1138]

Just an FYI, I took American History 2, post Civil War to now, from both Straighterline & Study.com and I found major problems in both of them. I got all the way to the end of the Straighterline course and was so disgusted with it that I just started fresh on Study.com from scratch and the Study.com version is definitely better but has serious, serious problems

Straighterline's version also has a really weird focus issue where it looks at *everything* through the eyes of minorities & poets & authors and it makes their coverage of eras and issues really weird, to say the least. For instance, it describes the Great Depression starting, tells you all about it, how terrible it is, how everyone lost their jobs, etc. Then there's a section on how it affected black men, which boils down to "they lost their jobs too". Then, how it affected black women. They lost their jobs, it turns out. Then how it affected Mexicans. Then Mexican Americans. Then Chinese Americans. Then Japanese Americans. Then, iirc, Filipino Americans. It just seemed really silly after awhile

Also the section on the 20's-30's literally only mentions the Mafia in the context of mafia movies that were popular at the time. America's involvement in World War 1 is basically "we went to Europe and won WW1", no description of battles, of generals, nothing. Its very bare bones but then gives you something like 8 different black poets who were involved in the Harlem Renaissance. On the mid-term there were literally more questions about black poets than WW1, I counted. That's absurd.

Then on the Study.com side, the sections on the "Red scare" in the 50's make it seem like people were stupid to be worried about Communism at all, & that we only executed the Rosenbergs out of prejudice. It also implies that Alger Hiss wasn't a communist agent, when he clearly was. Also, bizarrely, the author asserts that the US only became involved in the 1973 Yom Kippur war because "Israel was the United States' creation" & we wouldnt let it fail. That is so far off base it almost disqualifies the entire course in my eyes.

Anyway I'm about to test out of the study.com course, finally, but I just wanted to give people a quick heads up

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Communications 120: Presentation Skills in the Workplace
Course content: very short for a Study.com course
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The questions on the practice exam are *exactly* like the quiz. The ones on the final are not quite as close but its still easy
Time taken on course: 3-4 hours, if that. 
Familiarity with subject before course: This is all common sense stuff so I guess I was familiar with it
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: You could do 90% of these quizzes without reading the section that precedes them. Most of them boil down to "is being boring during a speech good?" or "does it help your speech to use props and presentations?" etc. very simple course with a simple final
1-10 Difficulty level: 1