Thomas Edison State University suspended indefinitely Shmoop courses

[MSK9]

I agree, but over 20 courses some will be fast and some slow and they will average out, unless cheating or just a rocket scientist.

Just twenty, not a class more.  I'm neither a cheater nor a rocket scientist but I do play a mean game of Trivial Pursuit. 

[Life Long Learning]

I agree, but over 20 courses some will be fast and some slow and they will average out, unless cheating or just a rocket scientist.

Just twenty, not a class more.  I'm neither a cheater nor a rocket scientist but I do play a mean game of Trivial Pursuit. 

You win!  I am bad at card and board games.    I do not have the answer.  I was just pointing out that college credits do have an accredited expected time frame.  There are always exceptions.  TESU could also just be over jealous?

[originalamyj]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I don't get what the big deal is about completing a course quickly? You can take a CLEP or TECEP in a couple of hours. If you had them stacked back to back, you could rack up some serious credit hours. No one is questioning the validity of a CLEP.

[dfrecore]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I don't get what the big deal is about completing a course quickly? You can take a CLEP or TECEP in a couple of hours. If you had them stacked back to back, you could rack up some serious credit hours. No one is questioning the validity of a CLEP.

BUT, they are proctored, so they know that it's actually you taking those exams.

Since this is the first time something like this has happened in the 7+ years I've been on here, I'm guessing that there were SO many credits in such a short amount of time that they thought there is no possible way one person could take all of those courses - there's not enough hours in the day to do them all.

Just my guess, I could be wrong.

[jsh1138]

Thanks for the feedback.

If one worked Shooph 12 hours a day (3 SH = 48-hours minimum) it would take 80+ straight days.  8-10 hours a day would be 96-120 days with no days off.  I have done 16-hour days, but never for 80+ days.   I did the Excelsior College (1 SH = 16 hours) INL102 course in two days. I work so no way could I do 80-120+ days straight.

The only problem I see is that your math doesn't factor in variables such as learning / material interpretation speeds (which have no standard of measurement that I'm aware of) and reading rates.

I did Bible as Literature mostly without reading it, since I am familiar with the Bible, and it still took 3 hours. It takes a minimum amount of time just to flip through the tests. Bible as Lit is one of the shorter ones too, some of them are over twice as long as that one

Not saying it takes 48 hours a course, because I don't think it does, but some of those courses you absolutely need a fair bit of time for. So it probably depends on which ones he's thinking of

[MSK9]

I think my longest courses took four days, but these were less common.

[a2jc4life]

I'm curious now what they saw as a surprising number of courses in a given time frame, because I was thinking the same as Amy -- if you already know (or mostly know) the material, blowing through a course is not dissimilar to taking a CLEP. If *one* person did that and set off their alarm bells, I don't understand why they're looking into Shmoop as opposed to the individual student.

My exams aren't proctored in my "normal" online courses, either. Theoretically, you could probably Google your way through them. But it's a violation of the academic honesty policy to cheat (duh), and if a student is found cheating, the logical course of action is to discipline the student, not decide the course is broken.

It still just seems like a bit of an overreaction, to me, to suddenly change the rules overnight. (And that's the part that bothers me. They can accept or not accept whatever they want, but they're not acting in good faith with students when they change the rules on things without warning.)

[davewill]

... It still just seems like a bit of an overreaction, to me, to suddenly change the rules overnight.  (And that's the part that bothers me.  They can accept or not accept whatever they want, but they're not acting in good faith with students when they change the rules on things without warning.)

It makes me wonder if Shmoop is telling the whole story (it was just a quick note). I would think that TESU would have either needed to see a bigger pattern of problem transfers, or be unhappy with Shmoop's response to their questions to take such drastic action.

[jsh1138]

I'm curious now what they saw as a surprising number of courses in a given time frame, because I was thinking the same as Amy -- if you already know (or mostly know) the material, blowing through a course is not dissimilar to taking a CLEP.  If *one* person did that and set off their alarm bells, I don't understand why they're looking into Shmoop as opposed to the individual student.

My exams aren't proctored in my "normal" online courses, either.  Theoretically, you could probably Google your way through them.  But it's a violation of the academic honesty policy to cheat (duh), and if a student is found cheating, the logical course of action is to discipline the student, not decide the course is broken.

It still just seems like a bit of an overreaction, to me, to suddenly change the rules overnight.  (And that's the part that bothers me.  They can accept or not accept whatever they want, but they're not acting in good faith with students when they change the rules on things without warning.)

I would be willing to bet that its something ridiculous, like 20 courses in a weekend or something

and as others have said, yes Cleps are fast but they're proctored as well. at a certain volume of completion, you would start to wonder if more than 1 person were taking unproctored tests on the same account

not to mention that none of the Clep test sites near me will let you take more than 2 a day anyway

[Life Long Learning]

Shoomp bills itself as a college COURSE, not an exam (CLEP, DSST, UExcel etc.).

I just registered for one Summer Community College online class (3 SH) and on the registration, it says 54 Instruction hours.
20 Courses x 54 Hours = 135 straight days (8-hours/day) as a CC online course.