jorai Wrote:I am confused by the requimrent that BP should be taken only with Excelsior, but I have read some where else about the TECEP Business Policy, would this also work??????

:confused:

Epiphany Wrote:Hello Everyone,

I know several members have just completed this at Excelsior. If you are one of those lucky members, please post some specific feedback regarding this online course.

soltran Wrote:This is a capstone course and you will need to call on knowledge that you have picked up in other courses. In particular, knowledge of operations management, finance, marketing and economics is likely to be required in addition to what is covered in the text.

This course is not as easy as some that I have taken and shouldn't be approached with the idea that you will be able to complete it with minimum effort. I believe the times quoted in the professor's statement above are conservative and it is likely that you would need to put in these types of hours for this course as a minimum.

soltran Wrote:There seems to be a heavy emphasis on participation (via the online forum environment) with 20% of the final grade coming from this participation. In other classes I have taken, guidelines have been specific such as, at least 3 posts to the message board a week to get maximum grades, but in this course all that is stated is that participation makes up 20% of the final grade. There are two discussion topics each week, one of which is a case study that requires a reasonable amount of research each week to be able to discuss intelligently. Between the two discussion topics there are about 150 messages posted each week, some of which are very lengthy and requires quite a bit of reading but plenty of opportunities to participate.

The quizzes, which make up 50% of the final grade, each have 20 questions, are open book and not timed. There have been discussions about how the wording of certain questions have tripped up some people but all questions come directly from the text and a perfect score on the quizzes is very possible.

There is a major case study, which is different for each participant and assigned to the participant at the beginning of the course but not due until the end of the course. This case study is worth 30% of the final grade and while I can’t comment on it much at this point, it does appear that both the text and the weekly discussions are geared toward preparing participants for completion of this case study. I feel that certain research could be started as soon as the case study is assigned but I would be reluctant to submit the final assignment until very late in the course to ensure nothing is missed from the discussion topics.

All-in-all I think that getting a C (70%) for this course wouldn’t be too difficult, getting a B (80%) should also be achievable for most people with a reasonable final assignment and regular participation, getting an A (90%) may be a little more difficult and without knowing exactly how the participation is being scored it is hard to judge at this stage.



From my experience I haven’t come across an Excelsior online course that can be finished quickly (not counting Information Literacy). One course, the quizzes, course content and weekly assignments weren’t released until the beginning of the week they were due. In another course, the assignments, quizzes and course content were available from the time the course started but the mid-term and final exams were not available until the week before they were due. Even with courses that have everything available from the start of the course, the amount of work required is likely to preclude anyone from finishing the course within a week, even if the instructor was willing to mark assignments immediately. Most courses have a participation component worth from 10% to 20% of the final grade which would be hard to address if not addressing it at the same time as other participants.

A couple of the courses had penalties for late submission of assignments and quizzes that were no longer available after their due date while others are less strict about when the assignments and quizzes are done, as long as they are done.

If you intend signing up for a 15 week Excelsior course, expect that contributions would be required each and every week.