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

[studyandpass5]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 303: Database Management
Course content: Videos and transcripts, quizzes, 1 project and a proctored final exam
Final exam format: Mine had 70 questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The questions on the final exam were completely different than what was on the practice quizzes and exams. The final had more situational questions and I was kind of thrown off by how different the questions were. I'm used to other courses where the questions are very similar. 
Familiarity with subject before course: None
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Like I said, the final was different than the practice exams. Make sure you know the concepts. The project was pretty straightforward. I was easily able to download the MySQL Workbench using their guidelines.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2-3

[jcooke]

Provider: Sophia
Course: Principles of Finance
Course content: Text 
Final exam format: 24 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Very similar questions on the final that were asked in milestones and challenges 
Time taken on course: I dragged this course out over the course of a month.
Familiarity with subject before course: This was the last of my finance, accounting type of courses required for my degree. I've taken 3 LL and 1 UL course in finance and accounting prior to this. I have no interest in finance or accounting, and am generally very bad at math. I am interested in stocks and bonds and was able to apply my knowledge of those topics. This was the hardest finance course I've taken and it's the most basic 100 level course. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Very difficult for me, and the reviews on Sophia's site align with my experience. I am used to a more straightforward experience with Sophia courses. This course does not offer explanations for incorrectly answered questions. No room to learn from mistakes other than try again to answer the question correctly when it pops up later (or miss it again and not know what you're doing wrong). Text includes equations, but does not include any examples of those equations. Text also references using online calculators and Excel, but not enough information in some of the questions to punch in to them. I learn much better by seeing an equation solved and then trying to solve it on my own, rinse and repeat.
1-10 Difficulty level: 9

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Psychology 301: Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Course content: Study.com quizzes and 1 written assignment
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Similar but the final focuses more on which guy came up with which theory than I thought. Not as much esoteric study-structure material as the general course had either
Time taken on course: A couple of weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: I have taken other psychology courses in the past
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This is organizational psychology, so it sort of straddles the line between psych, communication, and business. The material is very similar to most business courses but has alot about psych theory thrown in too.
1-10 Difficulty level: 5. The final is not so bad but like I said you need to bone up on what psych guy thought what theory meant what to which industrial process. If you've got that down you'll be fine.

[rachel83az]

Provider: Sophia
Course: Business Law
Course content: Text (PDFs or website) and/or a reading of that same text exactly; no videos
Final exam format: Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: This course does not seem to be drawing from a large pool of questions. Although questions on the milestones were not quite the same as the ones on the practice milestones or the challenges, there were a lot of questions with near-identical wording. You will most likely have seen the question before but with slightly different wording. Read carefully.
Time taken on course: A couple of weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: I'd never studied business law specifically but I was vaguely familiar with the topic of trademarks/copyrights/patents/etc. before this course.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This course does NOT explain why you got a particular answer wrong. If you're used to other Sophia courses, this aspect is extremely frustrating. There were a couple challenge questions I completely blew because I didn't understand what was wrong with the answers I gave. That said, I kept expecting this course to get a bit more difficult and it never did. The hardest part was writing the touchstone essay and even that was pretty easy.
1-10 Difficulty level: 4-5

[LongRoad]

Provider: Sophia
Course: Public Speaking
Course content: Like a few of the courses, there are no videos. It is all PDFs that Sophia provides
Final exam format: Multiple choice. I think that there were fewer than 30 questions. A Touchstone (the second speech) has to be done, too.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: I'm not sure that I like the way questions are asked in this course. While I think that the questions are worded in such a way as to see if you understand the material - as opposed to being able to search a PDF document during the test - I found some of them to be unclear. IMHO, the questions were more confusing than searching for depth of understanding.
Time taken on course: It's not a tough course, but because of life getting in the way, I asked for, and was granted, a 30-day extention.
Familiarity with subject before course: While I had been a member of Toastmasters, the material was different in this course. I would probably have passed - barely - the final without reading the PDFs.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: If you don't like speaking in public, THIS is the course for you. Know your subject, NOT your speech. Practice a bit before the mirror when brushing your hair or teeth. Try it about 5 times. Then, film. You've got your camera in the Selfie mode, so it's just like talking to yourself in the mirror. The hardest part for me was uploading the darn things! (There were two speeches.) Whatever your topic is, find some aspect to be urgent about it. Gardening? "Plant your bulbs NOW!" Talking about how to change your car's oil? "Check it NOW!" When you do your second (which is a repeat of the first) speech, add an chart or something, and practice including it in your speech. My feedback from my instructor was specific and helpful after both speeches.

[zilla]

Just took the exam this morning (3 hours ago).

Provider:
Saylor Academy
Course:
Business 402 Project Management
Course content: How is the material presented? Videos? Text? External content? Do you have to buy/have other materials?
There's a smattering of different open source or public domain type materials that includes incredibly dry readings to watching some youtube videos. Because these are all different sources, it was really hard to get some of the definitions straight because it depended on the source. The lack of a single source of truth was very frustrating b/c it was hard for me to tell what was actually worth focusing on.
There are 6 units in all and an ungraded unit quiz at the end of each unit that ranges from 7-13 questions, there's also some ungraded discussion questions at the end of each unit as well, but since it's public, it seemed that people just copied each other's answers. There's also a study guide at the end worth reviewing.
Final exam format: How many questions? Multiple choice? Essay? Both? Something else?
For the proctored final, there are 60 multiple choice questions where you pick 1 out of 4 choices provided. 10 of these questions involves reading a long description of a project scenario and answering 5 questions about it. There 2 such scenarios you have to read about at 5 questions a piece.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
There are no repeat questions from the unit quizzes or from the "practice" certification test from Saylor (this is the test that doesn't count towards earning credits, just a certificate awarded from Saylor. This test only has 50 mc questions). The questions on the proctored exam are asked in a similar manner to the practice/cert test. What wasn't expected were those 10 questions that required reading the long descriptions on a scenario. I took the certification test twice getting a 72% the first time and an 80% the second time. I felt like the proctored final was a tad bit harder as I barely passed with a 70%. A pass is a pass.
Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days?
I spent a total of nearly 24 hours on the course that includes about 6 hours worth of test taking. This was spread over 2-3 weeks.
Familiarity with subject before course: Never heard of it before taking the course, Low, medium, high, I do this every day. How would you have scored on the final with no preparation?
I was lightly familiar with PM as I had sort of looked into getting a PMP over a decade ago but did not retain any of that information (it would have been hard for me to get a PMP because I had zero PM experience or opportunity to get exp as required of the PMP). The only thing I am moderately familiar with in regards to PM is that I work as a programmer and can see some of this stuff applied to the Agile environment that my Product Managers go through, but it's not enough to wing it. Due to the number of definitions related to PM, I would have failed the cert test and the proctored final without preparing for them. Unless you actually work as a PM, this is not a test you can easily pass based on common sense or uninformed logic.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
There is SO much material with SO many different sources that it made it much more difficult than it should have been as there is no single source of truth. I studied and reviewed a lot of info that were not even asked in the certificate or the proctored tests. The questions asked would sometimes ask for straight definitions, some description of the situation and what it is an example of, finding the true/false statement on the list, the cert test asked me about some formulas stuff while the proctored test did not, and most frustratingly, there will be questions where there would be more than one correct answer but it wants you to get the most correct answer though it doesn't say that's the case when they're asking. 
If you take this course, take the cert test right away, even if you are expecting to fail it because it is on a 7 day timer to retake that test. You will want to study and retake the test at least one more time. You will be able to review your answers after the cert test and get exposure to the type of questions asked. The cert/practice test gave me the best sense of what to expect in the final and what to study for. The unit quizzes I felt were mostly easy softball questions that wasn't terribly helpful, but still good to go over. There's the study guide which has a list of terms and getting those terms defined (from all their sources) and studying them helped. Judging from the fact that in my final, I got asked no questions that required calculating some ratio/cost or explaining what certain numbers meant, maybe you don't have to spend too time on that. Or I could have gotten lucky/unlucky (depending on how you see it) in my pool of questions for the final and didn't get asked any of them.
1-10 Difficulty level:
For someone w/ zero experience in PM, it is probably a 6-7. The material itself is not hard to understand, but the difficulty for me personally was due to the nature of the many different sources you are learning from and the frequency of those more than 1 right answer type questions.

[zilla]

Provider:
Study.com
Course:
Business 303: Management Information Systems
Course content: How is the material presented? Videos? Text? External content? Do you have to buy/have other materials?
Usual SDC format. 11 chapters of content that encompasses anywhere from 4-10+ lessons where each lesson is presented in reading and video format. Each lesson had a quiz at the end that asked 5-6 questions about the lesson. Each chapter also had a practice quiz of about 25-30 questions that was taken from the quiz pool. 
Final exam format: How many questions? Multiple choice? Essay? Both? Something else?
70 questions, multiple choice for the final proctored exam which counts towards 1/3rd of the final grade. There are also 3 additional papers you have to write, which I haven't written yet. But they seem straightforward enough. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
The final exam questions are mostly different questions from the quizzes and the chapter practice tests, though there were a handful of repeats. However, the questions were still very similar to the quizzes so studying the quiz and chapter practice test question and answers do help. 
Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days?
~15 hours spread over 1.5 weeks. This included time spent watching all the videos on 2x speed, taking the quizzes, and studying for the final. I haven't written the papers yet, but I am hoping to spend no more than 3 hours on each. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Never heard of it before taking the course, Low, medium, high, I do this every day. How would you have scored on the final with no preparation?
High. I used to work in digital marketing, I just finished a project management course, I build my own computers, and I currently work as a software developer. This is my first SDC course so I wanted to spend some time on it to get familiar with the format. I scored a 90% on the proctored final which was completed in 20 minutes. I am pretty certain I would have passed (at least 70%) without having to spend as much time as I did in prepping for the test. 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
I kind of feel like you can get by just doing all the quizzes, the chapter practice tests, and studying those questions and answers and you will pass. If you are less familiar with the topics and terminology, watching the videos and reading would help. There's a lot of terms to remember, but it is not hard to understand conceptually. I personally did not do any of the readings and just watched the videos on 2x (sometimes I didn't pay a ton of attention to it if it's on a subject I already know). 
1-10 Difficulty level:
Pretty easy. May be more challenging for someone who is not familiar with tech.

[zilla]

Provider:
Study.com
Course:
Computer Science 102: Fundamentals of Information Technology
Course content: How is the material presented? Videos? Text? External content? Do you have to buy/have other materials?
Usual SDC format. 11 chapters of content that encompasses anywhere from 3-14 lessons where each lesson is presented in reading and video format. Each lesson had a quiz at the end that asked 5 questions about the lesson. Each chapter also had a practice quiz of about 20-30 questions that was taken from the quiz pool. 
Final exam format: How many questions? Multiple choice? Essay? Both? Something else?
70 questions, multiple choice for the final proctored exam which counts towards 2/3rd of the final grade. For this format w/ no assignments (I love these!), you only need a 55% on the final to pass the class if you get a 100% on the quizzes. 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Have you seen the information before in the course, or was it a total curve ball?
The final exam questions are different questions from the quizzes and the chapter practice tests, though there were a handful of repeats. However, the questions were still very similar to the quizzes so studying the quiz and chapter practice test question and answers do help. 
Time taken on course: Hours? Weeks? Days?
Since I started the class right after Business 303 (see previous post), there was about a 40% overlap in the quizzes. There were also few quizzes in general to go through 89? So it didn't require as much time. In all, it was 8 hours total spread across 3 days on the videos, doing quizzes, and reviewing them. About 20 minutes on the proctored final.
Familiarity with subject before course: Never heard of it before taking the course, Low, medium, high, I do this every day. How would you have scored on the final with no preparation?
High. I used to work in digital marketing, I just finished a project management course, I build my own computers, and I currently work as a software developer. I scored a ~94% on the proctored final. I am pretty certain I would have passed (at least 70%) without having to study or even review the videos.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:
You can get by just doing all the quizzes, the chapter practice tests, and studying those questions and answers and you will pass. Watch the videos if you are not tech savvy. I did not do any readings and just watched the videos on 2x.
1-10 Difficulty level:
Very easy. May be more challenging for someone who is not familiar with tech.

[rachel83az]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 113: Programming in Python
Course content: Mix of text-only + videos
Final exam format: 100 questions! 100!
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The stuff was covered in the course content but not really in the quizzes.
Time taken on course: I think 2 days total?
Familiarity with subject before course: I've taken ASU's Intro to Programming (which uses Python to start) and done some stuff at Py4E.com. But I'm not an expert programmer by any means.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Although you have to submit a program at the end, I think this is more of a "theoretical" course than a practical one. It tells you about halfway through chapter 2 (IIRC) that you can/should install Python and/or use repl.it but you're not really expected to do so. If you have any programming experience at all, you can do the assignment immediately and pretty much guarantee a pass in the course. I got 100/100 on my assignment and it only took me 3 or 4 hours to write the program. If you've never done any Python programming before, I highly recommend doing at least the first 6 lessons at Py4E.com before starting this course. You'll be able to complete it super easily.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2 (might be more difficult if you've never done programming before)

[saltyseabastard]

Provider: Sophia.org
Course: Business Law
Course content: Text and optional audio of text, no videos available
Final exam format: Multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Some questions are ambiguous but it is consistent with the material.
Time taken on course: One week.
Familiarity with subject before course: I had never read anything about law before taking the course
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: 3 units:
Unit 1 - 4 Parts (Easy unit)
Unit 2 - 4 Parts (Difficult unit)
Unit 3 - 3 Parts (Easy unit)
Unit 2 include a paper assignment, this is what complicates the course.
Assignment anyway is not difficult, but it requires a minimum of 750 words and it is really difficult to write so much in relation to what they ask of you. I really expected a boring and difficult course but I found the opposite. The course is quite interesting, maybe some parts are a bit boring, but overall it's an nice course.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2-3

I am actually enjoying the course as well. Any tips for finding the academic sources they ask for with the Unit 2 Touchstone? I'm not sure where to look, they don't give any tips on that.