Professors have an incentive

[bcdaron]

I came across a job posting for an adjunct professor at UMPI and thought that it was a bit funny that professors are motivated to make sure you complete competencies.

Although all YourPace competencies are fully online and asynchronous, interpersonal interactions with students are expected. YourPace Adjunct Faculty are compensated based on the number of students that complete assigned competencies at the end of the session.

https://umpi.hiretouch.com/job-details?j...ction=true

This makes me wonder if there is a correlation to the above average completion rates compared to on campus instruction. Here is a snippet from the regional accreditor:

Early evidence indicates students are also succeeding in the CBE format. The “success rate” for
completing competency modules in 2020-2021 is 87%, meaning that 87% of individuals who began a
module completed it successfully—a rate above the institution’s traditional course completion rate of
83% for the same period. In addition, the Business Administration program, which graduated its first
YourPace students three years ago, has seen a 150% increase in the number of graduates from 21 in
2018 to 52 in 2020—nearly half of which were YourPace students.

[ss20ts]

Professors have been paid a specific amount no matter how many students enrolled and completed a course. I want to say it was $1945 per session. So if there are 10 people they are paid $1945. If there are 100 people they are paid $1945. They may be changing this.

I had no direct contact with most professors. The others were 2-3 emails at most except for 1 class where I had 4 Zoom calls. Most of the contact was their responses to the rough draft and final submission of the Final Assessment. I can't even tell you most of my professor's names.

The above average completion has a great deal to do with YourPace students are all adults. Everyone is over 20. Most are significantly older. Think of how many people from here have attended UMPI. We are on a mission - to complete our degrees not to party with a football team (they don't have a football team).

ETA: Both ashkir and I are quoted in the PDF. 

And then there's this little bit of info at the very, very, very end. Perhaps a glimpse of what may be coming in 2023 and 2024 depending on accreditation. 

It plans to submit a subsequent request in August 2022 to deliver Cybersecurity and Psychology, with Computer Science and Health Administration scheduled for proposals in 2023.

[bcdaron]

Professors have been paid a specific amount no matter how many students enrolled and completed a course. I want to say it was $1945 per session. So if there are 10 people they are paid $1945. If there are 100 people they are paid $1945. They may be changing this.

I had no direct contact with most professors. The others were 2-3 emails at most except for 1 class where I had 4 Zoom calls. Most of the contact was their responses to the rough draft and final submission of the Final Assessment. I can't even tell you most of my professor's names.

The above average completion has a great deal to do with YourPace students are all adults. Everyone is over 20. Most are significantly older. Think of how many people from here have attended UMPI. We are on a mission - to complete our degrees not to party with a football team (they don't have a football team).

ETA: Both ashkir and I are quoted in the PDF. 

And then there's this little bit of info at the very, very, very end. Perhaps a glimpse of what may be coming in 2023 and 2024 depending on accreditation. 

It plans to submit a subsequent request in August 2022 to deliver Cybersecurity and Psychology, with Computer Science and Health Administration scheduled for proposals in 2023.

To me it doesn't matter, even the traditional course model has a perverse incentive to pass as many students as possible. I know in California your funding for community colleges is based on student headcount. The professors that have their classes that are filled the most have their contracts renewed while professors that have issues meeting headcount consistently get dropped. Sometimes it's because the course they are teaching is not needed but a good amount of times students head to Ratemyprofessor.com and avoid the professors with critical reviews (tough graders). I know I have avoided those classes. Why mess up your GPA because your run into a professor who thinks they should make your hands bleed to complete their course when you can get the same credit with a professor that's less stringent. I find this situation funny because often these hard nose professors want you to be prepared for rigor and top tier program but can torpedo your progress to that programs by being such a hard grader.

[bjcheung77]

And it seems they're adding the following programs and making changes to existing ones for 2022/2023! Exciting news indeed...

"Increasing need for more YourPace programs. UMPI plans in August 2021 to submit a Substantive
Change request to allow Criminal Justice and English: Professional Communication to deliver its
programming in the CBE modality. It plans to submit a subsequent request in August 2022 to deliver
Cybersecurity and Psychology, with Computer Science and Health Administration scheduled for
proposals in 2023."

[Vle045]

Cybersecurity sure would be interesting…..

[rachel83az]

But Criminal Justice is already in YourPace?

[LevelUP]

Torpedo your progress to that programs by being such a hard grader.

Some professors can grade hard for different things.

UMPI has the draft system where you submit the draft first so hopefully, the professor would give feedback if there are any major errors so the final submission should be a high grade.

For TESU, some professors would give you a C if you made some APA mistakes, while others would only take a few points off. Yet that same professor that gave C's for APA mistakes was known on RateMyProfessor for giving easy A's for assignments.

In some other schools, you can submit your paper and if you aren't happy with the grade, you can make revisions and submit it again for a higher grade. Professors in this situation were incentivized to give high grades on the first submission to avoid a bunch of resubmissions.

[Vle045]

But Criminal Justice is already in YourPace?

I think the document is actually dated prior to CJ being added. (2021)

[bcdaron]

Professors have been paid a specific amount no matter how many students enrolled and completed a course. I want to say it was $1945 per session. So if there are 10 people they are paid $1945. If there are 100 people they are paid $1945. They may be changing this.

I had no direct contact with most professors. The others were 2-3 emails at most except for 1 class where I had 4 Zoom calls. Most of the contact was their responses to the rough draft and final submission of the Final Assessment. I can't even tell you most of my professor's names.

The above average completion has a great deal to do with YourPace students are all adults. Everyone is over 20. Most are significantly older. Think of how many people from here have attended UMPI. We are on a mission - to complete our degrees not to party with a football team (they don't have a football team).

ETA: Both ashkir and I are quoted in the PDF. 

And then there's this little bit of info at the very, very, very end. Perhaps a glimpse of what may be coming in 2023 and 2024 depending on accreditation. 

It plans to submit a subsequent request in August 2022 to deliver Cybersecurity and Psychology, with Computer Science and Health Administration scheduled for proposals in 2023.

It might have been a party school in the past. Back in the old days, they had a football team.

Aroostook State Normal School had a football team at one time, although it was short-lived. The football team began in 1936 and continued until 1939. In that last year, the football team won the State Championship of Normal School Football Teams. With the emergence of the second world war, many male students left school to fight in the war. Without those male students, the football team no longer existed, as there were not enough participants to make a team.

http://pages.umpi.edu/umpi-history/football.htm

Additionally, according to the school newspaper there was an intention to start a football team again. I'm not sure if COVID has further delayed this, but as recent as 2021 this was the case.

http://wp.umpi.edu/utimes/2021/04/01/did...-football/