Limited to Improbable Transfer
www.onlinedegree.com
#21 OnlineDegree.com
Currently, this program is for ages 18 and older only
Online Degree courses are completely free. If you would like to attempt college credit, you must first complete the course (you can’t skip any sections) can then you’ll have the option of paying $9 for online proctoring via webcam.
This company is brand new (launch 07/2018) so expect some growing pains as they get rolling. So far, it appears that many of their courses are based on the course content from The Great Courses. Two of my sons are taking courses this semester, and so far it’s going perfectly. We know in advance that their target college accepts NCCRS credit, which is highly suggested.
The format: create a free online account (each person must have an account). You’ll add free courses to your account, and begin when ready. When you launch your course, you’ll be prompted to watch the main lecture (about 30 minutes) and then a few shorter activities or videos (usually less than 20 minutes). Upon completion of that unit’s activities, you’ll take the unit quiz, which closes out the unit. You must complete every unit before accessing the final exam.
Jennifer’s comments: If you have a student who does better with small chunks of learning instead of trying to study for one large exam (CLEP, AP, etc) then you should consider this format. Since the quizzes are based on the lectures of each unit, my teens have had no trouble at all scoring well on the quizzes. It’s worth noting that while there isn’t a lockdown browser to prevent you from googling answers during a quiz, I have found that the answers aren’t really searchable in a traditional sense, they are tightly linked to the videos. An example question may be something like this “which car company was used as an example of targeted marketing?”
Cost: if you’re planning to attend Charter Oak State College, Thomas Edison State College, or Excelsior College, the entire online degree catalog of 15 courses can be completed at home for a total of $135.00 This is an absolute bargain and brings in a total of 44 college credits (all courses worth 3 college credits except cooking which is worth 2) Thomas Edison State College Credit Chart for Onlinedegree.com
Grades: this really only applies to those doing a class, but they’ve made it really tricky to track your progress and grades! I wrote this after my son and I spent HOURS figuring out his grade prior to his final exam. I’m not usually a fan of having to work this hard to calculate a grade, but let’s chalk this up to their learning curve.
Their site says: Attendance/Participation (10%), Quizzes (50%), and the Final Exam (40%)
Go into “my profile” and you’ll see your “registered courses.”
Click on the drop-down menu for the course you want to see your scores for.
Quiz % will show for everything you’ve done. You have to count how many quizzes to know what the “whole” is, and then from that number, subtract 2. (if you’ll take 18 quizzes you’ll keep grades for 16 highest scores)
Then however many quizzes you will have grades for, you’ll give each one a value of 100 points. (a class with 18 quizzes = 16 graded quizzes = 1600 “points”)
I realize this feels mathy, just bear with me. So, your number is now = 50% of the class. In this example, 1600 points = 50%, so I will use 3200 “points” as my whole (100%)
In this hypothetical class, if 3200 is my “whole”, then 1600 points are my quizzes (50%), 320 points (10%) makes up my attendance, and 1280 points is the final (40%)
Now SAVE ALL OF THIS on paper somewhere- make a chart/graph. Start calculating everything.
Attendance will be 10% and you’ll get those points because you have to watch all the videos (fill that in as 320 in this case)
Then start doing your quizzes- we used 100, so it’s super easy to do: a quiz score of 57.14% is 57.14 “points” in this sample. A quiz score of 85.71% is 85.71 “points” and so on. write this down as you do each quiz so you can see your running “point” score.
Final exam (blank for now) but in this sample will be worth 1280 points.
You need a passing score of 70%, so our whole point value is 3200 x 70% = 2240 points to pass.
If this is all written down on a chart, you will be able to keep track as you go, and it should be simple adding to know how close you are to 2240 at any point in time.
Current Catalog of Courses (11/2018)
Environmental Science, 3 credits
Economics—Introduction to Microeconomics, 3 credits
Criminal Justice—Cybersecurity & Cybercrime, 3 credits
Nutrition & Health, 3 credits
History, 3 credits
Psychology, 3 credits
Healthcare—Introduction to Public Health, 3 credits
Education—Language & Literacy in Education, 3 credits
Astronomy—Introduction to Cosmology, 3 credits
Robotics—Introduction to Robotics, 3 credits
Computer Science—Introduction to Programming, 3 credits
Business—Introduction to Marketing & Strategy, 3 credits
Biology, 3 credits
Cooking—Introduction to Culinary Skills, 2 credits
Business—Introduction to Accounting & Finance, 3 credits
This content is reprinted from Chapter 2 of Homeschooling for College Credit 2nd Edition.
Pages you may also like:
Understanding NCCRS Credit (#19–21)
Forms of ID when Homeschooling for College Credit
