4 ms·

Current student in the CS program. Feel free to ask questions.

by uopeoplestudent 6y ago

person_of_color 6y ago
Rigor?
- uopeoplestudent 6y ago
  Modest to "it depends." I'd place it on par with a local community college for myself. However, I think it depends more on the student. The instructors act more as moderators rather than instructors. There are no lectures, and they have limited interaction (e.g., a few posts in the forums and responses to our weekly learning journals). Thus, it's hard to really take advantage of their knowledge. Instructor are also volunteers. I've read that they're paid a small honorarium, but I've been unable to find supporting evidence in any school documentation. (Granted, I haven't looked hard.) You will primarily teach yourself through course materials. The materials can vary from excellent to awful. Thus, it can be a challenge sometimes. (Fortunately, I've been to grad school [education field] in the past, so it's not much of an issue for me.) The school talks about "peer learning," but it is poorly integrated. It mainly amounts to peer assessments and required discussion forum posts. So, as you might guess, the quality of the latter varies wildly. There are definitely quite a few students who struggle, and there's not a lot of support structure built into the school yet. (It's still young. ~10 years old.) The CS curriculum is fairly standard (e.g., operating systems, programming, algorithms, data structures, etc.).
kamyarg 6y ago
As both the OP and you are new accounts, I will ask the first question I can think of: is this a marketing move to post it here? Also, I watched the "Who is behind it" video and it did not answer the question, who is actually behind this? Is it a non-profit? Is it owned by by someone? Who founded it when?
- uopeoplestudent 6y ago
  Shai Reshef is the person who started. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kH-uYwt0qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kH-uYwt0qs It's non-profit. Not sure who "owns" it. It started in 2009. Edit: Addendum. I'm not sure they need marketing. When I started last year (Sep 2019), they had ~20k students. They've added another 10k over the course of the academic year. I believe they were at 5k students in 2016. I'm actually concerned about the sustainability with this growth, but we'll see how this ride goes.
  - kamyarg 6y ago
    Is posting here a marketing move? you seem to have skipped that question.
    - uopeoplestudent 6y ago
      See my addendum. Didn't mean to miss it. Just answering several people at once. Aside from being a student, I have no other affiliation with the school.
      - kamyarg 6y ago
        Ok, thank you for the answer.
- tomato2juice 6y ago
  >is this a marketing move to post it here? Nope, I had found the university before but ignored it. Then was looking for cheap math degrees from the recent math books thread today, and came across this school again. Figured I'd post it, but I have no interest in attending there, as they don't have any programs I care about
  - kamyarg 6y ago
    Thank you for explaining.
notathinker 6y ago
1. Does it feel worth the time you are investing? 2. Do you hope that the degree itself will be a valuable credential, or just (!?) that the learning is good value-for money? 3. What, to you, are the advantages of this over self-teaching using MOOCs or any of the other online resources (which are better for computer science than for any other field)? Thanks for offering to take questions. I'm intriegued by UoPeople and other similar ventures. I have a son who will graduate in a few years who may have social trouble at a regular university.
- uopeoplestudent 6y ago
  1. Yes, absolutely. I love learning. I dislike that courses are only 8 weeks long because I would like to dig deeper into the material than that timeframe allows. However, I definitely feel the time is well spent. 2. I am less concerned about the credential. I already have a bachelor's degree and some graduate school. Thus, it's not likely to give me any extra weight, and I don't plan to pursue jobs with it. However, some of my colleague who've moved on have found it both helpful and valuable in that regard. I will note that the school is nationally accredited, so this can be quite limiting (e.g., grad school options are very limit, transferring credit is limited, etc.). So, this is a consideration that must be taken. However, I'm happy with the return on my investment (knowledge) so far. 3. Real, college credit which can be transferred. While it has limits in that regard, I am not aware of any colleges that will accept MOOCs for transfer unless they were explicitly designed to be credit granted (e.g., some of edX's stuff or maybe some Coursera's new stuff). That said, I would argue that UoPeople is really "self-teaching" like you would with MOOCs. While the school implements a form of "peer learning," I find it to be poorly done and not very helpful. I do meet some others who are genuinely interested in the topics, but most students are just interested in getting through the courses. And, ugh, I loathe peer assessment. While it's not the only form of assessment which takes place, it's the most obnoxious part of the school. It's worse when you peers don't understand basic things like how files and directories work. This part term I was told by a peer, in the discussion forum, that my post was "wrong." (It wasn't.) And the student told me to read so-and-so's post to see why. The student subsequently marked me down. (Fortunately, it had minimal impact. So I didn't bother appealing it.) I couldn't really give any advice for your son. If he can handle academic work on his own fairly well, then it might work for him. However, some students struggle with online learning and there's not a lot of support structures in place at the school yet.
alexashka 6y ago
Why?
- uopeoplestudent 6y ago
  Why not? I don't need the degree. I don't intent to pursue employment which will require it. And should I decide to continue at the graduate level, I already have a regionally accredited bachelor's degree and grad school. Thus, I have options for that path. I like the structure and grades. Sure, I could I learn just as well using MOOCs, textbooks, and so on. However, the grade hovering over my head provides a touch of external motivation to stay focused. Plus, it's nice to interact with students from different places and with different interests. So, basically, it provides me a cheap means to fulfill my curiosity.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
znpy 6y ago
How are students supposed to take exams? Who grades the exams?
- uopeoplestudent 6y ago
  Exams are taken online. Some courses, which are marked in the catalog[0], require the use of a proctor for the final exam. The proctor requirement can be fulfilled through a professional local to you (librarian, minister, etc.) or through an online service called ProctorU. If you use a local professional, there is no fee and you are not permitted to pay them. If you use the ProctorU service, you must pay a fee to that service. None of these fees are provided to the school. It's purely a payment to the service. [0] https://www.uopeople.edu/about/uopeople/essential-uopeople-documents/university-catalog/ https://www.uopeople.edu/about/uopeople/essential-uopeople-d...

Current student in the CS program. Feel free to ask questions.

person_of_color 6y ago

Rigor?

uopeoplestudent 6y ago
Modest to "it depends." I'd place it on par with a local community college for myself. However, I think it depends more on the student. The instructors act more as moderators rather than instructors. There are no lectures, and they have limited interaction (e.g., a few posts in the forums and responses to our weekly learning journals). Thus, it's hard to really take advantage of their knowledge. Instructor are also volunteers. I've read that they're paid a small honorarium, but I've been unable to find supporting evidence in any school documentation. (Granted, I haven't looked hard.) You will primarily teach yourself through course materials. The materials can vary from excellent to awful. Thus, it can be a challenge sometimes. (Fortunately, I've been to grad school [education field] in the past, so it's not much of an issue for me.) The school talks about "peer learning," but it is poorly integrated. It mainly amounts to peer assessments and required discussion forum posts. So, as you might guess, the quality of the latter varies wildly. There are definitely quite a few students who struggle, and there's not a lot of support structure built into the school yet. (It's still young. ~10 years old.) The CS curriculum is fairly standard (e.g., operating systems, programming, algorithms, data structures, etc.).

kamyarg 6y ago

As both the OP and you are new accounts, I will ask the first question I can think of: is this a marketing move to post it here? Also, I watched the "Who is behind it" video and it did not answer the question, who is actually behind this? Is it a non-profit? Is it owned by by someone? Who founded it when?

uopeoplestudent 6y ago
Shai Reshef is the person who started. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kH-uYwt0qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kH-uYwt0qs It's non-profit. Not sure who "owns" it. It started in 2009. Edit: Addendum. I'm not sure they need marketing. When I started last year (Sep 2019), they had ~20k students. They've added another 10k over the course of the academic year. I believe they were at 5k students in 2016. I'm actually concerned about the sustainability with this growth, but we'll see how this ride goes.
- kamyarg 6y ago
  Is posting here a marketing move? you seem to have skipped that question.
  - uopeoplestudent 6y ago
    See my addendum. Didn't mean to miss it. Just answering several people at once. Aside from being a student, I have no other affiliation with the school.
    - kamyarg 6y ago
      Ok, thank you for the answer.
tomato2juice 6y ago
>is this a marketing move to post it here? Nope, I had found the university before but ignored it. Then was looking for cheap math degrees from the recent math books thread today, and came across this school again. Figured I'd post it, but I have no interest in attending there, as they don't have any programs I care about
- kamyarg 6y ago
  Thank you for explaining.

notathinker 6y ago

1. Does it feel worth the time you are investing? 2. Do you hope that the degree itself will be a valuable credential, or just (!?) that the learning is good value-for money? 3. What, to you, are the advantages of this over self-teaching using MOOCs or any of the other online resources (which are better for computer science than for any other field)? Thanks for offering to take questions. I'm intriegued by UoPeople and other similar ventures. I have a son who will graduate in a few years who may have social trouble at a regular university.

uopeoplestudent 6y ago
1. Yes, absolutely. I love learning. I dislike that courses are only 8 weeks long because I would like to dig deeper into the material than that timeframe allows. However, I definitely feel the time is well spent. 2. I am less concerned about the credential. I already have a bachelor's degree and some graduate school. Thus, it's not likely to give me any extra weight, and I don't plan to pursue jobs with it. However, some of my colleague who've moved on have found it both helpful and valuable in that regard. I will note that the school is nationally accredited, so this can be quite limiting (e.g., grad school options are very limit, transferring credit is limited, etc.). So, this is a consideration that must be taken. However, I'm happy with the return on my investment (knowledge) so far. 3. Real, college credit which can be transferred. While it has limits in that regard, I am not aware of any colleges that will accept MOOCs for transfer unless they were explicitly designed to be credit granted (e.g., some of edX's stuff or maybe some Coursera's new stuff). That said, I would argue that UoPeople is really "self-teaching" like you would with MOOCs. While the school implements a form of "peer learning," I find it to be poorly done and not very helpful. I do meet some others who are genuinely interested in the topics, but most students are just interested in getting through the courses. And, ugh, I loathe peer assessment. While it's not the only form of assessment which takes place, it's the most obnoxious part of the school. It's worse when you peers don't understand basic things like how files and directories work. This part term I was told by a peer, in the discussion forum, that my post was "wrong." (It wasn't.) And the student told me to read so-and-so's post to see why. The student subsequently marked me down. (Fortunately, it had minimal impact. So I didn't bother appealing it.) I couldn't really give any advice for your son. If he can handle academic work on his own fairly well, then it might work for him. However, some students struggle with online learning and there's not a lot of support structures in place at the school yet.

alexashka 6y ago

Why?

uopeoplestudent 6y ago
Why not? I don't need the degree. I don't intent to pursue employment which will require it. And should I decide to continue at the graduate level, I already have a regionally accredited bachelor's degree and grad school. Thus, I have options for that path. I like the structure and grades. Sure, I could I learn just as well using MOOCs, textbooks, and so on. However, the grade hovering over my head provides a touch of external motivation to stay focused. Plus, it's nice to interact with students from different places and with different interests. So, basically, it provides me a cheap means to fulfill my curiosity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

znpy 6y ago

How are students supposed to take exams? Who grades the exams?

uopeoplestudent 6y ago
Exams are taken online. Some courses, which are marked in the catalog[0], require the use of a proctor for the final exam. The proctor requirement can be fulfilled through a professional local to you (librarian, minister, etc.) or through an online service called ProctorU. If you use a local professional, there is no fee and you are not permitted to pay them. If you use the ProctorU service, you must pay a fee to that service. None of these fees are provided to the school. It's purely a payment to the service. [0] https://www.uopeople.edu/about/uopeople/essential-uopeople-documents/university-catalog/ https://www.uopeople.edu/about/uopeople/essential-uopeople-d...