Sophia Learning just made it a bit harder to earn “college” credit in hours.
After a Washington Post reporter wrote about completing two Sophia courses in a day — mainly using Ctrl-F to find answers to open book, unsupervised tests — students reported the online learning platform started blocking them from using the search function. That sparked grumbling this week from students on Reddit and a Discord server.
“Fellas we might be cooked,” one person lamented on Reddit.
Sophia Learning, which did not respond to requests for comment, also removed an option to download PDFs of the course materials, making it harder to use Ctrl-F to search the texts outside the platform.
Though Sophia is not a college, more than 100 colleges accept the classes for credit. Some allow students to complete as much as 75 percent of their degrees through Sophia or other online learning companies.
Platforms like Sophia have become increasingly popular with students trying to save money or finish their degrees fast. Sophia’s parent company reported that it signed up 65,000 new subscribers last year. It says the average student completes a class in just over three weeks, a fraction of the time of a traditional college class.
The post Online learning site makes changes after reporter finishes two classes in hours appeared first on Washington Post.
