Student Handbook Updated August 2012 Welcome to Saylor.org!

This Student Handbook is designed to provide you with a clear understanding of Saylor.org and its offerings. It will clarify the various privileges and responsibilities that you can expect as a Saylor.org student. Note that The Saylor Foundation reserves the right to change any provision listed in this handbook and agrees to make a good faith effort to alert all community members and students to any such changes. If you have any questions about the information contained in this handbook, please email us at contact@saylor.org.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction Directors Welcome History and Mission Accreditation Trustee Student Rights and Responsibilities Community Standards Non-Discrimination Policy Community Code of Conduct Academic Code of Conduct Disciplinary Action Study at Saylor.org The BasicsWhat Is a Saylor.org Course? Course Materials Learning Outcomes Grading System The Final Exam Grading Errors Study Recommendations Student Records and Information Computing and Networking Resources Access Browser Requirements

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INTRODUCTION
Directors Welcome Welcome to Saylor.org! Whether you are planning to complete a course, master an entire area of study, supplement your learning experience at another institution, or spend some time exploring just for the sake of learning, Saylor.orgs cost -free, openaccess courses are designed for you. At The Saylor Foundation, we recognize that many students are finding it increasingly difficult to enroll in college courses, complete program requirements, and otherwise access educational opportunities. While this difficulty can be attributed to any number of obstacles, from geographical distance to fixed class schedules, we believe the sheer cost of education to be the primary barrier. If you, like many of us, are facing these challenges, Saylor.org can serve as a solution. Here, you will be able to access courses designed by professors from institutions around the country without paying a penny. Thanks to our open design, you do not need to worry about enrollment periods or schedulesour courses are always on and always accessible, meaning that you can work through our courses at your own pace wherever and whenever you are ready. All you need is Internet access and a desire to learn. I should warn you, however, not to confuse ease of access with ease of coursework! Saylor.org courses are designed to provide challenging, top-quality learning experiences. As such, each of our courses will require dedication and serious academic work. We believe that this rigor will serve you well in any future endeavors you undertake. Once more, I am thrilled to welcome you. We look forward to your success here at Saylor.org! Yours, Alana Harrington Director, The Saylor Foundation History and Mission Saylor.org is operated by The Saylor Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established by Michael J. Saylor, founder and CEO of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy. Mr. Saylor established the Foundation because he had a very simple, very earnest, and very bold idea: Education should be free. Guided by this vision and made largely possible by recent advances in technology, The Saylor Foundation has recruited credentialed professors to design a suite of cost-free, self-paced courses that align with the highest enrollment disciplines in the U.S. higher education system. Our automated courses are comprised of carefully curated openly-licensed and open-access content; aligned with measurable learning outcomes, and subjected to a rigorous peer review process. We eventually hope to expand to offer courseware at all levels of education, from Kindergarten through Post-Doctorate. Put simply, the mission of the Saylor Foundation is to harness technology to make education free.
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Accreditation Saylor.org is not an accredited institution and cannot confer degrees. However, we believe that the completion of Saylor.org courses can be valuable and useful in a variety of ways. Many of you are here simply because you want to learn and you recognize the inherent value of education. Here, you can learn to program a computer, write more effectively, communicate in basic French, or improve the way in which you manage your small businessjust to name a few examples. We believe that the real-life value of this knowledge speaks for itself. We also understand, however, that we live in a world where college credits and degrees carry weight. Employers use these credentials in order to evaluate and differentiate between applicants. To this end, we are currently exploring various partnership opportunities that may enable us to secure transfer credit arrangements. Until then, we encourage you to use your Saylor.org certificates (note that when you pass a courses final exam, you will receive a PDF certificate of completion) to ask your home institution about Saylor.org transfer credit opportunities and/or their acceptability in your Prior Learning Assessment Recognition (PLAR) portfolio. (For more information on PLAR, please read here.) Alternately, you may consider reaching out to your academic advisor at your home institution to determine whether you can use a Saylor.org course in the context of an independent study program. Trustee Michael J. Saylor, founder, chairman, CEO, and president of MicroStrategy, Inc., has served as the sole trustee of the Saylor Foundation since its inception in 1999. He established The Saylor Foundation because he had a very simple, very earnest, and very bold idea: Education should be free. A voracious and often self-directed learner, Saylor graduated at the top of his high school class and attended MIT on a ROTC scholarship, completing dual degrees in Aeronautics & Astronautics and Science, Technology, & Society. Nevertheless, he has long felt that great learning neednt require a great deal of money or a brick-and-mortar institution; much of his world-class education had been gained from the back of a 500person lecture hall at considerable expense for all involved. Yet those very same MIT lectures, the same academic-authored bookssubstantially the same experiencesare now offered for free to anyone with an Internet connection. The only problem lies in connecting these materials to students in a meaningful, unique, transformative way. He believes that current technologyand its increasing diffusion among people in all countriesmakes it possible to drive the marginal cost of each new unit of education, effectively, to zero. Within two years of graduation, Saylor founded the company that he helms today, growing it through sustained attention to providing clients useful, integrated solutionsand empowerment. He brings this drive and conscientious attention to the Saylor Foundations Free Education project.

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STUDENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

In making Saylor.org and its courses and course materials completely free and open access, The Saylor Foundation has extended you an invitation to join its academic community as a Saylor.org student and to remain a part of this community as long as you uphold the community standards outlined in the section below. Your use of Saylor.org represents a voluntary decision on your part to uphold the community standards established by The Saylor Foundation and outlined in this document. As a Saylor.org student, you are afforded the following important rights: 1. Freedom to pursue your own educational goals. 2. Access to fair, unbiased, and clear academic assessment. 3. Freedom of inquiry and expression, provided that all communications abide by the community standards outlined below. 4. Due process in the case of disciplinary action.

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COMMUNITY STANDARDS
All members of the Saylor Foundation academic community, including faculty, students, and administration, are expected to assist in maintaining the integrity of the Saylor Foundation by upholding the community standards outlined here and by reporting any incidents that violate them. Non-Discrimination Policy The Saylor Foundation is committed to equality of opportunity. Consistent with this principle and applicable laws, the Saylor Foundation does not engage in discrimination against any person on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, sexual orientation including gender identity or gender expression, and/or veteran status and will comply with all federal and state non-discrimination, equal opportunity and affirmative action laws, orders, and regulations. This non-discrimination policy applies to Saylor.org educational programs and activities as well as employment terms and conditions. Community Code of Conduct The Saylor Foundation values highly freedom of expression and diversity of opinion when exercised in conjunction with civility and respect for others. The Saylor Foundation will not tolerate any offensive or threatening behavior, profanity, or acts of harassment or embarrassment at the expense of others in any communication surrounding or using our materials. Academic Code of Conduct The Saylor Foundation upholds high standards of academic integrity and will not tolerate acts of dishonesty, falsification, misrepresentation, or collusion, including instances of cheating, plagiarism, forgery, receiving external assistance on an assignment or exam (except where authorized), completing an assignment or exam for another, disseminating or sharing exam questions and answers, tampering with the academic work of another, and facilitating another individuals acts of intellectual dishonesty. Plagiarism is a particularly pervasive problem in todays digital age. Many do not understand what plagiarism is and/or do not grasp the severity of its offense. The Saylor Foundation defines plagiarism as the act of copying words or ideas from a source without appropriate attribution; failing to put a quotation in quotation marks; falsifying or withholding information about the source of a quotation; and/or turning in the work of another as ones own. We encourage you to think seriously about the way in which you are interacting with and using the content you find on the Internet. Disciplinary Action If you believe that the codes of conduct outlined above have been violated, please report the violation by submitting a report to The Saylor Foundation at contact@saylor.org.

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Upon receipt of a report of suspected misconduct, The Saylor Foundation will conduct an investigation into the case and will notify the student(s) involved of the report. If the investigation finds the student(s) guilty of misconduct, The Saylor Foundation will send a written charge to the student explaining the nature of the misconduct, the evidence on which it is based, and the resulting disciplinary action. Should a Saylor student be found guilty of infringing upon the standards outlined in our Codes of Conduct, disciplinary actions may include: Formal Warning The student will be warned that any additional violations of Saylor policies may result in more serious disciplinary action. Denial or Retraction of Course Credit/Course Certificate Academic Probation The student is not permitted to maintain a Saylor Foundation account for up to two years and is consequently unable to use the ePortfolio or discussion forums or to earn credit/certification for any coursework completed during that time. Academic Expulsion The student is permanently barred access to all site features requiring a Saylor Foundation account, such as the ePortfolio system, discussion forums, or any other such features, as well as to any and all credits/certifications.

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STUDY AT SAYLOR.ORG
The BasicsWhat Is A Saylor.Org Course? Saylor.org courses are different from many online courses in that they are: zero-cost, meaning that there are absolutely no fees associated with our courses, course materials, or site; self-paced, meaning that it is your responsibility to define your own schedule and to progress through the course and its assigned materials as quickly or slowly as you wish; automated, meaning that there are no professors that will grade your work or provide you with feedback; and open-access, meaning that you do not need to enroll, register, or log in to take a course, and that there are no enrollment periods or start dates.

Though course content is entirely open-access, you will need to create a free account if you choose to take a final exam. You may also opt to create a free ePortfolio account in order to keep track of your progress through courses and areas of study, though this not required. Aside from these features, our professors have designed all Saylor.org courses to emulate, to the extent possible, the learning experience you might encounter in a traditional higher education institution. This means that all courses are designed to require a semester-long period of engagement (roughly 15 weeks or 135 hours), thoughas noted aboveyou may choose to work through a course as quickly or slowly as you please. Further, each course contains time advisories that estimate the specific time investment that it will require. You can read more about time advisories here. In order to take a course, you will need to navigate to the course home page and begin to work through each of its listed units, from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. As you work through each unit, you will be presented with instructions to read various texts, view various videos, and complete various assignments. At the end, you will be asked to complete a final exam. As noted above, you will need to create a free account in order to access this final exam. Course Materials Each Saylor.org course contains a unique combination of readings, assessments, assignments, web media, lectures, and more. Many of these materials are from other institutions, collections, and repositories. (You might find a textbook from our open textbook challenge, a lecture series from a higher education institution on iTunes U, and course notes and quizzes from MITall in the same course!) You will also often find materials that our professors have developed specifically for our courses. All course materials have been carefully selected, framed, and/or developed by our professors so that they will enable you to achieve the courses stated learning outcomes (for an explanation of
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learning outcomes, please see the next section). All course materials are completely cost-free. Please pay special attention to the various terms of use outlined in our course materials. Many of the materials we include in our courses cannot be reused or reposted elsewhere on the web without explicit permission from various copyright holders. For a full explanation of the various copyright and reuse issues that pertain to our courses and their materials, please read here. Learning Outcomes Throughout our courses, you will find lists of Learning Outcomes. Learning Outcomes are written statements that identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you should be able to demonstrate upon completion of a learning sequence. An example of a learning outcome might be: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to define and identify the domain, range, and graph of a function. In Saylor.org courses, you will find course-wide learning outcomes listed just beneath the Purpose of Course on a course homepage. You will also find unit -specific learning outcomes within each unit, just beneath the unit introduction and the unit time advisory. The course-wide outcomes will specify the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you will be able to demonstrate upon completion of the entire course, while the unit-specific outcomes will specify the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you will be able to demonstrate upon completion of a given unit. Grading System As explained above, Saylor.org courses are automated. You will not receive grades or feedback from a professor. Instead, the only official grade you can receive is the score you earn on your multiple-choice, auto-graded final exam. If you earn a 70% or higher on a Saylor.org final exam, you will receive a PDF certificate indicating that you have successfully passed a Saylor.org course. This PDF will include your name, the date of your exam, the course title, the Saylor.org logo/seal, and a unique identification code. If you receive lower than a 70%, you have not successfully passed the course. You may choose to re-take the exam, as explained below. Some Saylor.org courses feature quizzes, tests, and other types of assessments and assignments. Each of these will be accompanied by an answer key, guide to responding, or self-assessment rubric (a rubric is a list of criteria that you can use to determine the quality of a particular type of work) so that you can score your own work. Though we encourage you to complete these assessments and assignments because they will help you master the courses stated learning outcomes, the scores you earn on them will not count towards your final grade. Final Exams

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In order to take a final exam, navigate to a course home page and click on the Final Exam in the Resource Center on the left-hand side of the page. Alternately, navigate to the final unit of the course. The final exam will always be the last assignment listed in the course. Then, click the link in order to create a free account and access the exam. All exams (except those in our budding Professional Development program, which feature briefer exams) are designed to take 90-120 minutes to complete. If you earn a 70% or higher on this final exam, you will receive a PDF certificate that will confirm that you have completed and passed the course. If you do not earn 70% or higher, you are encouraged to re-take the exam after reviewing the course materials and studying further for the final exam. You will need to wait two weeks before being able to access the examination again. Note that each time you access the exam for a course, the questions will be different. Grading Errors If you suspect an error in either the grading of the final exam or in the exam itself, please email the Saylor.org Faculty at contact@saylor.org. If the Saylor Faculty confirms the error, The Saylor.org Administration will adjust the grade on any exam attempts taken within six months of the errors reporting. Study Recommendations Though you may choose to work through our courses as you please, we have outlined a couple of recommendations that may help you in your study here at Saylor.org: Set aside regular time each week to dedicate to your studies in order to make steady progress and keep yourself motivated. Find a quiet study area that you can use to focus on the courses assignments, view lectures, complete readings, etc. Jot down questions, thoughts, important concepts, and other ideas that occur to you as you work through our courses in a separate notebook or in a file on your computer. Revisit these notes frequently to maintain focus and work through issues. Find a friend or fellow student to work alongside. Swap papers, quizzes, and ideas, and try to set aside time to discuss the course. Use the discussion forums (http://forums.saylor.org) to introduce yourself, connect with other students, ask questions, post suggestions, and seek out further resources. If the discussion for a course seems quiet, start the conversation!

Engaging with Other Students: Using ePortfolio and Discussion Forums While Saylor courses are designed to be self-paced, automated, and registration-free, you may choose to enhance your learning experience by using special features and tools we make available to students on our site.

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By creating an ePortfolio account or joining the Forums (or both your login works for either one), you will be able to communicate and share with the Saylor community. By creating an ePortfolio account, you will be able to enroll in courses, display the courses you have successfully completed, and even view a roadmap for working through a full Area of Study. Furthermore, the system allows for the upload and sharing of coursework that you may have completed as part of finishing a Saylor course. With a Forum account, you can start or join a conversation about a Saylor.org course or any other topic related to The Saylor Foundation. For example, do you have a question about where to find a resource? Whether people have enjoyed a course? When a new course or final exam will be added to the site? Pose these and any other questions you might have to the Forums and receive feedback from fellow Saylor students. While we hope and encourage the Saylor Student Community to lead these discussions, Saylor staff is always happy to provide answers when we can. Ultimately, we hope that students will use the ePortfolio system and Forums as a means of fostering collaboration and engagement. If you need help with a course, be proactive: search the ePortfolio student directory for fellow students who are working through your Area of Study. View student profiles in order to see which courses your fellow students are taking and how active they have been on the Forums. If you feel that a student would make a good study partner, send him or her a message!

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STUDENT RECORDS AND INFORMATION

As a Saylor.org student, you are not required to provide any identifying information about yourself. You may elect to do so, however, by choosing to take a final exam (administered in Moodle), create an ePortfolio account to track your progress, and/or participate in our discussion forums. The Saylor Foundation is committed to maintaining your privacy and will not release any information about you or your activity at saylor.org to any third party. You may yourself provide any information you would like to an employer, school, or other entity of your choosing, including by utilizing share functions of the ePortfolio system. However, Saylor will not provide any information to any such entity. You may review our full Privacy Policy here. If you choose to create an account in Moodle, you will need to provide the following information: Username Password Email address First name Last Name Country Our student database will store this account information along with any and all exam certificates that you earn (and the information that each contains). Each exam certificate includes a verification code that will allow you to prove that you have completed a Saylor.org exam at a passing score of 70% or above. The verification code can be used on the http://school.saylor.org website without requiring an account or login. If you have created an account with our ePortfolio system, these verification codes are also included in their entirety in your student transcript, which is available through the ePortfolio system under your account. If you choose to create an account in our ePortfolio system OR our Discussion Forums, you will need to provide the following information: First name Last Name Password Email address Country You may also sign up using an existing Facebook account. Accessing Your Account Information In the event that you lose any of your account information, you may contact The Saylor Foundation at contact@saylor.org with your request and we will verify your account
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information through your full name, email address, and country. We may require additional information such as the course exams that you have completed and/or the areas of study in which you enrolled.

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COMPUTING AND NETWORK RESOURCES

Access In order to access our courses and course materials, you must have Internet access. A high-speed Internet connection is recommended. You may be able to download some course materials to your computer for offline use, but you will need Internet access in order to fully work through all course materials and the final exam. You must also have the ability/permission to: install plug-ins or software (e.g. Adobe Reader or Flash); download and save files and documents to your computer; Open Microsoft files and documents (e.g., .doc, .ppt, .xls, etc.) The Saylor.org website is viewable onthough not optimized formobile and tablet devices. We are considering our next steps in appealing to mobile and tablet users. Browser Requirements Our courseware is best viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome browsers. Please update to the latest versions.

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