TaskStream and WGU...

MSP-IT

... a match made in hell.

Seriously, has anyone else had as much frustration as I have with this? The fact that the advisers are not the ones grading the work, yet providing input on the work itself, is just plain wrong. This alone has made me completely change my mind about attending WGU for my M.S.

WGU would be 100% better without TaskStream.

/endrant

emerald_octane

MSISA student. It honestly hasn't been that bad for me. For each assignment, I basically bullet point the rubric and work from there. So there are specific sections where the grader can point to if "student defines x,y,z to staff about w technology". All of my work is graded within three days and i've only had one or two send backs because I didn't follow the rubric.

Danielm7

I haven't had many taskstream courses, but I'm really not a fan. I've had situations where the course mentor was telling me one thing and the graders wanted something different. As far as I'm concerned there shouldn't be a disconnect there. I do realize they'd probably need to hire a lot more mentors if they were doing all the grading in house, increasing costs, etc, but at the very least there should be some kind of connection between the course mentors and the graders.

BGraves

Had a couple taskstream courses, no real issues. Any time something was returned for revision I did as suggested and it was accepted no problem. Everyone has their pet peeves I guess. Do what makes sense for you

jm0202

I understand your frustration.. however, the only way I got around it was to talk directly to the course mentor I was dealing with, they know exactly what the paper is looking for. I had a couple of times when the grader wont give you any feedback so the course mentor will give you feedback and or point you to the right track. if he/she can figured it out either (and everything is ok in your paper), the course mentor will talk to the grader's supervisors and will challenge it... I had a couple of times the course mentor doing it and guess what.. the paper was accepted!

MSP-IT

I'm working on my capstone. I have an in-progress project as my paper and the course mentors said that this is okay, and that as long as the rubric is met I should be fine. But when the paper was returned, the summary was basically saying that I needed to finish the project. It's an extensive project that's slated to end late 2015, they were perfectly fine accepting the proposal without saying a word that it was going to cause issues in the capstone.

BGraves

That is indeed a bummer, sorry to hear that. I'm sure if what jm0202 is accurate, you should be able to communicate your frustration with the course mentor and see if you can get the situation resolved. Obviously, you're probably stressed and frustrated....but just focus on getting it resolved. If you need to manipulate your project to appear completed, that might be a route as well.

Hang in there! You're almost done!

MSP-IT

BGraves wrote: »

That is indeed a bummer, sorry to hear that. I'm sure if what jm0202 is accurate, you should be able to communicate your frustration with the course mentor and see if you can get the situation resolved. Obviously, you're probably stressed and frustrated....but just focus on getting it resolved. If you need to manipulate your project to appear completed, that might be a route as well.

Hang in there! You're almost done!

Thanks for the encouragement. I have a meeting with a course mentor today. Hopefully we can get everything situated.

I was hoping to be done by the end of the month, as I am sitting the CISSP in June and have had very little time to study. That is the primary stressor at this point in time.

TheChameleon

What is TaskStream? I'm considering WGU so trying to find out bits and pieces of how WGU really works and how I can get things done ahead of time. Seems like some system where you get "Tasks" like I've heard "Task 1 and Task2" for your class and you turn them in to be graded and they can be rejected or accepted?

So your advisor doesn't really do anything with your grades? I heard the advisor can hold you back from moving forward in the program?

Danielm7

Taskstream is a 3rd party grading company. When you have papers or projects that need to be graded, they go there and you get an email with the comments and a grade.

srabiee

I've read negative experiences from other students, but I personally haven't had any problems with them. Had to submit work to Taskstream on multiple occasions for multiple classes, and everything was always graded in a timely manner with good feedback. I only had one assignment rejected on the first submission, due to the fact that I missed a few things that needed to be included.

mokaiba

They once made me reorder one sentence out of a five-page essay before allowing it to pass. Even though, according to English structure rules (besides the fact that I had a minor in English for my Associates and worked as a financial aid technical writer for years, which they wouldn't know), I was correct in how I worded the sentence....they just found it too long. I just went with the typical thought of 'idiots' and revised the sentence to what they wanted so I could move on to another course.

TheChameleon

LOL,

However it seems like I heard they have some type of text comparison system which to ensure that people don't copy things from the internet. So I'm assuming that they knew if you change one sentence then you would be over the threshold to pass.

mokaiba wrote: »

They once made me reorder one sentence out of a five-page essay before allowing it to pass. Even though, according to English structure rules (besides the fact that I had a minor in English for my Associates and worked as a financial aid technical writer for years, which they wouldn't know), I was correct in how I worded the sentence....they just found it too long. I just went with the typical thought of 'idiots' and revised the sentence to what they wanted so I could move on to another course.

Danielm7

TheChameleon wrote: »

LOL,

However it seems like I heard they have some type of text comparison system which to ensure that people don't copy things from the internet. So I'm assuming that they knew if you change one sentence then you would be over the threshold to pass.

You're thinking of an anti-plagiarism software package, which they do use, but so do most other schools. It sounds like the sentence restructuring issue is that the grader thought it was bad grammar/sentence structure and wanted it to be broken up differently.

MSP-IT

And the capstone was accepted the 2nd time around with a ~4 hour turn-around as opposed to 3-4 days for the 1st. Clarification from the course mentors wasn't too helpful, as they basically said to say the project was complete and meet to the rubric requirements with fictitious circumstances. Whatever, it's done.

All that's left is QBT1 task 2, 3, 4 and I'm done with WGU for good.

matai

Does anybody know how taskstream works? Seems like they grade papers faster on the weekends, are they college students working part time?

It's weird for me, when I submit a paper thinking; "this has gotta be sent back, it was kinda crappy" it gets accepted. If I submit it thinking; "this is a solid paper that for sure will be accepted" it gets rejected.

srabiee

It's all about the rubric and task requirements.

cyberguypr

I've been through what matai said. My first 5-6 papers passed on the first try. Then I failed one. The feedback was absolute garbage and I couldn't understand what messed up logic they used to determine I did not meet the requirement. Talked to the course mentor and she was more confused than I was and gave me very bad feedback. Knowing I couldn't trust what she gave me I took a different approach to the "failed" retirement. It passed.

That left me with a very bad impression on Taskstream. I decided to submit my next paper very incomplete, with no chance of passing, just to see what kind of feedback I would get. Well, it passed. I'm talking about a very bad paper. I thought it was a fluke so I tried the "Crappy paper approach a second time. Passed with flying colors. I didn't omit anything from the rubric but was extremely vague in several points.

My conclusion, it is very inconsistent. I guess it depends on the how close the grader is to break time. My last experiment will be missing rubric points. We'll see how that goes.

matai

My next paper will be in crayon on a dirty napkin

tprice5

Honestly, I like TaskStream. Their turn around time is fairly quick and you can see what position you are in line. There is no equivalent to this in the classroom setting. Your only recourse when checking the status of an assignment is to email your professor. Granted, an in-class professor's feedback is probably much more valuable.
No bad experiences yet. Knock on Wood.

CyberPowerPc, I hope you power through and finish the degree up. I'm rooting for you man!

cyberguypr

Don't get me started on the queues. I went from position 345 to fully graded in 3 hours. Other time I've gone from 36 to fully graded in 2.5 days.

If they ever offer a tour (virtual or physical) of Taskstream operations I will rearrange all my schedule an be the very first person in line.

demonfurbie

both my degrees i had little issue with taskstream ... granted i hated it but at least i could revise my work i know some schools thats just not an option