Time limit

[rvn4fun]

I don't know if everyone is aware of the fact that there is a time limit on the courses. I did not and became I got tied up on another project I restarted after one year and found out that I am no longer able to submit assignments for review.

Just a FYI for those taking the course

Charlie

[rvn4fun]

In addition, it is particularly upsetting in light of the fact that there was no reminder sent to me warning me that I was about to be dropped from the course.

charlie

[coffee]

Have you contacted admin on this? I don't think there is a deadline for course completion. This must be a mix up of some sort. Could be because of the recent PP forum update.

[vic1426]

That's right.
You are expected to complete this course within one year, even though there is no DEADLINE or time restrictions for completing each lesson and assignments.
I read about it the first day i purchased the course, I think it was in the welcome email send from the course administration.
Unfare in some ways - but C'est la vie

[coffee]

This isn't true, here is a link. ***********Edited********** The link I provided has changed and no longer shows the below information......


Just a snapshot of what you'll get:
13 interactive photography lessons
In-depth training specially developed by professional photographers and prize-winning enthusiasts
Unparalleled one-on-one support!
Absolutely the best price online!
A full one year money-back guarantee!


Your personal free 500MB online photo gallery to show off your images to the world!
Chances to enter exciting photo competitions and win prizes!
"Why is your online photography course
better than any other photography school?"


You will go through our extensive lessons, actively participate in quizzes and complete helpful homework assignments on the way. Best of all, you send your photos to us for constructive critiques to help you hone your skills! Your progress will be closely monitored by your personal tutor. So it's not just one-way street!
And guess what? There's no time limit to the course! You're free to work at your own pace! You won't have to worry about a classroom full of other students slowing you down or having to drive to class when you have a busy schedule. Wednesday or Sunday, Proud Photography Course is always on.
Take fantastic photos, or it costs you NOTHING
with our 1 year 100% money-back guarantee!



And there's no special camera or skills required whatsoever. You can use a 35 mm camera with film or digital camera. The techniques you learn are important and adaptable to any type of camera. You can be a total beginner in photography or experienced amateur.

There is no time limit, only a one year time limit to get a full refund if you aren't happy. That's where you guys are getting confused. There is no time limit for completing the course.

[daltoned]

There is a time limit of one year to complete the course, if you don't it appears that you can go through the lessons but you won't get tutor feedbacks etc and I presume you won't get a completion certificate, this is what happened to me last year. I only got half way in the course( could make all sorts of excuses) but I had to pay another subscription to get full course access again .

[coffee]

I guess we need some explanation from admin on this then, cause it clearly states that there is no time limit on the course. This tells me just that. You have as long as you want to finish it, but there is a one year money back guarantee if you aren't satisfied. The no time limit to complete is the big draw for many here, so I think this needs to be cleared up so there are no surprises down the road.

[rvn4fun]

Thanks Coffee,
I did contact Peter my group leader. He emailed me back said that my one year was up and if I wanted the remaining lessons evaluated I would need to pay again.

Where did you find the text that you included in your post? It does clearly state no time limit there.

Charlie

[coffee]

Thanks Coffee,
I did contact Peter my group leader. He emailed me back said that my one year was up and if I wanted the remaining lessons evaluated I would need to pay again.

Where did you find the text that you included in your post? It does clearly state no time limit there.

Charlie

Well I don't know what to say to that Charlie. Clearly what the site says and what you say you experienced are two different things. I'm sure an explanation will follow by those that have authority. This is an important issue that needs clearing up.

[rvn4fun]

Here is my welcoming message. I do not see any mention to a one year time limit!

Peter Timko [08:53 PM]: Hi Charlie, welcome to Proud Photography!


My name is Peter and I'll be assisting you through the Course. My goal is to make you a great photographer no matter what!

Please take your time, read the lessons, make sure you do your homeworks as requested and proceed only when you're confident. If you need my assistance or want questions answered, just drop me a message.

Please disable your pop-up blocker now for our instant messaging system to work properly.

Good luck and enjoy!

[admin]

Please let me explain everything here. There really is no time limit to the course. What is limited, however is the course enrollment, which is one year and is covered by our warranty. What does that mean?

You can take 10 years or more if you like to go through the course, but each year an enrollment fee will need to be paid. If for example you cannot finish the course within one year, once you extend your enrollment for another year all your marks, feedbacks and your course history including your communication history with tutors is transferred on to the next year. Meaning, the course learning path is continuous and you don't have to start from square one each time. For as many years as needed without any limitation whatsoever. You do not have to complete the course nor a lesson or assignment within any time frame. That's where "no time limit" comes from. At any stage anywhere on our website we have said there won't ever be any additional fees involved.

The enrollment limit is mentioned right at the beginning in the introduction of Lesson 1. This limitation is there for a very good reason. If everything was unlimited, it would not only discourage our students from completing the course, but they would soon discover that it's actually better to just leave it unfinished forever and just continually use the tutors and their support indefinitely whenever they see fit. Obviously, this would not only be unfair to students who complete the course but in the long run it would put an enormous strain on our resources as our student base grows. Which again, would force us to increase our prices eventually and that's not the road we want to take. And I'm sure no one does.

That said, I understand it could have caused confusion and because we actually listen to our students and want to be fair, what we do now is offer every student with already expired enrollment a free 6 month extension (till the end of September 2009). This only covers students enrolled in March 2008 or earlier.

P.S. We're open for discussion on the extension times. There can be an option to just extend enrollment on per-month basis without the need to pay for the whole year. So far there hasn't been such a request since the vast majority of students complete the course within 1 year.

Thank you all for understanding.

[daltoned]

I was one of those that renewed "enrolment" . Overall it was my own situation as a slow learner and trying to take on too much in this new digital photography and imaging software (apart from normal family commitments etc) that I did not finish the course in 12 months. I have to admit that the course is great value compared to other online/inhouse courses. Bit disappointed though, now that the subject of time limit has been aired, I was not offered the 6 month free extension when I reached end of my 12 months.

[jerryph]

1.5 years to complete a course that can be read in about 12 hours (taking your time, but not including practice time), is very generous. No one more than I knows that life puts up challenges and everything, but 18 months should be more than sufficient as long as the student knows up front what the rules and limitations are.

I feel it is a bit of an unrealistic expectation to think that if someone drops the course, that they can resume it over a year later and still get free tutoring again (especially considering the price!). There are possible special exceptions, and I am willing to bet that PP would at the very least always be willing to listen to for example if someone became ill or pregnant and had to drop the course, those are understandable exceptions.

Let's be honest, if that happens, usually that means that one has to start from the beginning again anyway, in essence, meaning that the time that the tutors invested in you at the beginning was near for naught as it was likely all or in part forgotten and needs work again. That is not very fair to Proud Photography as they really do invest their time in you and at the very least your sole responsibility as a student is to make a consistent regular effort to complete within a reasonable time (that now being, from what I read above, to be not a year but as long as 18 months).

That consistent regular effort is important not just from a time frame point of view for a time limit, but from the aspect of personal growth as well. If you do not invest the time on a regular basis, like anything else, you lose what you worked so diligently to learn and attain. This is critical more so at the beginning than at any other time for anything that one is striving to learn.

So it works to the advantage of the student on many levels to complete the course in a reasonable amount of time (for me, I would say it should take no more than 3-4 months for the average busy person), remaining focused and consistent and still getting the most possible from the course. After all, we all signed up for a singular goal... to improve our photography, and this is exactly what the course is doing for us... so let's give it our best effort! :)

[admin]

Jerry, you've summed it up very well. Thank you.

Eddie - your case was a little different as you chose to go through the whole course and assignments again including all feedbacks and new grades from scratch. As Jerry pointed out we do look at personal circumstances and have gladly given you a pensioners discount on your second run.

[coffee]

I'm glad there was a reasonable explanation for this, and of course it makes perfect sense.

I think the confusing part is where the front page of PP says there is "no time limit," to complete the course, and leaves it at that. It doesn't go on to explain that there can be a yearly charge to keep your membership and support in the course active. Maybe there is somewhere but I can't find it.

I'm assuming then that the Wedding Course operates the same way?

[daltoned]

Point taken re my decision to start again. As I said earlier the course is great value v's other courses available.

[rvn4fun]

My situation was that I agreed to design a web site for our PC club. I did not think that is would be so time consuming and where I thought it would take a couple of months it took up 8 months of my time and left no free time for anything else. If I had known I had a year I would have handled it differently.

thanks.
Charlie

[jerryph]

My situation was that I agreed to design a web site for our PC club. I did not think that is would be so time consuming and where I thought it would take a couple of months it took up 8 months of my time and left no free time for anything else.

You worked on a single website for 8 months?
Must be one helluva huge site. Our site developer designs 8-10 business sites per month including 200 page sharepoint designs for data wharehouses and law firms... perhaps you just work a lot slower and more meticulously, but I find that a very long time just for one site, unless it is something incredibly huge or have a full time day job and were doing this on the side in the evenings. :)

(I really should not talk... I've been working on my photography website for about 2 months and have nothing to show for it yet... but then again, the last month I have been working 7 days a week, minimum 14 hours a day... lol!)

[rvn4fun]

Yea well, I never built a web site before nor had I written any code before. So I bit off more than I could chew. that and the fact it was for our PC club in the RV park where we winter in AZ. And after we got there the fun started with all the changes that everyone recommended. So it was not a tradition web design process.

I have never been a slow learner. And designed broadband computer networks that connected 2000 or more sites statewide before I retired. So in spite of your implication of being learning disabled - I am not.

I am retired and travel full time in a large motor home and have 3 grand babies so I am busy and far from a dummy as you imply!

[jerryph]

...So in spite of your implication of being learning disabled - I am not.

...so I am busy and far from a dummy as you imply!

I never implied you were a dummy or mentally disabled, those that know me here know that I speak my mind and if I thought so, would have no issue outright saying so. I meant that as a professional website builder, taking 8 months for a website no matter how complex would normally be unacceptable to 99% of commercial clientele.

One would assume , though, that before undertaking any such project one would know what is involved or at least look into it to have a good idea, especially for a commercial endeavor, and know what was involved before starting. Whenever walking blind into a project is when one is often the most challenged, especially never having done one before.

I find it admirable that you undertook that project, likely knowing that you did not not initially have the skillset to do it, but did it anyways learning on the fly and I am sure that your client will be satisfied with the end result.

[neonmike]

rvn4fun, I suggest you talk to the admin and the higher ups a little more about this. I signed up for the course in in Jan of this year. I also printed out all of the lessons so that I could review them while in the field shooting.

As of Jan 09 there was no mention of any time limit on the enrollment. I don't know when they added it to the introduction of lesson one but as of Jan the section that talks about the enrollment fee didn't exsist.

I'm quite happy with this site and all the members I've spoken to. However I don't think it's fair that they toss a time limit into the mix and not tell anyone. Further more I'd like to know why the time limit is mentioned in one of the lessons instead of the front page. In order to gain access to the lessons, don't you have to pay first? I'm sorry but that's false advertising.

I understand the reasoning behind the time limit. But You need to state it up front. You can't make someone pay and then change the terms. Further more you can't try to get more money from someone who's already paid for the course before you put new charges in place.

I signed up for this course knowing that I am a somewhat slow learner and more importantly I am a very picky photographer. I want every one of my shots to be the best I can take before I submit them. I chose this course not because it was cheap but because it had no time limit. Had I known that I would have to pay again after a year, I wouldn't have bothered. I'm taking this course for me. Not because I'm required to. And sadly I don't come first these days.

Yes a year is a generous amount of time, and I hope to be long done with the course by the end of a year. But regardless the new time limit is something that should have benn brought up here, and all currently enrolled members should have been notified of it. They should also have been offered a refund in the event that they chose to opt out of the course as a result of the new time limit.

I suggest that PP move the time limit out of the lesson 1 introduction and onto the front page of the site. Then make sure that it applies only to the people who sign up after that date. Otherwise they leave themselves open to a lot of problems.

[rvn4fun]

Jerry, the operative word here is 'professional' and I knew I was not one, but being gullible I said how hard can this be. So, as a network guy I started from scratch introducing myself to html & css code which was Greek to me when I began. Struggled with hand coding until I bought Dreamweaver. I then had to learn that program and then I was able to complete the site. There was no client so to speak and no commercial aspect to the site, just a site serving 1700 residents of the RV park.

Charlie

[rvn4fun]

Mike, I share with you your feeling about this site. The one comment on a post in this thread about having to start over if you take too long completing is not accurate. I think that what is learned about aperture and shutter speed or ISO setting will stay with you once you absorb the concept. The initial lessons about equipment also should be retained. It is the compositional lessons and the later lessons that could be taken at any time with the basic technical concepts learned. I thought that I had a fair grasp of how to technically use the camera before I signed up for the course. It is the compositional aspect of photography that I was interested in gaining greater knowledge that prompted me to take this course. I liked the fact that in this course you submitted photos for evaluation rather than just having to read text and answer questions.

Good Luck with the course Mike

Charlie
Canon 30D, Canon Rebel XT, Kodak Z710, Olympus C3040Z
Canon lenses 18-50, 28-135, 100-300, speedlite

[ladyups]

I, for one, must be one of those slow learners cause I've been over a year and I'm only up to lesson 7. But, when I was inquiring about the course, I asked if I had a time limit and was told that I could take as much time as I needed. I really thought I could get it done but it didn't happen. Not only do I work a grueling, 10 hour day with UPS, I'm also a wife and have to fix supper, clean up, and maintain my home. I also have one of the prettiest yards in our town of 6000 and that requires a ton of work and I do 99% of that work myself. And this is not a small yard, we have 4 acres that my husband and I take care of. We also have 4 grandchildren that keep us hopping. Will I agree to pay for an extension? Yes, because I feel that it is important for me to finish but I wish I had known this in advance. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have signed up Now, I have all the time in the world to finish the course but can't do more than read about photography on my laptop. In Jan. I broke an ankle and injured a knee that required surgery. So, I'm confined to the couch and on crutches and photography is impossible. I would love to be able to get out there and shoot, but its not possible. :(

[jaydi]

Hi Mary sorry to hear of you being laid up thats a bummer! When are you going to be up and about again, its really frustrating I know but, you really need to rest up or you will have trouble with it forever....I know I was that soldier!!!! Chin up

[ladyups]

Thanks for the cheering up...its appreciated. I'm laid up for 7 more weeks and that is the sad part...its just now starting to get to good weather around here...except for today...its snowing! I'm following the doctors advice to the core cause I've got 3 more years before I can retire. We've had 3 drivers lose their job to knee injuries and I'm hoping it doesn't happen to me. The other drivers were never restricted to crutches for 8 weeks, so I'm hoping that is the therapy that will heal the knee completely. I've got my fingers crossed anyway!:)

[dkippen]

Mary - it's nice to see a familiar face. I'm sorry to hear about your ankle, take care and heal well!!!

[ladyups]

Hi Deb...I've been here but normally just read. Have you heard anything out of Sue? I'm really worried about her. The knee will heal....I'm sure! Thanks for the concern. Talk to any UPS driver, the knees and the ankles are the first to go...LOL...I'm starting to think I'm not paid well enough for this hazardous duty...:D

I miss Gary on here too...he is on another group and still emails me images of his birds. He kept the group entertained and I miss his banter.

I sure am glad my hubby gave me money for a laptop...life would have been pretty boring on this couch if I hadn't got it.
He gave me the money at Christmas but it too me till Feb. to decide on want I wanted..

[dkippen]

No - nothing from Sue. Please take care of that knee, DH has had knee problems and I'm sure its no picnic. I miss Gary as well - where is he at now?

I bet that laptop comes in pretty handy - we have a desktop and laptop and if I'm too lazy to go downstairs, I just fire up the laptop. Take your time learning and studying, you'll be ready for the summer. When do you start your countdown to retirement??

[ladyups]

No - nothing from Sue. Please take care of that knee, DH has had knee problems and I'm sure its no picnic. I miss Gary as well - where is he at now?

I bet that laptop comes in pretty handy - we have a desktop and laptop and if I'm too lazy to go downstairs, I just fire up the laptop. Take your time learning and studying, you'll be ready for the summer. When do you start your countdown to retirement??

He is on some photography forum but I can't remember the name. He sent me the link to it but I have enough trouble keeping up on this one. I don't need to check any more.
The count down starts in less than 3 years. I was going to go next January but my 401k took one hell of a hit so I'm trying to last till January 2012. I've got my fingers crossed that the big man in the white house fixes the economy by then.
I stepped out of my package car right on a crack and went down fast and hard! Broke the left ankle and my damaged the weight bearing cartridge on the inside of my right knee. Up till then, I was healthy as a horse. Needless to say, my job performance is going to be a LOT slower when I do go back to work. No more jumping in and out of the truck and running across the yards.

[dkippen]

I unfortunately know what it's like to break an ankle. I broke mine slipping on a patch of ice quite a few years ago, had screws and a plate put in and they were taken out 6 months later. Sounds like yours is a lot more painful. As I said, make sure you take care of yourself.

And I know about the 401 - who hasn't taken a hit??

[neonmike]

I'd like to hear from the admin about when this time limit took effect. As I stated, I signed up for the course in Jan of this year and as of that date there was no time limit. Anyone who signed up prior to the date the time limit went into effect should be grandfathered or presented the option of a refund. And anyone who's signed up before the time limit is put on the front page of the site should as well.

False advertising can be the down fall of a lot of companies. I'd hate to see this site go down because the people running it can't be upfront and honest with their customers.

I love the site and everyone here. But the new time limit really has me and a lot of other frustrated.

[admin]

Hi Mike and others,

I run this website and those who know me or have been with us for some time would know that dishonesty is not in my book under any conditions. I always discuss the issues with our community and try to be as fair and helpful to everyone as possible. But at the same time I agree that the introduction of the enrollment fee has not been very transparent and I'm sorry about that. It has caused some confusion that needs to be addressed.

The introduction of the fee was driven purely by the growing number of students who, while being inactive in the course, demand answers to the course unrelated questions or even feedbacks to photos not associated with the course. We love helping people and do so every time we can. But in order to be fair to all students and tutors, we are unfortunately have to do something about it before it becomes unmanageable. Some will remember my poll from last year when I asked the community about creating a paid section in the forums that would cover questions not discussed in the course or anything photography related, led by PP photographers. That was also an attempt to create a space for answering such questions and not create an unnecessary pressure on the course tutors who spend increasing amounts of time addressing those questions instead of helping students with the course. So those were the genuine reasons behind the introduction of an enrollment fee in January this year. Please understand that the course always was and will be time unlimited. What will need to change is the fee structure or how the enrollments work. I apologize for the confusion it has caused, I agree it should have been managed in a more appropriate way.

Because of all that I decided to give enough free enrollment time for ALL our students enrolled up to date: 4 years. I believe now no one can argue; this is an extremely generous amount of time to complete a beginners course without any pressure. Later this week or early next week new terms and conditions will be published and will only affect new students enrolled from then onwards. Fair and simple.

The only limitation will be a degree to which we can provide personal support for non-course related questions. Queries related to the course will be answered promptly and professionally in the same manner you're used to. No changes there, naturally. But we have the right to limit the level of support for the non-course related queries. Now there is a room for speculation about what is and isn't course related. This is something our tutors will assess on individual basis and more often than not all your questions will be answered. This measure is there to give us some control over a small but slowly increasing number of people who, as I said before, want to get cheap personal photography adviser for life without any effort to learn or complete the course. I hope this finally sheds some light into this and makes all involved happy.

[pipedesign]

I am seriosly considering this course but would like this issue defined first. I have sent in a question to the 'contact us' link but maybe some senior member who knows the site moderators or whatever could get n official answer posted somewhere?

John

[prochman]

So those of us currently enrolled.. we have 4 years from the time we signed up?