Dive Summary:

• The Saylor Foundation is nearing completion of a suite of free online courses in a dozen undergraduate majors and, in the interest of offering a path to college credit for these offerings, is partnering with regionally-accredited Excelsior College and the non-accredited StraighterLine.
• Each of Saylor's self-paced and automated courses (240 of which are currently available online) undergo a "rigorous" three-member peer review by the foundation's contracted faculty members.
• Excelsior--a regionally-accredited, private, non-profit college--offers inexpensive online degree programs while StraighterLine--a non-accredited, for-profit company--offers inexpensive courses that come with credit recommendations from the American Council on Education, but not actual college credits.

From the article:

The Saylor Foundation has nearly finished creating a full suite of free, online courses in a dozen popular undergraduate majors. And the foundation is now offering a path to college credit for its offerings by partnering with two nontraditional players in higher education - Excelsior College and StraighterLine. The project began three years ago, when the foundation began hiring faculty members on a contract basis to build courses within their subject areas. The professors scoured the web for free Open Education Resources (OER), but also created video lectures and tests. "I was able to dev...