Mobile ed and L7 Platinum
Most product pages of Mobile ed have had the following paragraphs:
"With any Logos library base package, you will be able to view the lectures and interact with the transcripts. For the best learning experience, we recommend you use Logos Platinum.
- Readings for the courses are often tailored to Platinum because the larger library provides access to a wide range of suggested resources and increases search results for further study.
- The Platinum collection best matches the resources used in screencasts. It includes a breadth of commentaries, original-language studies, and over 1,400 resources to deepen your study."
The link now goes to L7 platinum. Before the launch of L7 this lead me to suspect there would be smaller changes from L6 package contents than there were earlier. Now of course L7 has been introduced and the changes have been substantial. (L6 package contents) Does this mean large parts of the readings will be unavailable if I buy L7 Platinum now? Will the readings be changed or supplemented for existing courses?
For example for NT221 there are a total of 359 suggested readings. Out of these, as far as I can see, 325 will not be accessible through L7 platinum. (27 of the accessible readings are from LBD and FSB). This also seems to be true for NT211 which is included in many L7 base packages.
To me the best option would seem to be including new readings along with the old ones. Another option would be offering the linked books at a substantial discount. This would of course have to be made clear at product pages. As I am now considering which L7 package I should go for and this is an important issue to me.
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There are two categories of readings in Mobile Ed courses. For the Suggested Reading section we draw primarily from resources found in Platinum, but for the See Also section we link to any relevant resources whether or not they are included in any base packages. These two categories allow us to provide a baseline of resources that will be utilized by courses across our catalog while also making sure we use the most helpful and relevant resources for a particular course regardless of whether or not it is included in any base packages.
The specific resources included in our base packages changes with each new release. We don't have any plans to go back and re-do all the links for courses that were produced before Logos 7 (or Logos 6). Some customers may have purchased resources used in those courses, and we wouldn't want to make them feel like they had to go back and purchase new resources to keep their course current. Also, if you purchase Logos 7 Platinum, you won't lose any resources that you own from buying a previous base package. None of the readings that you currently have access to will become unavailable.
For every course we include a list of the specific resources it links to including how many times each resource is used. These can be found in the "Documents" tab of each course's Faithlife group (i.e. https://faithlife.com/nt221/documents). Reviewing that list can help you decide if there are any specific resources you want to purchase for a specific course.
Looking over the list for NT221, I'm not sure that your numbers are correct. The Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible is still included in L7 Platinum, and it's used 38 times in the course. I didn't check all the resources, but 267 of the 359 Suggested Readings come from 8 resources (one of which is BEB). If someone owns just the NAC and Black's NT commentary series (both of which were included in Logos 6 Gold or above) they will have access to over half of the NT221 Suggested Readings.
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Thank you for your quick reply. Not the one I was hoping for, but understandable. I still wish you could at least bundle resources and sell them with a heavy discount, or rather add new readings. For me this decision is doing several things.
- It reduces the value of individual Mobile ed courses and makes me less likely to buy them
- It reduces the value of Logos base packages which has it's inclusion of Mobile Ed as one of it's strong points IMO.
- It reduces the value of Logos Now.
- It makes me far less likely to buy Platinum.
I do as you probably understand own NT221, but not L6 platinum (although I own some resources.) And working on the course this has been annoying. I considered upgrading, but I only started working on this course late in the L6 cycle so I decided to wait it out.
I do understand changing the readings is not an option, that would be worse than not doing anything. What I wanted was for you to add readings that are presently being included in Platinum.
For example:
Suggested Reading
Commentary on John 1:19–28 NAC:J111 OR John 1:19-28 (from whatever resource)Looking over the list for NT221, I'm not sure that your numbers are correct. The Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible is still included in L7 Platinum, and it's used 38 times in the course. I didn't check all the resources, but 267 of the 359 Suggested Readings come from 8 resources (one of which is BEB). If someone owns just the NAC and Black's NT commentary series (both of which were included in Logos 6 Gold or above) they will have access to over half of the NT221 Suggested Readings.
Sorry about that miss on my part. BEB has the third most readings, so this was a big miss. Still, I believe my point is valid. After a quick check it seems like those 8 resources but it looks would be around 150$. It raises the cost of the already pricey Mobile ed course by around 1/3 and 1/4. (Of course, you get to keep the books so you get somewhat more out ifit). For many, me included, it wouldn't be this bad because of owning some of these resources. I also got the course for a lot less than it currently sells for, but the point I'm trying to make is more general.
This tread making a similar point. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/129711.aspx
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As much has been going on with the launch of L7 I understand that this hasn't been done yet, but I really hope you remove the reference to Platinum altogether. As far as I can see it has been made vaguer than it was ("often tailored"). Still, for courses with a similar amount of readings available as in NT221 this is simply misleading. I do understand this is a general recommendation, but it's found on a specific page where it is not applicable.
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I just upgraded to Logos 7 Silvef and I have close to 2600 titles collected over the last 15 years or more. I have begun the NT221 to see what is in it and often I get the message that I don't have a particular book that is linked to. On a few occasions the book in question cannot be purchased seaparely but only as part of a package. That likely isn't going to happen. I also hate to purchase commentaries or historical books that I have something similar to. I was hoping that the Mobile courses would include the snippets from books they link to since who wants to purchase an expensive volume for a page or so? As much as I enjoy this concept, if all of the material included in a class were put into a single book, I doubt many would spend the hundreds of dollars the courses go for. The videos are not lenghty and the teacher's script is included and can be read easily.
Just my 2 cents.
Don
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Adding to the readings of the courses included in the base packages should be a given, hope this is coming soon.
One question to the Faithlife team: What with courses that are launched from now on. Will they include readings included in L7 Platinum or have you decided to move away from this principle all together?
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We will continue to use Platinum for one of the categories of Mobile Ed readings. It's helpful for customers who own multiple courses to have this as a base line (even though it changes when a new version of our base packages is released). Unfortunately, we don't have any plans to update the readings for older courses when this happens. With over 130 courses shipped already and more coming out all the time, it would be a large undertaking to have to add new readings for all those courses. Plus when we add more readings it becomes more likely that people will come across resources they don't own and feel like they have to spend even more money to get all the readings in a course (not everyone upgrades to the latest Platinum package right away).
We do try to update readings when a resource we used in a course becomes unavailable. This happens most often when a publisher releases an updated version of a book. A couple examples would be Millard Erickson's Christian Theology, which updated to a 3rd edition, and Goheen/Bartholomew's The Drama of Scripture, which updated to a 2nd edition. Since we no longer sell the 2nd and 1st editions of those books, we updated several courses that used them frequently.
Most of the resources we provide links to are owned by other publishers. That means we don't have the ability to provide specific sections of them to people who don't own them. It also limits our ability to package them together at a discount. We have worked on bundling resources together for our Certificate Programs.
Thanks for your comments on this topic. I hope that not owning all the resources from the readings doesn't negatively impact your enjoyment of NT221. Let me know if you have more questions or concerns.
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I understand your problem and agree with your decision. But there is still a real problem when a student discovers they have no readings for a section of interest to them. Could a community generated supplemental reading area be developed where users could provide links to other resources?
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Could a community generated supplemental reading area be developed where users could provide links to other resources?
You could certainly add Community Notes to the Explore section with links to additional suggested readings. They wouldn't get integrated into the Courses Tool, but they would be available to anyone who joins each course's Faithlife group.
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Except,for the link cited here, there is no documents tab available0
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The availability of books is an issue, I was considering purchasing
Between the Testaments Bundle
but the is no list so I can't evaluate if I have any of the books - as much as i would live to have platinum even gold is not an option.
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The reading lists for the courses in the Between the Testaments Bundle can be found here:
It looks like the most frequently used books are deSilva's Introducing the Apocrypha, Charles' Apocrypha of the Old Testament, The Lexham Bible Dictionary, and The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Revised Edition).
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First of all Miles, thank you for writing so clearly about your policies on this issue. Although I wish the answers were different, it makes it easier to make informed buying decisions.
I do understand changing the readings would involve a big effort on your part, but still, the Mobile Ed readings were a very easy issue to grasp. And witht he price tag of Mobile Ed I do feel it warrants some extra work on your part. (Strange, but as a user this is often how I feel [:)]) As a first step it would be great if you could make the readings more easily available from the product pages. Now you need to go to Faithlife.com, search for the appropriate group, join, press the documents tab open the appropriate documents, and compare it with your library to see if you have the readings. not exactly a streamlined and intuitive process.
To me, a lot of the beauty of Mobile ed was the simplicity of it. Someone has gathered links to good resources on a subject and these resources are easily available, and there is the, mainly, excellent video introduction to the subject. While I did not have the chance to buy into this in the L6 era I hoped to take advantage of it later. This chance is now gone for all existing courses.
Plus when we add more readings it becomes more likely that people will come across resources they don't own and feel like they have to spend even more money to get all the readings in a course (not everyone upgrades to the latest Platinum package right away).
I do understand that having x or y readings would make things more complex. But wouldn't the increased likelihood of owning one of the resources by far outweigh the negative feeling of not owning all of them. If the course had x or y and i owned y but not x I would read y without thinking too much about what I was missing. If only x is a suggested reading though, that is what decreases the value of a course.
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As a first step it would be great if you could make the readings more easily available from the product pages. Now you need to go to Faithlife.com, search for the appropriate group, join, press the documents tab open the appropriate documents, and compare it with your library to see if you have the readings. not exactly a streamlined and intuitive process.
Those document links Miles gave are coded by course number. On the reasonable assumption that there are equivalently-coded documents for all Mobile Ed courses, it should be simple enough for someone to go through the MEd course product pages and add the direct links. And if the privacy level on the actual documents were to be lowered so that people who aren't followers of the group can see them anyway, problem solved.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Those document links Miles gave are coded by course number. On the reasonable assumption that there are equivalently-coded documents for all Mobile Ed courses, it should be simple enough for someone to go through the MEd course product pages and add the direct links. And if the privacy level on the actual documents were to be lowered so that people who aren't followers of the group can see them anyway, problem solved.
Thanks! That seems to be the case and is actually very helpful to know, even now.
What you suggest would be far more helpful than the current implementation, but it would be even better if you could clearly see what you owned or not, kinda like the way collection pages currently work with the 8 tipped star for unowned resources. The challenge for faithlife would be to make it clear that these resources are not included, maybe this is the reason they don't do it this way already.
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There is a work around that will be convenient for the students probably not so good for Logos staff or accounts but it may move the issue up the priority list.
If you buy the Mobile Ed course and then open it in the courses tool the books you own are clearly identified ....you are also able to check online link to evaluate the "locked books" you don't own.
If it looks like there is to much that is not accessable or affordable then return the course to Logos before the trial time (30 days I think) and get a refund.
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