ALEKS Quick Facts

ALEKS is an on-line learning and math assessment system that the UTSA Math department uses to assess math knowledge and math course placement.  Math course placement in the ALEKS system is assessed based on mastery of math content as determined by performance on the initial assessment in ALEKS taken by the student at home and then through the student’s progress and mastery of content by working through learning modules in the ALEKS math system.  ALEKS math begins upon log-in with an assessment which should take most students 90 minutes to two hours to complete.  Students do not receive any credit for the assessment.  Credit is received only for achieving mastery in content modules through working problems in the modules over the course of time.

Upon completion of the initial assessment, the ALEKS system will then determine how many learning modules are needed based on the student performance.  Students are expected to continue working in the ALEKS system until they achieve their desired content mastery and thus course placement.  There is no time limit given for working in the learning modules however each individual attempt ends 24 hours after start of a module.  All students must work in the learning modules no matter what score is achieved in their initial assessment in order for the student system to recognize the student’s mastery placement scores from ALEKS.

Students should expect to work in the modules daily in order to grow in knowledge and acquire the mastery levels for desired courses. On average, prior students placing into MAT 1214 (Calculus) worked anywhere from 20-22 hours in the ALEKS learning modules to achieve their desired course placement.  Individual results may vary but the goal is knowledge mastery and correct course placement.  No outside aids should be used when testing or working in modules except a non-graphing four function calculator unless the ALEKS program deploys a calculator.

Note:  There is a $40.00 fee which will be included in your UTSA tuition and fees bill for use of the ALEKS math system.  The fee covers access to the ALEKS system for up to one year in the learning modules and an administrative fee to UTSA.

Mastery of content will be displayed on individual, student dashboards and downloaded once, every business day (Monday – Friday) into the student system.  If a student improves mastery of content percentages on Friday at midnight the new mastery percentages will not be available until approximately 3:30 pm the following Monday in the student system at UTSA for advising and registration purposes.