WileyPLUS Reviews

Summary: Big fail. Wiley Plus is a cheap repackaging of Webwork built as a cash grab to a captive market, and it doesn’t even help people learn. I cannot overstate the amount of useless hours I’ve spent with this software.

Positive: The login usually works. Math solutions, when entered, will usually accepts equivalents (ie non-simplified fractions, existing/non-existing commas. However, note this is NOT true for decimals).

The numbers on math problems are randomized, which seems nice from an instructor perspective. It does make it almost impossible for the poor TAs to efficiently help students and more difficult for students to understand a process (when using as a study guide), but I feel this is more a attributable to the fact that WileyPLUS provides no feedback on the incorrect portions of an answer or explanations on how to solve.

There are no ads on the website.

Negative: Price: D
Very expensive, about $100 per class per quarter. This adds up quickly over four years, three (or four) quarters per year, and 3-6 classes per quarter. I weep for our financial aid students:

Textbook: C+
Textbook is difficult to use (arbitrarily chunked into sections, no scrolling, filled with annoying video links, can’t copy-paste for note-taking), and a wonder of bad design practice (forced to click through multiple submenus to reach related information, zero useful summaries, rambling and often inaccurate examples that only address 1/4 of the topic/problem covered, no ability to try practice problems or even print out practice quizzes). I REALLY prefer a good old fashioned pdf with a definition, explanation, and two fully solved examples over the mess that is the Wiley plus textbook; It’s so difficult to change chapters and find the info you’re looking for that I usually just gave up.

Homework Tool: F-
As a homework submission tool, it’s TERRIBLE. A large portion of HW is to help students learn/integrate info through repetition (Instructure’s learning mastery tool does this well, namely by providing feedback and, upon failure, explanation of how to solve a problem) , and Wiley plus does none of this, nor does it work well as a knowledge check. The most it can do is work as a test of how good students are at googling solutions.

Integration: D-
My school integrates WileyPlus into their Canvas systems, which sounds great in theory but sucks in reality. Upon clicking the Wiley Plus link, your student Canvas app becomes a blue colored duplicate of the Canvas system. You can now access your Wiley Plus assignments… by clicking on the in-app assignment, which will open and in app browser window, which will open a pop-up, which opens another in-app browser window, which allows you to access your assignment. Now, you’d think the positive to this integration would be that WileyPlus Assignments will now show up inside the Canvas assignment tab, wouldn’t you. Tough luck. Due dates are hidden, there’s no notification when anything is assigned/a deadline is approaching, and to switch ‘between’ your WileyPlus and Canvas assignments you’re forced to log out and log back in of the SAME app and click through multiple menu pages, again. Big failure on the frontend and backend sides.

Summary: Overpriced, poorly made, and a pain to deal with whether you're a student or a teacher. Moreover, these companies have really killed off a lot of the resell value of their own products too, making students lose tons of money with ever increasing prices (both for physical and digital copies), and having no way to recoup that. It's gross, especially as the academic quality decreases and even becomes questionable at times. They are one of the better ones with making etextbooks, so there is that, but their etexts, like their physical books, are way overpriced for what you're getting. I'd rather a student use an older physical textbook and make up homework for them myself than use these. You'll save your students some money, you'll likely get better quality, and less time wasted after hours having the work through a problem they already get but can sort out why the homework software won't accept it.

Positive: The etextbooks are alright. They are better done than the ones some of the other big textbook companies format, so I'll give them that as a positive.

Negative: Another textbook company that's directly contributed to the absurd prices they've gotten to that produces very poor quality material. Using their homework system is a pain for students, as it's, like the other big giants, poorly designed and overly specific in a way that's not intuitive to anyone but whatever programmers made it. This then makes for a headache for the teacher, having to guide students through problems they definitely know how to do, but not how to get the Wiley software to accept their obviously correct answer. You'll also find problems where the answers are just plain wrong.