FAQ

We have made the first lesson of each course available for free for you to preview and enjoy. There is a fee to take courses for credit, as well as for other audit courses. See below for more details on course pricing. Credit courses also have required textbooks which must be purchased separately.

Students who take courses for credit may work toward a Bachelor of Biblical Studies from Sunset International Bible Institute. This is the same degree awarded to graduates of our Residential Studies division at our main campus in Lubbock, Texas. No credit is awarded for auditing a course, so no certificate is available to audit students.

Sunset International Bible Institute (SIBI) is a Bible and ministry training institute founded in 1962. Based in Lubbock, Texas, SIBI has trained thousands of individuals over the last 48 years through its residential campus in Lubbock, its branch and satellite schools worldwide, and its extensive correspondence learning program. To learn more about SIBI, please visit www.sibi.cc.

Please visit the course enrollment and information page for more detailed information.

When you audit a course on Sunset Online, it is much like auditing a course in a classroom setting. You can watch the teacher and listen to the lessons, but you don't have to do any assignments or take tests. When you enroll in an audit course on Sunset Online, you get full access to all of the lessons in the course. Each of which consists of the following:

• Streaming video of the instructor teaching
• Streaming audio of the instructor teaching (an alternative to streaming video for those with slower computers or internet connections)
• An online study guide (a text outline of important lesson points)

Audit courses are designed for those who want to learn and grow but do not want to pursue credit for their learning. There are no assignments, tests, or other requirements in audit courses.

Taking a course at the certificate level allows the student to be challenged beyond the audit level of study. Students must complete all courses in the certificate level to receive a certificate of completion. Certificate courses cannot be transferred into credit courses.

• Streaming video of the instructor teaching
• An online study guide to follow along, answer questions and study for exams
• Assessments are based on memory work and exams (from the study guide questions)

Taking a course as a credit student allows you to receive full SIBI credit for your accomplishment. The requirements for credit courses are detailed on each course's "Credit Requirements" page but generally include most or all of the following:

• Watching or listening to the lessons online
• Reading of textbooks
• Assigned readings from the Bible
• Memory work (Bible verses that must be memorized)
• Evaluation Papers and Research Papers
• Exams - each course includes a Midterm Exam and a Final Exam

What is the cost of courses at Sunset Online, and what is included?

The first lesson of each of our courses is offered free of charge for your preview. Complete audit courses are $25 each. Audit courses include full streaming video and audio for each lesson and an online study outline. Certificate courses are $50 per course. Credit courses are each 3-credit hours for a course fee of $135. This includes the same streaming video and audio as the audit courses.

Credit courses also include:

• Course requirements must be completed to pass the course (see the question above for detail).
• Grading of assignments by SunsetOnline staff.
• A grade book to keep track of your grades in the course. 
  

Most importantly, every credit course you pass earns you credit on your transcript at SIBI.

Note: Tuition prices for our audit and credit courses are subject to change without notice at our discretion.

Note: Any required textbooks for-credit courses are not included in the price. Your textbooks must be purchased separately. The "Credit Requirements" page for each course lists the required textbook(s) for the course, along with links to purchase them online from extensionschool.com (the online bookstore for sunsetonline.org).

When you enroll in a course, you are given access to the course for seven months, regardless of how many lessons exist in the course. Extensions are granted on a case-by-case basis, and if you are actively working on completing course assignments.

The combination of enrollment durations and prices (listed above) for our courses is a good value compared to other higher-level online courses available. However, there may be certain circumstances in which a student who has enrolled in a course might want to ask for an extension of that enrollment as it nears its expiration. Such requests are handled on a case-by-case basis and should be submitted by contacting the Sunset Online Student Office and stating the particulars of your situation.

Yes. Scholarships are available for prospective students who otherwise are not financially able to take credit courses online, especially those outside the United States. These scholarships are available for credit enrollments only, not for audit.

To learn more about scholarships and to see the application forms, please see the Sunset Online Scholarship Info page.

Yes, the online Bachelor of Biblical Studies degree application is now available for you to fill out.  We would encourage you to go ahead and fill it out now and begin your studies. Your application will be approved upon review. The classes you take for credit until approval count towards your online degree. All degree students must apply: Sunset Online Student Application

If you have spam filtering on your email account, please ensure that you receive emails from sunsetonline.org. Otherwise, you may not receive the confirmation email that was sent when you registered. We have experienced this problem with several AOL email addresses. First, check your email reader's junk/bulk mail folder. Most email readers (including Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, and Thunderbird) have junk mail filtering that can sometimes filter out your account confirmation email. Look for an email in your junk/bulk mail folder with the subject "SunsetOnline.org: account confirmation". We have experienced some email providers who refuse to deliver our messages. Contact Sunset Online technical support immediately so that we can confirm with you before your initial registration expires.

If you still can't find the confirmation email, it is possible that you had a typo in your email address when registering, and it never got to your email in the first place. Contact Sunset Online technical support and include the following: your name, your email address, and the date that you attempted to register on the site.

Resetting your password is a process that can be done in less than two minutes:

1. Go to the Forgotten Password page and enter your email address. This must be the same email address you used when you created your account on Sunset Online and must be an email address that you still have access to. Click the "OK" button.
2. The page will reload and confirm that an email has been sent to your email address with a link that you must click. Check your email and look for an email with the subject, "SunsetOnline.org: change password confirmation". Click the confirmation link within that email to confirm that you want to reset your password.
3. Clicking the link in the previous step will bring you to a page confirming that a second email has been sent to you containing a new, auto-generated password. Recheck your email and look for an email with the subject, "SunsetOnline.org: Changed password". In the email, you will find your username as well as your new, auto-generated password.

If you are content with the new, auto-generated password that was emailed to you in step 3, then you are done. You may not log in to the site using that password. However, you may prefer to change the password to something of your choosing that you'll have an easier time remembering. In that case, go to the Change Password page and enter the following in the fields on that page:

• Username - your username, as included in the email from step 3 above.
• Password - your current password, which is the auto-generated one that was emailed to you in step 3 above.
• New password (twice) - type a new password of your choosing that you would like to change to.

Most lessons are between 25 and 30 minutes in length (same for video and audio). Of the hundreds of lessons we are making available from our various courses, only a handful are longer or shorter than this, and only be a few minutes at the most.

The video and audio versions of each lesson are identical in content and length. You can think of the audio version as simply being the video version without the picture. The audio version of the lesson is much easier to use on slower internet connections and slower computers. If you are on a dial-up internet connection, or if you are otherwise having trouble watching the video, you should probably choose the audio lessons.

If you are having technical difficulties trying to take a course, please consult the questions in the Troubleshooting section of this page. If your problem is not addressed there, or if you're still having the problem after trying the solutions offered there, please contact the webmaster.

In the top right part of the outline are 2 buttons, the first is to print and the second will make it full screen. This will open a new window with just the outline. You cannot print using the normal print command in your browser.

Taking a Level 2 class means you are taking a class at a level between full credit and audit. It has limited reading, papers, and other requirements. We do not offer our courses at Level 2.

As a student, you will receive access to the Student Portal that provides expectations on how to properly format your papers.  SIBI uses MLA format and examples are provided in each course.  A secondary guide is found in this excerpt from the Satellite School Handbook for details on writing papers, although use the MLA Style Summary found in each course as your main guide.

No, the questions in the Study Guide are for the benefit of the student and do not need to be turned in, and do not count toward your grade.

Most computers manufactured in the last ten years should work fine with sunsetonline.org. 

Sunset Online has been designed to work as well as possible with a wide variety of computers. There are very good chances that you won't have to download anything at all to use the site. The following are all that is needed:

If you see the words "JavaScript is enabled" in the box below, you have JavaScript enabled.

No, those programs are not used at all on sunsetonline.org. All video and audio playback is handled by HTML5. The latest versions of browsers, including those on tablets should be able to access the content in the lessons.

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A "cookie" is a small, harmless file that a website (such as sunsetonline.org) stores on your computer while you are visiting the site. It makes it possible for you to log in to a site such as sunsetonline.org and stay logged in throughout your visit.

To enable cookies, simply visit this page and follow the simple instructions for the web browser you are using.

JavaScript is a feature offered by all modern web browsers, but occasionally users have it disabled. JavaScript is required for you to be able to view the lessons on sunsetonline.org, and for-credit students to be able to turn in assignments and take exams.

To enable JavaScript, simply visit this page and follow the simple instructions for the web browser you are using.

This most likely means you do not have Flash Player Version 8 or higher installed or you are using an older browser without HTML5 video support.

This seems to occur frequently the first time you try to access a video lesson after installing Flash Player, especially in Internet Explorer. Please try closing your browser, then starting it again. Come back to sunsetonline.org and try the video lesson again. Most of the time it will work after closing and restarting your browser in this way.

This is probably due to normal congestion on the internet, and can usually be remedied by simply reloading the page. Try clicking your browser's "Reload" or "Refresh" button. You will see it get to the "Connecting..." message again, but normally after a few seconds, the video player will appear.

If the problem is still occurring after several page refreshes, it is possible that your internet connection is simply not fast enough to handle the streaming video. Bear in mind that we offer a streaming audio version of each lesson for users with dial-up internet connections or types of connections that are slower or less reliable. It is also a possibility that our video server is having problems as well. If you believe this to be the case, please contact Sunset Online technical support.

This kind of playback indicates one or both of the following:

1. Your internet connection is too slow for the streaming video.
2. Your computer is too slow for streaming video.

In this situation, you will be best off listening to the streaming audio version of each lesson rather than attempting to play the streaming video version.

If you are seeing the picture on a video lesson but not hearing any sound, you probably simply need to turn up your speaker volume. Make sure your speakers are turned on and try turning up the volume on them. If you still can't hear after turning them up, try double-clicking the speaker icon next to the clock in the lower right-hand corner of your screen (if you are on a Windows machine) and make sure the volume slider is turned up and the "Mute" box is not checked. Finally, there is a small volume slider on the right-hand side of the video player itself on sunsetonline.org; try sliding it all the way to the right.

This most likely means that you do not have Flash Player Version 8 or higher installed or you are using an older browser without HTML5 video support.

This means the audio player is busy trying to establish a connection to the streaming audio you are trying to listen to. If it does not begin playing within a minute or so, try using the "Refresh" or "Reload" page in your browser to reload the page. If it still does not work after multiple reloads, it could mean either of the following:

1. You might have an old version of Flash Player installed. Use the instructions here to check your version and update it if needed.
2. It might simply mean that there are problems due to congestion on the streaming media server or your own internet connection. In this case, the problem will likely go away by the next time you try to access the site.

This is probably caused by some popup-blocking software installed on your computer, or built into your browser. We have particularly seen this occur with the popup blocking in Google Toolbar (a free browser add-on from Google).

If you are having this problem, you will need to configure your popup blocker to allow popups from sunsetonline.org. This is done by adding sunsetonline.org to what is called a "whitelist" in your popup blocker software. For instructions on how to do this with Google Toolbar, click here.