We are still in the beginning stages of our creation. I would think that etiquette and plagarism would be serious business. I would hope that we are all professionals and an act like it. Simple direct statements like; use clear, concise, and professional messages when responding to others; or document your research and your work when completing assignments so as not to confuse someone else's work as your own.
Dimitria,
This isn't substantive, but I LOVE your posts. Your online personality shines through. Thank you for taking the time to contribute.
Linda
Dimitria,
This isn't substantive, but I LOVE your posts. Your online personality shines through. Thank you for taking the time to contribute.
These are great ideas! Thank you.
Thank you, Sabina. I have never heard of the three sentence policy. To make it easier on yourself, maybe you can make a rubric. When I give feedback on an assignment/paper, I show the student where they fall in the rubric, then add a couple of personal comments regarding the information presented in their paper.
That policy is very important, Jan. We emphasis the posts must be substantive in nature. As an instructor, I look for critical thinking, and not just what I call the Family Feud reply, "Good answer, Good answer."
At a previous institution that I worked with, we did have to keep office hours. Students could "talk" to their instructors using a online instant messaging at pre-schedule times/days of the week.
Students must participate in class, giving substantial responses on the discussion board. Faculty are also expected to particpate substantially throughout the week. We must keep the students engaged throughout the course.
Online education has come such a long way in the past few years, with pre-taped lectures, the use of podcasts, and other methods of synchronous education.
We are not presently hosting online classes in our state. In other markets, online instructors must attend rigorus training before they can host a class.
We have minimized the left hand navigational tool bar so that the student does not feel disoriented. We have set the limit at 8. We also have set all quizzes to be either M/C or T/F. All points in each course have to add up to 1000. We have built links to the dropbox for grading on each page that has an assignment. We have done this for positive flow for the student and to create a relaxing learning environment.
Although I do not work for an institution, a policy that must be considered prior to initiation of an online course or program is a refund policy regarding withdrawals. Example: with residential (on ground) programs or courses, refunds are normally determined by the completion of clock hours to determine what percentage of the term or course has been completed. With distance learning the portion completed is via lessons completed instead of clock hours. Faculty should determine the equivalency of clock hours to lessons completed, and the school should have this policy (which could become a procedure) in place prior to initiating the course or program.
An important policy that could be influenced by federal and state refund regulations has to do with refund policy for portions of a program that a student completes so that he/she is given the proper refund upon withdrawing. Although this is a negative issue, it should be addressed because it will come up.
Faculty input could be used to determine how many clock hours of residential instruction will constitute the equivalent of a lesson for the online instruction. This must be determined beforehand. I know of a school that did not establish this policy, and when it came time to refund via a portion of online instruction, they had no policy to fall back on.
Our institution has dabbled in a few online courses and I am fairly new to the organization but I am not sure who created the policies. After reading through this section I can see the importance of making sure we have solid policies and procedures in place especially as the program grows. We are having a faculty meeting later this week and I look forward to discussing several of the issues mentioned.
Before students submit their work, they have to submit it to an online writing lab. They need to make the revisions before the instructor issues the final grade.
One of the new policies that has had to be implemented both from an academic perspective and to be compliant with the Higher Education Act of 2009 is one of student authentication or verifying that the student enrolled is actually the student taking the course. While this is very easy in a resident school where a student physically attends class every day, it is much more difficult with students online. We have had to develop student identifiers for various portions of the online program in order to maintain compliance in this area.
When I was a Distance Ed student this was a requirement. I feel that it is still a valid approach to the question of accountability within our students.
Awesome- I may need to implement this.
Awesome. THis was one of my concerns when starting to look into distance ed for my school. I know how useful forums can be when the discussions are on-topic, and know that I will have to do the same with some of the instructors that are already in place.
Hi, Melissa,
I really like your ideas about taking advantage of hybrid courses "in class" time by using quizzes and polls. I also think it is great to have students hear lectures BEFORE they read the material.
Another "activate prior knowledge" ploy is to have students take a stab at end-of-chapter questions BEFORE they read the chapter. In this way new material can seem like an old friend, or at least something students can recognize concepts within (sorry to end with a preposition.)
Some policies we have instituted are to present quizzes and polls within the lecture time. Also making the lecture more about the coming weeks assignments rather than what the student will be reading about in their assignment.
Some of the policies at my institution for the delivery of online courses are:
1.) There must be an online library that students can access for research
2.) The online library must be accessible for students who are taking on-ground courses as well.
3.) Usage of the learning resources must be tracked
4.) There has to be at least 1 person on the advisory board who has experience using online resources and instruction
