What is a web course and is it right for me?

Computers have fundamentally altered our lives in many ways.  A growing new trend over the past decade involves taking college courses via the Internet.  During the 1998-1999 school year 26,695 North Carolina students were enrolled in distance learning courses; the number has exponentially jumped to a staggering 427,018 students for the 2007-2008 academic year!

There are no official prerequisites for most online courses, but there are some important considerations each student must make.  The online method of delivery is different from the classroom environment in several ways.

In bricks and mortar classrooms the student has the opportunity to interact with the instructor, ask questions, and rely on him or her to expand upon and explain the course material.  Instructors in online courses remain a valuable resource, but the daily instruction in the classroom is absent and the online student in responsible for being proactive in his or her learning.

Online students must be self-disciplined in order to be successful.  Effective time management and organizational skills are essential in order for students to excel.  There is no official class meeting time for online courses, so it is easy for students to postpone their work until a later time.  This can quickly become problematic for the online student.  There is a great deal of Internet research and reading required in most online courses.  Both can be very time consuming.  Often the amount of time required for coursework is not known and may take the student longer to complete the assignment than initially anticipated.  Procrastination may creep in and over a period of time and the coursework required may seem an insurmountable task.  Sometimes a student may become so overwhelmed that he or she may not submit the required work.  In some cases the student may either withdraw from the course or receive a failing grade.

Critical Reading

A characteristic of online course delivery is the amount of reading required.  Students enrolled in online courses must keep up with reading assignments and comprehend what they read.  Also, students must have certain basic computer and Internet skills in order to do well in online courses. 

Students should be familiar with the following:

• Experience with e-mail and how to attach documents.
• Using search engines.
• Understanding URLs and web addresses.
• Bookmarking pages.
• Saving web pages.
• Familiarity with netiquette, emoticons, and abbreviations.
• Reading large amounts of text on screen.

When using Blackboard students may be required to know or perform the following:

• Respond to discussion board questions.
• Have regular access to Microsoft Word (preferably Microsoft Office 2007)
• Submit assignments as attachments within Blackboard.
• Copy and paste text.
• Troubleshoot within Blackboard.
• Use the student manual in Blackboard.
• Contact the Blackboard Help Desk.
• Use Internet Explorer.
• Access and calculate grades.
• Be familiar with various Blackboard functions.
• Check announcements.
• Retrieve contact information for the instructor and students.
• Send e-mail messages to the instructor and students.
• Access the course syllabus, assignments, and course documents.
• Create a homepage.
• Print documents (e.g., study guides, weekly assignments, et cetera).