| Follow the established course start and end dates. |
- When students register for your course, they expect that it will start and end as stated in LionPATH. Schedule adjustments may, however, be needed to meet deadlines for graduating students and others with special circumstances.
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| Follow consistent guidelines for managing your course. |
- Preparing Your Online Class identifies specific tasks that should be performed on a daily, weekly, or semester basis. As you will see, the key to effectively managing any online course is to be consistently "present" for your students. Regular contact with your students helps assure them that they are well supported.
- As many seasoned distance education faculty can attest, the online classroom can become even more "personal" than a class that meets face-to-face. You will likely be surprised at how you can connect with your students and learn about them as individuals in ways you had not envisioned!
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| Monitor assignment submissions and communication with students to remind them of missed and/or upcoming deadlines. |
- Good practice suggests posting a message or announcement to your class at least once a week to tell students what you will be covering in the coming week and to remind them of any due dates.
- One tool to monitor student activity is the "recent activity" stream in Canvas.
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| Early in the course, establish a regular schedule for when you will be logging in to the course and communicate this to students. |
- Normally this is once per day. Many World Campus students are adult learners who have work and family responsibilities. These students tend to be more active in courses on weekends, so you may also wish to reserve time to monitor courses at least once on weekends.
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| If you are unable to log into Canvas for several days or more (e.g., during professional travel), give prior notice. |
- Provide notice to your students and the administrative unit overseeing your course (your academic dept. for resident courses or your Dutton Institute learning designer for World Campus courses). Providing this information upfront will help to forestall many student inquiries.
- You should also consider finding coverage for your course if you will be out of contact with students for more than a couple of days, especially if they are to be working on assignments while you are gone. If you will be away from the course in case of a personal emergency, please notify students and your learning designer as soon as possible.
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| Provide feedback to student inquiries within one business day. |
- In other words, be accessible! Because online learners must manage their time carefully, timely instructor feedback is especially important to them. Without it, they may not be able to make progress on their coursework. If you cannot provide a detailed response within one business day, it is good practice to respond to the student within one business day to let them know when you will provide them with a more detailed response.
- Remember, sometimes the fastest way to respond might be the telephone! Real-time communication can be particularly valuable if a student seems upset or anxious; a quick phone call may help a student to refocus in a positive direction.
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| Provide timely and meaningful feedback on student work using clear and concise language. |
- Providing feedback in a timely fashion can positively impact a student's next assignment submission. A simple "good job" or "needs work" does not provide the information needed for success. Students need (and want!) more specifics. What was it that made the work good? (So they can do it again!) What needs more work and how can they improve the quality of their work? (Be specific.)
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| Let students know how quickly you will grade and return all assignments and exams. |
- To self-regulate time and learning, students need to know when to expect ;feedback. Please strive to grade assignments, complete with meaningful feedback, as promptly as possible. As a rule, it is reasonable to expect that student will receive their grades, including feedback, within one week of submitting an assignment, though this will depend on the nature of each assignment. If you anticipate that it will take longer than a week to return students' work, it is best to inform them in advance. Doing so will forestall a lot of questions ...which often end up coming to the folks in our main office!
- It also is best to grade assignments in sequence (i.e., assignment 1, then assignment 2, and so on) so students can apply the feedback from one assignment to subsequent assignments.
- Note that the end of the semester poses a particular challenge; University policy stipulates that "Grades are to be posted 48 hours after the final exam or final assessment of the course." See Penn State University Registrar: Grades.
- Your learning designer can assist you with any questions you might have on how to accomplish these grading goals.
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| Provide a teaching and learning environment that supports academic freedom. |
- As outlined in University Policy AC64 Academic Freedom, faculty are entitled to the freedom to discuss their subjects in the distance education classroom. Students must also be free to express their opinions without fear of ridicule, intimidation, or retaliation by any instructor. Consistent with Policy AC64, "Faculty members are expected to present information fairly, and to set forth justly, the divergent opinions of other investigators that arise out of scholarly methodology and professionalism."
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| Make sure you have immediate and predictable access to the same technology that is required for students in your course. |
- Use your syllabus to communicate to your students about the technology they must have in place to participate in your online course. Make sure you, also, are using a computer system and network that can meet those technology requirements. World Campus courses typically list technology information in the course catalog listing for the course. World Campus Technical Requirements are posted online as part of the World Campus website. See also Technology Access and Use for Faculty.
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| Post final course grades to LionPATH on time. |
- Final course grades are due within two business days of the course end date and/or receipt of the final assignment/exam.
- If you think that you will not be able to meet this requirement due to the nature of your course assessments, please discuss this with the administrative unit overseeing your course. See Grading.
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| Encourage students to complete the University's end-of-course survey (the SEEQ). |
- Near the end of the semester, the SEEQ system generates an email to students to announce the availability of their SEEQs. This message includes instructions on where to complete SEEQs and how long they are available. Automated email reminders are sent to students who have outstanding forms to complete. (For more information, see Assessment of Teaching Frequently Asked Questions.)
- Research has shown that the strongest influence on whether a student completes an end-of-course survey is the instructor! Please send your students a note encouraging them to complete this anonymous survey (include a link to the SEEQ) and assuring them that the information that will be used to improve the course is important.
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| Contribute to the continual updating and improvement of the course content. |
- It is expected that you keep the course current an routinely "tweak" the course based on feedback from students, peers, and administrators. Because some or all of your course materials is online, as you update your course content, learning activities, and assessments, you'll need to also pay attention to spelling and grammar, as well as copyright, usability, and accessibility best practices to ensure compliance with legal requirements and Penn State policy.
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