Chapter Fifteen
Getting Oriented
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Learning the Ropes of Online Learning
At most
institutions, your very first course will be a non-credit-bearing or
one- or two-credit orientation course taught by an educational
technologist who will introduce you to the functions of your course
management system and how, in general, courses are taught online. This
is a very important first step in the process and is mandatory before
you can be considered a bona-fide online MBA student. Every institution
handles this process differently.
In this chapter I show you what some of these orientation courses
are like and how you should definitely take this opportunity to learn
how to communicate effectively online as well as work with the
technology to your best advantage.
Learning the Ropes of
Online Learning
Previous chapters covered some of the educational technologies
used in an online program, how to make sure all these technologies are
installed and working on your computer system, and basically what you
need to know to get started on the right footing from an organizational
and time-management perspective. All these are also in some way related
to the orientation process. The orientation process includes getting
acquainted with and playing with the technology as well as doing some
readings, assignments, exercises, and tests that are part and parcel of
an online course.
Even though many online MBA students are not newcomers to some of
the technologies used in online courses -
having used such things as e-mail, web conferencing, file
sharing, and audio and video streaming technologies in their workplaces
- they may not have had any firsthand experiences with moving through an
actual higher-education online teaching and learning environment.
As online learning, in general, has progressed over the years,
orientation processes that familiarize students with educational
technology have grown in sophistication. There are basically two methods
used for providing these orientations: an on-campus orientation or a
completely online orientation.
I explain the components of an on-campus orientation at Arizona
State University (ASU) and an online orientation at the University of
Maryland University College (UMUC). The information in both of these
examples is provided as a general overview of what an online learning
orientation process would customarily entail at most institutions.
It is imperative that you fully understand how to use all the
technology you will be accessing online before you officially start
taking your core required courses. You cannot expect your professors to
help you with technology-related issues, nor your fellow students to
have patience with you if can’t master the technology. In short,
students who irritate the flow of the coursework by being
technologically inept will not be tolerated.
Online MBA programs that have residency requirements will conduct
orientation sessions at the first residency. In this scenario, students
are ushered into computer labs where educational technologists go
through all the steps of how online courses are conducted.
For the W.P. Carey MBA - Online Program at Arizona State
University (ASU), for example, this kind of orientation begins with live
lectures and lab sessions where the parts of the online course interface
are explained and simulated in detail.
Students begin by logging in their pre-assigned username and
password in the front-page interface of their Blackboard course
management system. They are then taken to a new front page showing four
primary sections they can access:
•
My Organizations. Where students get to know their fellow students,
faculty, and support staff by posting their profiles and entering into
non-course-related discussions. This is also the place where
administrative and program information and announcements are supplied
and discussed.
•
Online Program Resources. For linking to the alumni community, the ASU
library services and any other program resources, such as Xanedu course
packs (see Chapter 10), as well as for linking to online support
services.
• My
Announcements. Where announcements are posted for all the courses and
organizations a student may be participating in.
• My
Courses. Where students link to the actual courses they are enrolled in.
Each course is made up of nine standard sections:
Within
the four primary sections, A typical ASU course interface will consist
of the following:
•
Announcements. Reminders about what’s required of you as well as links
to exercises, quizzes, and exams.
• Syllabus.
Information about the overall course, including faculty introductions,
grading scheme, required readings, policies, and links to course
materials and external resources.
• Schedule.
Due dates for completing modules, readings, exercises, quizzes, and
exams.
•
Modules. At ASU, modules include the online lecture portion of the
course, comprised of text supported by digital media, such as graphs,
tables, animations, video introductions by professors, and video
interviews with industry experts.
•
Exercises. Interactive online exercises that enhance the learning of
module concepts.
•
Quizzes. Can come in a variety of formats, including multiple choice,
fill in the blank, and short and long essay.
•
Discussion. In most cases, the heart of the class where students and
faculty interact with each other, by posting questions and answers,
usually asynchronously, inside an online forum. See later in this
chapter under “Presence and Participation” and Chapter 9 for more
information.
•
Groups. Where team interactions via e-mail, discussion forums, and file
sharing takes place. See Chapter 17.
• Tools.
Where students can view their grades.
Depending on the program, the format of your online courses will
be similar, but not exactly the same as the ASU model. Other course
management functions may come into play, such as live chat, instant
messaging, online surveying and polling tools, a course-evaluation area,
a calendar tool, and various audio and video streaming components.
Online MBA programs that do not have residency requirements will
conduct orientation sessions completely online. These orientation
courses are comprised of new students just like yourself. Similar to a
face-to-face orientation, the course will be facilitated by an
educational technologist or manager who will introduce everyone to the
technology of online learning. In addition to taking this course online,
students have the option of communicating by telephone with technology
support professionals who can personally walk them through any questions
about the technology they might have.
An excellent example of a thorough online orientation can be
found at University of Maryland University College (UMUC), where all
online MBA students must first pass a 13-week, 1-credit, online MBA
Fundamentals course before they can move on to the real deal, so to
speak. According to Rosemary Hartigan, director of business and
executive programs at UMUC , the MBA Fundamentals course “gives students
the opportunity to see if they will like working online. Sometimes
students decide that they don’t have the time, and sometimes they decide
that they want to go to the face-to-face mode (which is also offered by
UMUC).”
UMUC describes the MBA Fundamentals course as serving three key purposes:
-
Acquaint students with the online environment and technologies used in
the MBA program
-
Help students improve their research, writing, and
analytical skills
-
Ensure that students have a foundation in basic management concepts
In addition, students are given assignments, with due dates, in
statistics, financial accounting, financial decision making, and the
theory of constraints. They are also given a number of online exercises
related to research, writing, critical thinking, and teamwork.
The theory of constraints was created by Eliyahu Goldratt, a
physicist and business consultant who developed a management practice
and philosophy that identifies and measures multifaceted systems and
facilitates continuous improvement by limiting or eliminating
constraints that prevent businesses from reaching goals.
A faculty member teaches the course and is available to answer
any questions students may have. By the end of the course, students
should have a good understanding of both the academic requirements and
the technical skills necessary to succeed in the MBA program.
As noted on the MBA Fundamentals course syllabus, upon successful
completion of this course, students should be able to:
• Use
accepted business practices to prepare a presentation.
•
Critically assess the arguments presented in scholarly activities.
•
Explore the concept of plagiarism and techniques to avoid it.
• Write
a research paper on a current management issues supporting a recommended
course of action incorporating scholarly research.
• Build
a simple business model for a new product or service.
•
Perform basic descriptive and inferential statistical analyses.
•
Employ the basic tools of corporate financial accounting.
• Apply
the theory of constraints concepts in an organizational setting.
As you can see, much of what’s required of you to become an
online MBA student, except for the scholarly stuff, is pretty much
identical to what will be required of you to be a successful business
manager, which leads me to your online profile.
Most orientation courses start with the typical icebreaker
activity of having students submit short biographies as a means of
introducing themselves to their classmates and the instructor. This
exercise will customarily be repeated in many of your regular courses as
well. Although this may seem like a trivial pursuit, it really is an
important step that you need to think through before typing away. In
short, you want to make an intelligent and honest impression.
Especially if you are in a completely online program, your
profile will be that all-important first impression that your professors
and fellow classmates will come to know you by. Typically a special
section of the discussion board or a unique area reserved especially for
student profiles will be built into the first required assignment. In
many cases, you also have the option of posting your photo in this
section of the course.
According to Karen Sangermano, distance MBA program director,
Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Colorado at
Colorado Springs, “students post their profiles so that they can get a
sense of who their fellow students are; where they work; what they do;
where they live; are they married, single, have kids? Most students have
gotten to the point where the first thing they do is post their profile,
because they know it’s beneficial to other students, and they want to
see it from other students.”
Sometimes your profile plays an important role in who you wind up
collaborating with in a class. For example, people with similar
occupations will frequently form bonds based on the similar challenges
they face at work. Or people of varied backgrounds, such as a marketing
person and an accountant, will seek out advice from each other related
to their areas of expertise. Overall, a well-written, detailed profile
often becomes the catalyst for community building and sharing in an
online course. So in addition to the typical resume for explaining your
skills and work responsibilities, it is beneficial for you to open up
about your career goals, hobbies, family life, age, challenges you face
at work, and anything else that you are comfortable with sharing. Also,
as you move through the program, it’s wise to keep it updated.
Your profile helps to establish what online educators refer to as
your “presence” in a course. This presence is further bolstered and
identified by your effort and ability to participate in online
discussions, which, in many online courses will become part of your
grade evaluation. In other words, you have to be actively engaged inside
all those online discussion threads that your professor kicks off with a
challenging business-related question based on a textbook, article, or
case-study reading you were assigned. Being actively engaged, however,
does not mean that you just agree or disagree. It means that you
contribute something meaningful and substantial to the discussion forum
on a regular basis, which will obviously require some writing and
communication skills, which, as a prospective or current business
manager, you should already have for the day-to-day operations of your
business. Online learner skills are discussed more in Chapter Sixteen.
Mercy College, which offers online graduate programs in
business-related areas, such as organizational leadership, direct
marketing, and Internet business systems, has come up with some criteria
for determining whether a discussion board message is actually effective
and worthy of receiving full credit. A worthy message should be:
•
Related to the course material
•
Concise, not more than one screen length
• One
that encourages responses
• One
that expands concepts or connects ideas in new ways
•
Timely
•
Logical
•
Grammatically correct and written clearly
Source: Sloan Consortium Effective Practice, “Defining
Effective Participation.”
For additional help in this area, see Chapter Sixteen, where I
discuss writing skills, and Chapter Seventeen, where I review the art of
working with your online peers. I’ve also provided some information
about netiquette, below, that you should be cognizant of when
communicating online.
Netiquette is a term that came of age with our adoption of the
Internet. It refers to the practice of being civilized in both
asynchronous and synchronous online communications. The short definition
is practicing etiquette on the Internet.
In any social situation it’s always a good thing to be
polite and respectful. The same holds true for the online world, and
then some. The written word can be more powerful than the spoken word,
and the fine nuances of language can be more easily misinterpreted in an
e-mail or discussion-forum message than it can in a face-to-face
meeting. A simple Google search on this term will bring up numerous
sites that outline the rules of proper online communication. For now,
here’s a short list that you can paste on the wall next to your
computer:
• Don’t
use uppercase.
•
Format your messages in a way that is easy to read.
•
Respect copyrighted materials.
• Keep
your emotions in check.
• Don’t
use smileys inappropriately.
•
Don’t be overly brief and don’t be overly verbose. In other words, find
a middle ground.
•
Always address people by their name in an e-mail correspondence, and
always conclude your message with a polite “thank you” or “best
regards,” etc., and your name.
•
Proofread your message for spelling, grammar, and clarity before sending
it off.
• Do
not criticize another person’s opinion.
• If
you are asked to critique someone’s work, do it in a professional manner
and support your critique with valid resources.
• Try
to respond promptly to any of your fellow classmates’ questions.
• Try
not to send and share files that are larger than 1 megabyte.
• Stay
on topic.
• Don’t
assume that everyone you send a message to will respond to you.
• Don’t
assume that a short response from a professor or student is a sign of
curtness or disrespect. Most of the people you will encounter as an
online MBA student are extremely busy people.
I have a simple rule that I try to follow when communicating
electronically with anyone. I respond to messages and interact with
people in the way I would like them to communicate back with me.
In other words, show respect, don’t offend, and be precise and
straight to the point.
One piece of solid advice that I think needs to be said here is
don’t be intimidated by technology. During the early years of online
learning, it was quite common for students to drop out of an online
program because they simply could not get a handle on how to use the
educational technology. Even today, many students struggle with
navigating through their online courses because they lack basic
computing skills. Couple that with the isolation of working online, and
some students begin to feel disconnected and subsequently lose all their
motivation.
First, if you lack basic computing skills, take some continuing-education courses at your local college or university before thinking about enrolling in an online MBA program.
Second, the best way to overcome any technology ineptness factors
is to simply pay close attention to the orientation process and repeat
it over and over, if necessary, until you feel comfortable. Also every
school has a friendly technical support service in place to help you
with technological challenges. Don’t be afraid to use these services
often. After all, you’re paying for such services through your tuition
dollars.
Finally, remember that the technology is really secondary to the learning that will occur in an online MBA program. The goal is for you to gain business knowledge and skills through your coursework. Most schools have figured out how to teach without letting the technology get in the way of learning by creating and fine-tuning their orientation and support processes and putting more emphasis on the interactions that customarily occur between students and faculty in any online MBA program.
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