The importance of online course design
The way a course is designed can make an enormous difference to how easy it is to study online. Well designed courses do provide strong guidelines for when work, and what kind of work (writing assignments, tests or online class discussion), needs to be done. Poorly designed courses place much more onus on the student to organize their work, although a well designed program will deliberately encourage more and more independence and self-management as students progress through the program. However, if you are taking an undergraduate or two year college online course, it should be well designed, and that means being very clear about what is expected of you as a student.
What help will you get?
One crucial guide to choosing an online course or program is the quality of the learner support provided. This can easily be checked by going to the public web site of the online program you are interested in and look at the learner support section (it may be called Guide to Studying or something similar.) If you can’t find anything, then it’s a good indication that the program designers have not thought through the needs of learners, or are not giving it the importance it deserves. (In some cases, the learner support or student guide may be available online only after you’ve enrolled – if so, ask about this.)
Other colleges or universities may provide a general student advisory service, which may or may not include counselling and help with online learning. Some institutions also provide peer-to-peer tutoring where more experienced students help less experienced students. It is important though to check whether such services are available online, or whether you have to go to the campus to access such services. Also it is important to check whether these services are being provided by people with specialist knowledge of the challenges of studying online.
Managing the work load
Another critical factor is the amount of work involved. You should be able to reach the same standard in an online course as in a class-based course with about the same amount of work, but again this will depend on how well the course is designed. However, one thing you can be sure of. Most online courses will require as much work and will be no easier than a face-to-face class. The main difference is convenience. You can study where and when you like, so long as you cover all the work and meet all the course requirements. So if you don’t want to do the work needed to learn (and unfortunately learning does require effort on the part of the learner) then don’t do an online course. It’s not going to be any easier than the campus version. However, it should be possible to get an estimate from the program administrator as to how much work is involved in studying a particular course online (for instance, 10 hours a week for a three credit course over 13 weeks). If they can’t answer this question, they probably haven’t designed it well.
Also, don’t take too many online courses at once. This is one of the most common reasons for students dropping out. For instance, many students who choose to take an online course are doing it because it enables them to combine work, family and study. If the average course takes 10 hours a week, and you’re working full time, you will do well to manage two courses at a time. Indeed, it makes sense to ease your way into online learning. By far the majority of online students are full time students combining one online course with other face-to-face courses. Most of these students do just as well as their counterparts in the campus version.
Are you ready for online learning?
Make sure you are ready to take a particular course or program. This advice applies as much to campus-based programs as online courses, but make sure you have the necessary prior learning before taking on an online program. Do you have the necessary writing skills in particular? (There is a lot of reading and writing required in most online courses). If you are wanting to do a science or engineering program, have you the prior math skills needed for the program (for example, calculus)? Many institutions, such as the University of Phoenix, UBC and the Open University provide courses to bring you up to speed in writing and math. However, they can carry you only so far. It would be better to get your high school completion (perhaps online) in many cases than to jump into a program at university or college before you are ready for it, even if you technically qualify.
Instructors make the difference
Perhaps the most critical factor though for your success as an online student will be the quality of support you get from your instructor in the course. Again, how this is provided will depend on the design of the course. Some courses in the ‘hard’ sciences such as math, physics and computer science, may be almost full automated, in the sense that tests or exams are computer-marked, there are self-assessment questions with online answers, etc. Some courses deliberately require students to help each other, which can be a great way to learn. However, even in such courses, you are likely to need some help from an instructor at some point during the course. You need to know who they are, when they are available and what kind of help you can expect. This information should be provided before you enroll for a course. In particular, find out if the instructors have had any training or experience in online learning before you take the course.
