How to fully and successfully use an on-line college course.

On line courses are entirely different from classroom courses for a number of reasons. You are entirely responsible for your own success, there are no acceptable excuses. You decide how many hours you spend on preparation, typing your work up, research outside the assigned course book, and you are responsible for the time you spend on the ‘blackboard’ site.

Stay on top of your assignments; turn your work in on time. Participate in the discussion boards. Don’t procrastinate, try being early rather than late on any assignment/test.

Write using proper grammar and use correct spelling; you are in college, not third grade.

Do not attempt to plagiarize, you can get kicked out of the class and forfeit the tuition costs; you could even get kicked out of school. That kind of thing is information that goes with you from school to school, and even to possible employers. Simply don’t do it.

If you borrow something from an internet site, make certain you use the information to write your own sentences- do not copy/paste. One thing that can help is forming a document that is named differently from what you will use to turn in. I call my pre-turned in work, ‘homework’ and my post turned in work, ‘posted work’. I also use highlighting on all documents prior to a final copy. Use a specific color for research info you have copied from a site, use another color for text that you have not yet fully answered, and another color for finished text that you are ready to copy onto your posting work.

Another thing that is actually attempted is hiring someone else to do your work. People have been known to try to hire ‘ghost writers’ off craigslist and school bulletin boards. This is insane; it is cheating yourself out of an education and a future. You could, in all probability, get caught and can lose your right to attend any college/university. It is better to just withdraw from the class.

With all that ugly stuff out of the way, here comes the great part about on-line classes!

You control your environment. There is no one else in the classroom to annoy you by talking on their cell phone about how drunk they got last night. You can be as noisy or as quiet as works for you! If you prefer to work at 3am, it’s all up to you!

You control how much you learn. If the text covers general information, you have the ability to research at a library or on line to get more information. The more research you do, the more likely you will retain the information.

If you have problems, do contact your instructor. Do not try to just be chatty with them, be specific about what your problem is and ask directly if there is something you can do to rectify the problem.

On line classes require more attention, planning, detail control, and self-discipline than classroom classes. On line courses also provide you with more opportunity for success if you take the initiative.