Course Orientation Activities

It is very important to design an online course in a way that supports students to get started on the right foot. This means that when a student logs in to your course for the first time, they can easily navigate to the pertinent areas (syllabus, course expectations, instructor introduction). A well-designed course ensures that your students will not have to spend time searching for what they need, and instead focus their full attention on the actual content in your course.

This module serves as an example of an online course orientation. As you complete the orientation activities, reflect on your experiences as a student in in this course (for instance, can you easily find what you need?), and think about how you might orient students to your own online courses.

Assignment Overview

  • Take the <Replace - Your LMS> Student Tour
  • Review Notification Settings
  • Review the Explanation of Research letter
  • Complete the Getting Started Quiz with a score of 80% or higher
  • Post to the Introduction Discussion

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Assignment Details

Take the <Replace - Your LMS> Student Tour

As a student in <Replace - Course Title>, complete the <Replace - Your LMS> student tour <link to LMS Student demo if available or delete this section). In this brief tour, you learn some of the main features of <Replace - Your LMS> . Providing brief tours like this one can serve as effective orientations for your own courses, focusing your students on the most important aspects.

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Review Notification Settings

Review your notification settings to make sure you receive course notifications and communications in a timely manner. You may choose to receive instant, daily, or weekly notifications from the course and also decide which types of notifications you would like to receive. Use this notification guide Links to an external site. <replace with link to your LMS notifications guide> to modify your notification settings. Please note that the notifications you choose will apply to any course in which you are enrolled.

Review the Explanation of Research Letter

The <Replace -  Department Name> is continuously evaluating this course. As a student in <Replace - Course Title>, you are in the position to help us improve future course offerings. We would greatly appreciate your thoughtful feedback and comments regarding your experience as you proceed through this course. Please review the Explanation of Research Letter and be prepared to discuss it with your instructional designer at your first consultation.

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Getting Started Quiz

The next file in this module will take you to the Getting Started Quiz. You will be given a chance to review the content before taking the quiz.

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Help

If you have difficulty completing any of these assignments or need technical help, please contact <Replace - link to your LMS support web site> or post a message in the "Technical Help" discussion topic.

Creative Commons License

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Links to an external site..