The following suggestions will be of use to help guide you through your online course no matter what the delivery method is:

1. Participation plays an important role in an online class. The instructor and the other students need to know you are out there. Your comments, questions, and answers are needed to make the class a learning community.
2. Spend time exploring and navigating your course Web site. Visit any Web pages that your instructor advises you to read and add these pages as bookmarks (Netscape) or favorites (Internet Explorer).
3. Persistence and patience are two qualities that will help you succeed in an online environment. Technical issues may arise or other questions will come up from time to time. Do not wait to deal with these difficulties. Send a note to the instructor immediately and contact the appropriate technical support number for your course.
4. (See the Technical Support link on the Current Students menu.)
5. The answers to questions do not always have to come from the instructor. Use the email, chat, or bulletin board tools built into the course management system to ask questions of other students. Form virtual study groups to support each other in the class.
6. An online environment restricts the ability to see the smile when you make a sarcastic comment or hear the anger in your voice because you are upset by someone's comments. Please use emoticons to help us know what you are thinking. An example of an emoticon is :-). A site that has a listing of emoticons can be found at Netiquette.
7. When you send email or place a comment on the bulletin board, remember that there is a person on the other side. If you disagree with someone, do not "flame" the person. It is all right to disagree with someone's ideas, but it is not all right to get belligerent. You would not start yelling at someone in a face-to-face course; the same rules of etiquette apply in an online classroom.
8. You must be an active, involved and independent learner. Use the calendar and assignments page to carefully map out your course schedule, and then be sure to stick with it.