Webcast Series

"Providing Student Services to Distance Learners"

Transcript of the Student Orientation: Providing on Online Component Webcast

Slide: WCET Presents a Webcast Series: Providing Student Services to Distance Learners

PAT: Well, hello and welcome to the WCET webcast series, "Providing Student Services to Distance Learners." I am Pat Shea, the Assistant Director for WCET, and I'm coming to you today from our east coast office in Summit, New Jersey. where it is rather warm. Also joining us from WCET's headquarters in Boulder, Colorado is my colleague Sue Armitage. Hi Sue. How is it in Boulder?

SUE: It is one of those beautiful Rocky Mountain West days. It is just crisp and gorgeous.

Slide: Student Orientation: Providing an Online Component

PAT: Okay, our special guest today is Dan Volchok, WebCT's Manager of User Community Events. Dan will talk with us today about online student orientation. And Dan has kindly agreed to repeat his presentation of April 17, when we had some audio difficulties due to the ninety-eight degree weather. So thanks Dan for joining us again today.

DAN: Thanks Pat, it's really great to be here again.

PAT: Good. Just so we can get an idea about you and the audience, I would like to ask a question. How many of you are familiar with this U Live and Learn, HorizonLive environment? I'd like to ask you, if you've participated before, so please click on the green "yes" button on your screen if you have, and click on the "no" if you have not. And those little buttons are right above Sue's head there on the black bar.

During today's session, we invite you to make some comments related to Dan's presentation in the chat box. I see some of you have, have found the chat box already. Many of you are experts in this field of orientation and this is a good opportunity to share your knowledge and experiences with other attendees. If you experience connectivity problems during this presentation, please click on the "help" button, which you'll see also on that black bar, to send an e-mail message to tech. support. And let's keep talking about that black bar. I want to mention the "tell" button that you see next to "help." If you'd like to send a private message to someone who's name you see there on the list, use that "tell" and only that person will receive your message.

SUE: I'd like to mention a quirk of Internet technology. This is not a television broadcast where the visuals and audios are sent to you together. This is the Internet, so little packets of data go out and reach you at different times. So if our voices and what you see aren't exactly synchronized, please hold on and hopefully everything will get synched up eventually.

Question: Does your institution have an online component for orientation?

PAT: Okay, so we can get a better sense of your interests today, please respond to the question that's about to appear on your screen. And that question is: "Does your institution have an online component for orientation?" And the possible answers are, "yes," "no" or "partial."

While you're voting I want to tell you that "Student Orientation: Providing an Online Component" is the seventh in our webcast series on providing student services to distance learners. Each month we have tried to present a different student service and we'll continue to do that for the next few months. This series is part of WCET's work on its Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnership - LAAP — project which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The project involves three partner institutions and a corporate partner in creating web-based student services for online learners. I'd also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank ULiveandLearn, our producer and technology sponsor. Denise Easton from ULiveandLearn is with us today and will help people with any technology connectivity problems they might have. So, thanks very much Denise. Sue, do we have any results?

SUE: I see twenty-three people have voted, so if anybody else would like to click on their screen to respond, please go ahead right now before I publish the results. I don't see anymore so I'm going to go ahead.

Results: Does your institution have an online component for orientation?

Unfortunately "no" is the big answer, but it is sort of a mixed response. So I think we have a lot of things to talk about then, Dan.

DAN: Yep, I think we do.

Slide: WCET: the Cooperative advancing the effective use of technology in higher education

PAT: Great. Okay for those of you that are not familiar with WCET, I'd just like to give you a little bit of background information. It is a cooperative of higher education institutions, agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations involved in distance learning. Our focus is on advancing the effective use of technology in higher education. And you can see some information there on the screen about some of our activities. And I invite you to visit our website to learn a lot more about it.

Now it's time to tell you a little more about our guest, Dan Volchok. Dan is currently the manager of user community events at WebCT where he is responsible for the program development and management of regional user conferences and programs. Prior to this, Dan was the Manager of Student Relations where he was responsible for the development and upkeep of the student resource center on WebCT.com. The student resource center is a one-stop site for non-academic student support resources covering many of the student affairs functional areas. Dr. Volchok has over twenty years of student affairs experience, mostly in residential life and student activities. He received a Bachelor and Masters of Business Administration from Ohio University and a Doctorate of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Welcome again, Dan.

DAN: Thank you, Pat. I'd like to start by getting a quick idea of who our participants are today. Rather than doing a formal survey, I'd like to just ask everyone to use the chat box, type in your primary job responsibilities. That is, are you an academic advisor, director of advising, director of distance education, director of orientation, something like that. That will give everybody the opportunity to see responses from each other on what their responsibilities are.

Slide: What is orientation?

DAN: As people are typing those things in I'll get started and give a brief overview of what we'll be covering in this broadcast. The presentation will be broken into three main areas. First, I'll discuss on a macro level what is orientation, a little bit of history, and what orientation programs often entail.

Next I will look at how some institutions are providing orientation to distance learners and then move into how these online programs can be expanded to include all students. Finally, I will conclude with some thoughts and observations on online orientation programs, the opportunities and challenges they provide, and how technology can be used to supplement student services.

Taking a look at what people have said in terms of their areas of responsibility, it seems like we've got a fairly wide range of responsibilities, some in the distance learning side and some from the traditional student side.

PAT: And it looks like we have people from community colleges and four-year schools. And I saw someone here from the Board of Regents too.

DAN: Great.

PAT: And that's a nice range of people in different segments of higher education, because Dan what you're going to be talking about can be applied to many other fields.

DAN: Right. One thing I firmly believe is that what we do in one part of the campus and one type of a campus can carry to all other areas.

Let's begin by defining what we mean by orientation. Many campuses define orientation as a program for new students to aid in their adjustment to the college. I'd like to expand that notion to define orientation as a retention resource that assists students as they move admission to matriculation to graduation. That is, it's an ongoing program that gives students the information and community they need as they begin their college career and continues throughout their enrolment, aiding and assisting them throughout.

The introduction of online components to the traditional program will assist in the transformation of these programs into becoming an ongoing resource. The first orientation program was conducted at Boston University nearly one hundred and fifteen years ago. In the mid-1900s orientation directors began to meet informally and in 1976, NODA — the professional association for orientation directors — was chartered. Ten years later, the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience was chartered at the University of South Carolina. The growth and development of orientation and first year experience programs over the past twenty-five years have been explosive. The implementation of distance learning and online components is, I believe, the next wave for orientation.

The goals of orientation activities often fall into two distinct areas: information transfer and community building. In the traditional face-to-face orientation, the information transfer is often a brain dump of all the information that students need to know about the institution. This is usually accomplished orally through meetings, group activities and the distribution of the student handbook and other campus. publications. The community-building aspect of orientation is often viewed as the most important aspect of the student development and one that is felt cannot be accomplished in an online environment. In the face-to-face setting, community-building activities vary from short ice-breaking activities to day-long community service projects and campus identity sessions.

Now we'll talk shortly about how both information transfer and community building can be accomplished and enhanced through the development of an online program.

PAT: I wonder if people might comment about some of the activities that they might be doing online to get students to know one another before they come to campus. I know some institutions are doing that, introduce people to their roommates or.

DAN: Right, and one of the examples I'll give a little bit later on is that exact thing, where it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It doesn't have to be only a face-to-face or only an online program, but it actually can be a blended program where certain portions are done online either before students arrive on campus or while they're on campus and another part can be the face-to-face component.

PAT: Okay, great.

DAN: For distance learners, most orientation programs only address the brain dump of information. And then often only that information directly related to online learning. I'll talk a little bit more about this later.

Traditionally, orientation has taken place in the face-to-face format, bringing students to campus for a short period of time. The program takes place either over the summer or just prior to the start of the semester. Even distance learning programs had students come to campus for a face-to-face orientation — something which I think is a little counterbalanced from being on a distance program where you need to come to a face-to-face orientation.

PAT: Right.

DAN: Many distance learning programs have developed online orientations. And I contend that traditional programs should develop online components that enhance their face-to-face offerings as I said before.

PAT: You're not recommending that we get rid of face-to-face?

DAN: Not at all. I'm very much a traditional campus-type person.

PAT: Okay.

DAN: Let's take a look at some examples of online orientation programs, but a few notes before we begin. First, these are not necessarily the best of the best programs, but rather examples of how some institutions have created full virtual orientation programs or well developed components. Secondly, I will demonstrate the sites, these screen shots, rather than going to a live site. Given the short amount of time we have available, we can't drill down too deeply.

At the end of the presentation and on the WCET website, I'll provide the links to these sites that you can explore on your own. Unfortunately, some of the sites we're going to go are password protected, only for their students. So you'll only see certain portions of it. But it will give you an idea of what they're doing.

Historically, the first online orientation programs were designed only for distance learners. Consequently, these programs consisted of four components: how to become a successful online student, hardware and software requirements, the online learning environment, and campus resources. First, let's look at our four institutions. Eastern Oregon, Portland Community College, the University of North Texas and San Diego Community College have developed programs for their distance learners. Each has approached its program in a different way.

The Eastern Oregon University's division of distance education has an orientation program for students considering enrolling in a distance education program. This is a pre-admission orientation to assist students in their decision-making process. Students can either attend an on-campus session or take the online version. The orientation is designed to provide information about distance education at Eastern beyond what is included in the admissions packet. The program reflects on the beautiful location of the campus by taking students on a virtual trek through the distance education program. For example, one page states: "before we head out on our trek and explore the different distance education offerings at Eastern, we need to stand on a ridge and survey the landscape. Below us stretches the panorama of an academic world with its own ecology, shifts in the weather and changes in the landscape as we go forward."

PAT: That's a nice quote, isn't it?

DAN: It's a nice quote. And it really brings students who are working online a little bit of an idea of what it's like to be standing on the campus.

PAT: Yes.

DAN: The journey through this site is marked with photographs and graphics of the area to bring students closer to the campus. Students move through a number of pages that explain general graduation requirements, what degrees are offered through the distance learning division, various methods of instruction offered, such as online, face-to-face and individual study and academic advising.

PAT: Dan, do you have to complete each section of the trek before you move on?

DAN: This is the type where you can actually jump from one to another and if the links that are at the top of the web site page underneath the heading are all the different components and you can literally jump from one to the another if you need to.

PAT: I see.

DAN: If you want to move around. Portland Community College has an orientation for both students considering online learning and for those that have already enrolled. The program is more specific to the online learning process. The orientation is broken into modules which can be taken sequentially or as necessary.

In addition to a number of content pages, there are also interactive activities. The first module is online learning. It discusses what it takes to be a successful online student and then gives an assessment for students to self-evaluate themselves. The assessment evaluates students on various factors and if the student answers "incorrectly" on a question, a pop up box appears reminding the student why this factor is important in their success. For example, for the question, "I'm a procrastinator when it comes to school work and deadlines," if the student answers "yes," a box pops up which reads: "To succeed in online learning you must be able to set and keep scheduling goals for accomplishing course tasks." In addition, this section gives students a schedule tool in which they can visually lay out how much time they have to take an online course and then receive advice on the number of courses they could take given their available time.

PAT: I think that's a really important service. I think that's where students get in trouble today: they haven't been, in some cases, in school for a while and they look at a three-hour course and think of it as the three-hour commitment rather than, you know, the nine or twelve hours that it really is.

DAN: Right, and there's misconception and misunderstanding of what it takes, both time and personally, in succeeding in an online course. And in talking to a number of faculty members recently, they're really feeling that it's not the faculty members' job to make sure their students succeed in their class on those levels. That really needs to be something up front and these orientation programs really do provide that.

PAT: Right.

DAN: And Portland's second component is just as important. It looks at the student's hardware and software. It discusses what the minimum requirements are to take an online course and then has an interactive program that verifies the student's browser and operating system. Finally, it has a test to verify that any of the necessary plug-ins are installed and working properly.

PAT: That is nice.

DAN: If you look at a lot of the help sites for online courses, a lot of the questions are, "I can't see this, my browser doesn't work," or "I keep getting this error message" or whatever it might be. It's a hardware or software issue and not a true learning issue but you need to jump over those before you can really move on. So having students learn about technical issues up front is very important.

The third component walks students through the information about what it takes to communicate effectively online and what computer skills are needed to succeed in an online class. It provides a glossary of basic technology terms, discusses online communication tools such as e-mail, discussion boards and chat and provides an assessment of technical skills, offering a number of tutorials for basic computer skills such as cut and paste, setting bookmarks, and online research. And finally and importantly, it provides information and links to virus protection software.

PAT: So it looks like they're doing a really good job of presenting information on the basics.

DAN: Right, and you know, while traditional orientation programs never have a session on telling students how to discuss in class and to go to class on time and all those kind of things, when you move into an online environment, it is a new environment and you'll need to learn the rules of the road for that environment. So how do I communicate in an online discussion forum, or how do I do e-mail? And amazingly the number of students who don't know how to do cut and paste or set a bookmark in their browser and those very important things to do to succeed.

PAT: You know Dan, there's a book out that does a good job of this for an older generation student. It's called Computer Smarts for Grandparents. It's at www.computersmarts.com. It covers all the basics that an older person who hasn't perhaps used a computer much might not be familiar with it. Computer Smarts for Grandparents: Just Enough to Impress a Nine-Year-Old. Cute book.

DAN: And certainly the nine-year-olds know a lot more than, I don't know if you can say the older people, but I think we make the assumption that everybody knows everything they need to know, and they really don't.

PAT: Right.

DAN: And we need to tell them those things.

PAT: Right.

DAN: The final three modules of this site are directly related to online learning on the Portland Community College campus. They give an introduction of WebCT, which is the course tool they use there, where to get help on campus and how to register and log into an online course. This brings up an interesting point regarding orientations for distance students. Short of bringing students to campus for face-to-face training, how do you orient students to the online technology which they need to master to take a distance course? Let's look at two examples of how institutions have developed orientations to the online environment. Again, as I said earlier, the online environment where students are learning, is equivalent to the classroom, but we all know how to act in the classroom, but we don't how to access all the information of the online environment.

The University of North Texas has a tour of web-based learning, virtual and campus, for all students who take online course. It's a self-paced course that is designed to give students an idea of what distance learning is all about by walking them through a web-based learning environment. As you can see from the screen shot, they have designed the tour as if you were in a face-to-face orientation. They begin by talking about how to log in and give an orientation of the online learning similar to Portland's. They move into how to navigate and interact within the course and how to get to the course content. Finally, the program provides information regarding online research, getting help and the benefits of taking online courses. This is a great example of introducing students to the online environment without using the course tool itself.

In the reverse, San Diego Community College district has created a sample WebCT course as a component of their online orientation program. The course outlines course navigation, communication tools, student tools, assessment tools and the general look and feel of the institution's online courses. The course also expands from orientation to online learning. As you saw with Portland, the course included a browser tune up, how to be a successful online student, a technology toolkit and help desk information. Students can self-register for the course and then proceed at their own pace.

PAT: That's very nice. Now do all students take this?

DAN: It's optional but all students should take it so that they get a feel of what the online environment is, in a timeframe that they want to play around with it and not in a course where they're actually more concerned about doing well in the course than learning how to use the tool.

PAT: Uh huh.

DAN: The past four examples have been programs designed for distance students to orient them for the most part to the basics of learning online. While not fully academic in nature, they reflect the components of an on-campus academic orientation. In the online setting, they give students the information they need to succeed academically where are their classes, what do they need to do to succeed in their classes and what information they need regarding the academic requirements of the institutions and their degree program? For the most part, these orientation programs are run by the distance education division. As with many on-campus program, orientation for distance students is beginning to evolve from an academic event to a more holistic event. That is, what are the other aspects of the whole student that need to be addressed? At the same time, more traditional students have begun taking online courses and want or need to same orientation to online learning. The much larger traditional student constituent city now requests the program which was designed for a small segment of the institutions population. At a recent conference I was at, a presenter was discussing their help desk for distance students and said that she was amazed at the number of traditional on-campus students who wanted access to the service. Students don't see the difference between traditional students and distance students and expect that programs that are designed for distance students should be available to all. This has led to the development of a more comprehensive online orientation program that is designed for all students.

PAT: And clearly, that's the direction that we see most student services moving in.

DAN: That's correct. And I think we need to really start blurring the line when it comes to orientation and other services on what's provided from, from one type of student, to another type student, and that at the same time, providing both online and face-to-face content for all those services.

Question: What population does your institution's orientation primarily serve?

I'm curious about what orientation programs are already in the institutions. Would you let me know what student population does your institution's orientation program primarily serve, or at least the area that you're responsible for, but what type of student is it? Please select one of the options on the screen now.

PAT: And Dan, while people are responding, we're talking today primarily about some face-to-face orientation programs and also about people putting some orientation programs online, but do you know of other methods that people are using for orientation?

DAN: Some schools are doing things on CD-ROM and will mail CD-ROMs out to students. And that's often happening a lot with distance students and they want to make sure they have all the software that they need to run on that campus, will mail out CD-ROMs. Some are doing some videotape kind of things and chat room and that kind of thing also.

PAT: Okay, Sue do we have some results?

SUE: Oh, we have about the same number of people who voted last time. If anybody would like to vote before we publish the results, please do so right now. Going, going, gone, here we go.

Results: What population does your institution's orientation primarily serve?

Ah, on campus and distance.

DAN: Well, so it look likes a number of the audience are dealing with both types of students and hopefully the things we're talking about they can see how it could apply to both distance and on campus students.

I believe that an online orientation for all students should encompass all the components we've seen already for distance students, but also include those elements which are traditionally in the on campus program. This means the list is expanded to include community-building activities, campus-based resources and expands the program from a service for students entering the campus to an ongoing resource service that I defined earlier.

We'll take a brief look at two programs that I feel illustrate the potential of online programs. The University of Dayton has developed a virtual orientation program that supplements their traditional four-day on campus program prior to the start of the Fall semester. The orientation is an innovative service which connects students to the institution prior to their arrival. Students log into the site, indicate their preferences for their first semester classes and they take math and foreign language placement tests. Once the student indicates their major and interests, the sites then becomes personalized. That is, an education major receives information about the education program, including required courses, possible electives, faculty members and major specific service learning projects. Campus-wide information such as counseling and medical services, clubs and activities, meal plans and housing information are made available to all students. The virtual orientation is also a community-building and social interaction site. Students can post a personal profile, including a photo and their likes and dislikes. The profile can help the first year students to make friends and then communicate via e-mail. During the course of the summer, the site also hosts chats with campus officials to discuss topics of interest to incoming students.

PAT: Now how long is that available, Dan? I mean, does that become their personal page throughout their relationship with the institution, or is this just something they use until they arrive on campus?

DAN: It's pretty much used until they arrive on campus and then it's not available anymore. It's really an orientation piece and not an ongoing piece. But one of the things it does, is it starts building that community amongst the students and a number of students have met each other virtually and then requested each other as roommates and things like that.

PAT: Wow, that's interesting.

DAN: So it does carry on.

PAT: Uh huh.

DAN: One of the components of the virtual orientation program is the virtual room program, an interactive site for on campus residence students, the sites allow students to communicate with their roommate, that are there already and others that live on the residence hall floor.

SUE: Dan, I have a question. And this really appeals to me. Do you know if the University of Dayton used vendor software to develop this or was this just a home-grown product that they perceived their own student's needs were?

DAN: I don't think they used a vendor provided program. I think they developed it on their own. I don't know that for a fact, but I've looked at it and the things I've read about it never indicated that it came from any vendor that I've seen.

SUE: Interesting, a lot of great features.

DAN: Oh right, there really are. Unfortunately, for our audience, this site isn't available to the general public. Obviously at this time of year, students are in there meeting each other and you know, because they've been admitted to school already. And because it's so personalized and contains so much personal information about Dayton students, it's not open to the public and it's tough to access. But you can get some idea of what the program has by going to it and looking at a few things and reading some of the press releases and other information on the site about the program.

The University of Connecticut has developed two online components to supplement their face-to-face first year experience course. First, through WebCT they've created an online supplement which expands the course into a twenty four/seven program. In addition to having students attend the one-hour per week FYE face-to-face course, the online component augments the learning skills, and faculty/student discussions. Students are encouraged to log on and communicate outside of class, while faculty also log on to monitor and participate in the discussions. The added benefit of creating this online component is that students learn how to use the course tool, which nearly 70% of their first year students use in some other course during the first semester. The FYE online component encourages students to use the technology and resources on an everyday basis. Secondly, the FYE portal entitled FYI — for First Year Interactive — provides first year students with a range of student-specific information including, as you can see on the home page of the portal, a calendar of events, news and interactive components such as ask the experts or talk to your orientation leader. There are various discussion lists which are open only to first year students and selected faculty and staff. As with the FYE course, this takes the orientation program out of the classroom and brings it to the student desktop. It also takes the orientation and the First Year Experience program out of just the program time and really carries through the entire first year, even if they're no longer taking the FYE course.

PAT: That makes it available twenty-four hours a day.

DAN: Right, right. And one piece that I'm not showing here, but they also have a piece about faculty members that are teaching the FYE course. Often times, FYE courses on campuses are taught by administrators, residence hall staff, a number of different people so that they're very small classes. And in order to do that and have some consistency and communication amongst all those people teaching the class, they have a faculty side to their site also, where faculty talk to each other and they can pull resources off there to use in their classes.

PAT: Nice.

DAN: We've taken a quick look at a number of programs that have implemented online components in many different ways. Let's talk a few minutes about the opportunity of providing online components to an orientation program.

First, the online program makes the orientation program available to students who cannot travel to campus for the traditional program. This is especially true for international students and those from great distances who may not be able to attend a face-to-face program over the summer, and of course, those that are enrolled in a fully online program. Online orientation will give those students the same opportunity for summer program without traveling. And online orientation programs being available any time and thus students can begin the program at their convenience. As at Dayton, students can be given access to the program as soon as they're admitted and begin to learn about and make connections to their new school. So those students that are anxious about this transition, they can begin early and can spend as much time as they need to becoming acclimated.

PAT: You know, in our LAAP project, Regis University is working on an orientation program — and this is sort of an interesting philosophy about what orientation should be like — and they sort of view it as a slow-release medication that a student gets, little bits and pieces all across their relationship with the institution. So it starts with the early phase, and that's the part they're working on developing now, but gradually they will build something that goes across that entire relationship.

DAN: Yep, and, and my own feeling of orientations I've been involved with and planned is you try to get as much information as you can to the students in a very short period of time because it's the only chance you have, to have them all together. And this way they can spread it out over a longer period of time and literally slowly release the information.

PAT: Right. That's "just in time" information.

DAN: Right. The online program also provides the ability to convey the information in different formats than a face-to-face program. Such as we were saying, you can selectively release information based on giving it to them in slow-release that they're not overwhelmed with it. But you can also give them the information based on their progress through the program. Time-sensitive reminders such as housing and deadlines can be sent to the student as they're in the program. Finally, as Dayton illustrates, individualized or personalized information such as housing and roommate assignments, academic advisor information and academic requirements can be sent to specific students. An online orientation site also becomes a focal point for students to access the information they received during the formal program. Rather than needing to rely on remembering what was said during the verbal face-to-face sessions or looking through printed handbooks and brochures, an online program provides the opportunity for students to access this information in the same place they originally received it. For distance students and those not residing on or around campus, the online component makes information available without having to return to the campus. I think it's real important, when I worked in residence halls, you always said to a student, "Well didn't you read that in the student handbook?" And if you ever went to a student's residence hall room, the student handbook was always buried under everything because they got it the first day they moved in, they put it down, and it then just got completely covered up. They never really read it. This way, it provides an easy way for them to find that information, because they know where they can find it.

PAT: Right.

DAN: The online programs allow staff the opportunity to provide a continuous orientation program rather than one that's available only at static times during the academic year. They can refer students to the program for review of what they were originally told and provide the same programs to students who were admitted or arrived after the start of the academic year. It always amazed me when I was on campus that the most at-risk students were those that were the late admits because, for whatever reason they were admitted late, usually they were on a waiting list, and they often missed orientation and so they immediately started from a behind point, compared to all the other students. And there really was no way to provide them with full orientation after the program took place. This way you can.

PAT: I never even thought of that Dan, but I'm sure that's a common problem.

DAN: It always frustrated me and there wasn't much I could do about it back then. From the workflow perspective, the orientation program is no longer that dreaded event that requires the involvement of all new staff on campus at a specific time. The online program can be built and updated in modules during the individuals office's slower times. Students will participate in the program at their most convenient time and thus spread the student interaction load over a longer period of time. If you ever said to staff, "Okay we're going to run orientation all summer long," they'd go crazy. But if you're running it all summer long on an online environment and e-mails and discussion lists are the main methods of communication, it isn't all that overwhelming to the individual staff people.

PAT: But the real point here is though it doesn't really reduce the workload.

DAN: It's not going to reduce the work. It's going to spread it out. It may actually increase, if you looked at the actual amount of work. It may increase a little bit but it spreads it out over a longer period of time. But the increased workload is probably going to involve more questions from students up front, that may be resolved and less questions later on.

PAT: So it may be more efficient, even though it's more paperwork.

DAN: Initially. Institutionally, the orientation program is the last step of the admission process and the first component of a retention program. Consequently, creating activities that bring students into the campus community makes them feel part of the campus culture and create links between the student and the campus are some of the keys to student retention. An online orientation helps build those bridges prior to the arrival on campus and maintains those links throughout the college experience. An online orientation program also becomes a public resource guide for students considering enrolling at the college. In addition to the resources available on the institution's website and in printed material, the orientation program shows very clearly what services are provided by the college and how they work with their students to ensure their success. Now everybody always loves to be able to look at not the PR pages that are on a website, but what they feel like — it's some inside thing, it's only really available to students on that campus. And this is one way to do that.

PAT: Uh, huh.

DAN: The orientation site can also become a resource for on campus staff to use when working with students and an academic and student support information center for the campus. Rather than relying on other means of communication, to communicate changes in policy, course requirements or changes in services, the orientation site can be the site that faculty, students and staff use for campus information.

PAT: Well, I think it's really important as we build student services, to keep in mind that we also need to provide the student services staff with the tools to support those services and sometimes that can be done on this public site, but sometimes it requires doing it on an Intranet site.

DAN: Yep.

PAT: It's important to add it.

DAN: Very true. As the orientation center grows into a student's first and essential point of contact for information regarding campus and academic services, the online orientation program may evolve into a one-stop shop for student support. And this could lead to a restructuring and re-engineering of how services are provided on campus and how students access these services. Basic information dissemination can become centralized both online and on campus. As we move to more online environments, the students can go to one place to get information about financial aid or registrar or student housing but yet if they go on campus, it's three separate offices. And as the information becomes more centralized online, campuses could also look at reengineering to have that information centralized on campus also.

PAT: And that would be a real student service.

Slide: Challenges

DAN: Pat, there you go. However, as with any programmatic changes, the opportunities that the online program provides are counterbalanced with the challenges. And I see three major challenges in creating an online program. Orientation is viewed as a very personal event. While information dissemination is important and not very personal, it's often felt that the team-building and community connection components must be hands-on and face-to-face. Consequently, it's felt that the online orientation is not feasible or effective to meet all the goals of orientation. While the personalization of an orientation experience is vital, this can be easily adapted to the online environment through individualized components and the use of online collaboration tools. As you've seen, individualized components can include login and registration leading to personalized portals and resources, individualized checklists and evaluations and links to specific academic resources. Online collaboration could include chat rooms, e-mail communication and bulletin boards, discussion groups with students of like majors and interests or online meeting spaces for students living on the same residence hall floor, or with the same advisor.

For the traditional campus, an online orientation will not and should replace the face-to-face orientation necessary to build community. However, online components certainly can enhance the support of the traditional programs. I think if you talk to faculty who teach online courses, sometimes they feel that the students communicate more with each other, there's more of a community within the class and they certainly know the students better through the online discussions than they do in the face-to-face class. And I really think that can translate into an orientation program also.

PAT: Yeah, I think we're hearing more and more of that.

DAN: The digital divide is a major issue in providing online services. All students may not have access to a computer or the Internet at home and may not have the same basic training necessary to access the programs. As institutions develop these programs they need to be aware of the access capabilities of their students and work to ensure that all students are getting equal access if they do provide online services. For those campuses without a full-time orientation coordinator or at least a person who can devote year-round attention to the program, an online program may be difficult to implement. While an asset of the program is the year-round access of the service, this results in the need to provide year-round maintenance of the program. Rather than have the program end at the start of the semester and having students utilize service offices on campus, the online program may become the first stop for questions and thus may need year-round attention. But again, it may be shifting some of the work from the face-to-face offices to an online environment. So it may just be a shift in some responsibilities.

PAT: And I would think with some planning you could create an orientation program where some of the information would be generic and apply from, you know, semester to semester.

DAN: Right.

PAT: You would know what areas you needed to update.

DAN: Right. And as building an online course, the first time you do it is the toughest, but when you teach that course the second time or the third time, you've got a lot of the information in there and you it's the same thing as an orientation program.

PAT: Right.

DAN: As I said at the beginning of the presentation, I see orientation not as a one-time program but an ongoing resource center. As you move the programs from your on campus as you move the program on your campus from a first year student program to a four-year retention or resource service, think about creating online components. There are a few major points to keep in mind. The first are related to how you use the technology. First, use the technology to expand opportunities for community building and discussing not just between students, but between students and faculty and staff. Use the technology to provide twenty-four/seven service. I've heard numerous times that the only way to meet the needs of students on a twenty four/seven basis is to expand office hours. Rather than expanding face-to-face hours, use the technology to provide access to the information. Integrate and use the existing technologies on your campus. Don't look at reinventing the wheel. Talk to technical folks on your campus and see how existing technologies can be used for orientation purposes. How can you use your course management system, your portal or your student information system for your purposes? And often, people only think of course management systems, for example, are for academics and we can't use them for anything else; and in reality there's a lot more flexibility there. And importantly, don't assume that the technology will solve all your issues, but use the technology to supplement the program. But be cautious how you use the technology. Don't assume it will make life easier or solve problems you currently have, or to reduce your workload.

Slide: In Conclusion

The second set of points revolves around how we look at students and how we provide service to them. First, I think it's important to blur the line between printed materials, face-to-face resource and the online environment. Use the online components to provide new and acceptable methods of information dissemination. This is especially meaningful if your online information is personalized for the individual student. And secondly, blur the line between services for distance and traditional students. And this is my biggest point because I've said it three or four times already. Let's not go on different systems and services for distance students and traditional students. They all need and deserve the same services and want the ability to utilize the service that is most convenient for them. If a traditional student wants online services, let's provide those. In the same way, distance students who may live near campus may want face-to-face student services.

PAT: I think if people use the distance student as their primary audience when they're building these services, they're more likely to be able to service the traditional student of the future, because I think that student is increasingly going to look like our today's distance students.

DAN: I agree. I really think that the online orientation is just the first piece in providing the full gamut of online student services and really can be an example of how to do it in other areas because it touches so many of the other areas.

PAT: Right.

Slide: Resources

DAN: There are a great number of resources on the web regarding orientation in general and online services in particular. NODA and the First-Year Resource Center have resources directly related to orientation and the first-year experience. The WCET guide has some great information about online services both orientation and others. This presentation will be posted to the WCET website and you can use these links to explore the sites that I discussed today.

PAT: Well, thank you Dan, very much for doing this presentation again and I want to thank you also for writing a new section that we have of our website about orientation and you provided us with lots of links to additional resources out there. And I hope our attendees today will check the site out and find all the resources there about orientation, but also about our other student services.

DAN: That would be great.

SUE: You know Pat, what I'd like to do now is go ahead and I'm going to open up a new window in everybody's monitor.

PAT: Okay.

Slide: WCET webcast page

SUE: And this is the new WCET LAAP site and I've opened it up to the webcast page so people could grab the scroll bar and pull it down and see all the webcasts that we've done and the resources that are available. So if you go down the page a bit you see Dan's PowerPoint slides, his URLs, his comments, are all available right now on our website and I hope people will add this to their favorites files or bookmark and come back and look throughout this site when it's convenient for them.

PAT: Well, thanks Sue. Sue manages the site here and she makes sure that all the information is available for everyone and does a great job. So thanks for all of that Sue.

SUE: Oh, you're welcome. You know, I'd also like to change the slide now back to the main screen. If everybody could close out or minimize the WCET slide so we can back to Dan's. I'm posting his contact information. He's an incredible resource for orientation and all kinds of student services. That's how people in the audience can reach Dan.

Slide: Dan's contact information

DAN: And feel free to drop me an e-mail.

Slide: WCET Evaluation

SUE: Okay, thanks. And Dan, if what we'd like to do is ask people to participate in a little evaluation to tell us about this presentation and also any ideas for future webcasts that they might have. And then we've got a few minutes left if you wouldn't mind, could you hang in there with us for a few more minutes and perhaps people who might have questions could enter them in the chat box and you could respond to those.

DAN: That would be great.

PAT: So let's give people a couple of minutes here to fill out the evaluation. It would be especially helpful if you can tell us what other topics you'd like for us to cover in future presentations and suggestions for speakers, if you have any.

SUE: Do you want to talk about the next broadcast?

PAT: Yes, thank you. The next webcast is June 24 at noon Mountain Time and it's going to be on student financial aid. And we have Marianne Phelps and Norm Finlinson. Norm is from BYU and Marianne Phelps originally headed up the demonstration project at US Department of Education. So we're looking forward to their presentation on how to provide financial aid for distance students.

SUE: And I'd like to emphasize that June 24 is a Monday. All of our other webcasts have been on a Wednesday, but this is one, the student financial aid will be on Monday, July 24.

PAT: Great.

DAN: We've got, I see two questions up there. One: where are the PowerPoint slides, and a question about my contact information. The PowerPoint slides will be up on the WCET site right after this, Sue?

SUE: Oh, they're all ready.

DAN: For this one?

SUE: Yeah, they're all ready. It's in there. It's in the far right-hand column in that table on the webcast page.

DAN: And the second question was my contact information. It's also at the end of the slide. If you go to those and flip through my e-mail address is dan.volchok@webct.com. As a matter fact, I'll put it in the chat box.

SUE: Great, 'cause says she's just printed off the Power Points and that's great.

DAN: Denise asks about any chance of seeing the University of Dayton orientation. Like I said, it's very personalized and, and there isn't a public site, but I would think, — though they may kill me if I say this — if you just go to the University of Dayton and ask someone there if you can get a little tour of it, maybe they'll give it to you.

SUE: I wonder if our audience has some other sites they'd like to recommend, Dan for good orientation sites. If anyone in the audience knows of a good site, and would like to recommend it, just please enter that in the message box now.

DAN: Any other questions that people may have?

SUE: I hope everybody has finished up the evaluation because I'm going to take that down very shortly. So if you haven't finished the evaluation, please do so now. Okay.

Slide: Thank you for joining us.

SUE: Okay, well thanks very much for joining us. And we look forward to meeting you online on June 24 to learn about financial aid.

DAN: Thank you very much.