Hi Cheryl,

My name is Steven, nice to "meet" you :) I have been an academic counselor for about six years and have worked exclusively with distance education students. You raise several common issues that are often challenging to overcome. The lack of attendance that you mention can be problematic. In my experience, new student orientation needs to be championed by all student services personnel, but especially admissions staff if it has any hope of being successful. During the enrollment process, students are strongly influenced by those individuals who have the most contact with them early on so one question is how are admissions staff "selling" the significance of the online orientation?

Although you are still in the process of developing an orientation, it will be important to track its effectiveness. This can be done in a variety of ways such as brief student surveys (focus on students' perception of how helpful the orientation was and whether or not the learning objectives were achieved) or perhaps tracking certain academic metrics (GPA, retention rates, etc.) of students who complete the orientation vs. those who do not. Again, this is a long-term strategy but it pays off if you can accomplish it. The data/feedback will not only help you refine and improve the orientation, but can also provide valuable information about its effectiveness in supporting student success. This information can then be very persuasive when encouraging new students to enroll. For example, we found that of our students who completed the orientation, 80% of them successfully completed their first four classes (which our statistics show is a good indicator they will go even further and do well in the program but this varies per school). We share this information with students in our conversations and strongly encourge them to participate.

Additionally, we constantly ask our students for feedback (surveys at end of orientation) so that we can make improvements to the orientation according to student preferences. We also survey faculty to determine trends they are seeing with regard to new students' academic performance, which allows us to create content that help new students successfully transition into their distance education studies.

Regarding the issue with hosting the orientation at a time that is convenient for students, have you considered creating a self-paced orientation that is set up in the LMS? For example, an orientation could be set up similar to an online class and new students can access it with a standard username/password combination  - although the length of the orientation may vary depending on various factors unique to your institution, learning modules can be created so that students complete various tasks that teach them what they need to know. You would need to create specific learning objectives and create some sort of assessment - perhaps a short quiz that tests their knowledge. The class materials can include PowerPoint presentations (with voice to enrich the content), Embedded video (Youtube), etc.  You can even recruit students to actually be in the videos you create so new students can learn from students who were once in their position of just getting started. Maybe even use faculty in the videos to discuss common challenges, tips for success, etc. Let students put faces to names - the orientation can be a way of developing a relationship with these students. This will also give students an idea of what to expect when they are navigating the online learning environment "for real."

Ideally, orientations should be targetted to specific student segments rather than a generic one-size fits all approach. For example, students in a business program may have unique characteristics, needs, interests, and preferences than students enrolled in an online IT program (maybe there are different resources to highlight or emphasize depending on the academic program the student is in?). The more you tailor the orientation to your specific student demographic, the more likely you are to pique their interest and engage them once they actually start the orientation :) For more information on creating an online student orientation, I would viewing the following information:

http://sloanconsortium.org/conference/2013/aln/creating-learner-centered-orientation-support-success-online-courses

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol4no3/betts_0908.pdf - this article was written by Dr. Kristen Betts and she presents some interesting ideas on how to engage students (check out the "virtual tea" part :)

Hopefully this sparks some ideas

Our school is also involved in distance education.  I found your suggestions very helpful.  I especially like the idea of having faculty discuss common challenges.  I think this would be a great addition to our orientation video.

 

I enjoyed the course. I will apply the techniques.