Required Online Learning Orientation prior to registering for a fully online course

Beginning with Summer 2013 classes, there will be a requirement for students to take an Online Learning Orientation prior to registering for a fully online class.

In a 2011 survey, Ferris faculty who taught online indicated a strong need for students to learn the online learning platform prior to taking fully online classes. As a result, the E-Learning Management Advisory Team has been working on a new tutorial for students, which will better prepare them to be successful in their online courses.

We will be making this orientation available to students beginning the week of December 10th. The orientation and waiver form can both be found at www.ferris.edu/online. The orientation should take less than 1 hour for a student to complete. Our intent would be to require any student who would be taking a fully online class in Summer 2013 to take this orientation prior to registration. The exceptions to this requirement are listed below.

Students would only need to complete the orientation one time, which would fulfill the prerequisite need for any additional / future fully online courses.

As mentioned above, there are exceptions that you should be aware of:

  1. If a department so elects, it may decide NOT to put the prerequisite code on specific course sections. You would most often see this in 'capstone' or other courses where the instructor is sure the students already have the skills to navigate within FerrisConnect.
  2. Students who have already been successful within the new FerrisConnect platform may alternatively submit a waiver indicating they are confident of their skills.
  3. Departments assisting with registration may elect to 'override' the prerequisite error when registering the students. This would most often happen during peak times close to the beginning of the semester, or when the student is concerned about losing the available seat. Please note that this only overrides them for that particular course and semester; in any future semesters they would again encounter the prerequisite error.

In this new process, Extended and International Operations (EIO) and the academic departments will work together to ensure a smooth implementation.
The process will be:

  1. Academic departments add the test score prerequisite into banner for any of their fully online sections for Summer 2013 (other than any identified exceptions).
  2. When students complete the waiver form or complete the tutorial, EIO will enter the completion status into Banner. We will anticipate doing this as quickly as we can, but have 'disclaimers' on the orientation that it may take 1 - 2 days. We will be getting reports daily that tell us who completed the prior day, and will enter their completion status as soon as we get the reports.

Again, students only need to complete the waiver or take the orientation ONCE. Once their completion status is loaded into Banner, it will fulfill the requirement, so during any future registrations they would not get that prerequisite test score error. Please feel free to direct any questions to Deb Thalner at 810-429-1122 or thalnerd@ferris.edu.

Deb Thalner
Executive Director, Online Learning

Last updated: 02-04-2013