Good practice
These insights into good practice with UTSOnline are based on the experiences of many UTS academics and students over several years and in different contexts, and have been drawn from:
- staff and students surveys
- online teaching practices across the university
- a review of the current literature on the use of online environments to support learning and the relevance of these ideas for UTS.
Good practice in setting up UTSOnline
Posting an announcement at the start of semester to inform students how UTSOnline will be used in that particular subject.
Students have different experiences of UTSOnline in different subjects. It is not always clear to students why a teacher chooses to use UTSOnline in a particular way.
There are different ways to use UTSOnline, depending on how active students need to be online. Use the Announcement tool to add alerts into your UTSOnline subject to explain how UTSOnline will be used in your subject as well as information about when assignments are due, corrections/clarifications to subject materials and exam schedules.
Archiving subject outlines from the previous semester and only displaying current subject materials.
Students express confusion when older versions of subject outlines are still available (particularly in relation to dates and assignments).
UTSOnline course areas are often shared with colleagues over different semesters. To avoid uncertainty about course materials from previous semesters you should either delete them, or, if you are uncertain, make them inaccessible to students by unchecking the Make available to students option. Discussion boards will also need attention. Students' work from a previous semester should always be deleted off the discussion board (or archived and made Unavailable), unless all students have given their consent for its use.
Naming content areas clearly and posting subject materials where they might be easily located.
When there are many content areas students may have to search extensively to locate materials.
Inactive or unused content areas can be disabled. You can rename content areas and hide unused ones by selecting the Action Link
of a content item and selecting Rename Link, Hide Link or Delete as appropriate.
Monitoring the file size of documents and avoid posting large files.
Accessing large files can be a problem for students without broadband access.
The suggested range of file size is less than 300 KB (which can also be achieved by zipping or splitting large documents). The names of files should have their extensions included when you upload them (for example, .doc .pdf .xls .wav).
Providing netiquette guidelines for students to encourage appropriate expectations for online interactions on the discussion boards.
Students may be unfamiliar with online communication and may be uncertain about how to participate in UTSOnline forums, or what to do if they feel there are inappropriate comments made on the discussion board.
There are netiquette guidelines for online discussions that you can include in the subject outline or create a link to within UTSOnline.
Providing private group areas for students undertaking group work in the subject.
Students often value an online private group space to work with their peers. The file exchange feature can be used for work-in-progress files and to hold secure backup copies of group work files. Use of the private discussion board and the Group Virtual Classroom can make it easier for groups to coordinate their activities and provide some accountability of individual contributions.
For more information see Groups.
Directing students to resources for learning how to use UTSOnline and for getting help with technical problems.
Students may not know how to use certain features in UTSOnline.
An extensive help system has been developed - tell your students about the Student Guide to UTSOnline and Information for Students resources that are available for you to use with students and are updated regularly.
Good practice in managing UTSOnline during semester
Emailing students about urgent information or announcements relating to their subject and studies.
Although the majority of students log in to UTSOnline frequently, they sometimes miss urgent announcements such as the cancellation of classes due to illness.
In keeping with UTS email policy, all students are enrolled in UTSOnline using their official UTS Webmail account. However students often have their own preferred email account. Students can forward their UTSOnline email messages to any email account they wish.
Responding to student questions within the advertised time and considering whether to enable the anonymous function in the Please Answer My Question forum.
Students get disappointed and frustrated when a turnaround time for receiving replies to their questions is advertised but not adhered to. Students say they value being able to ask questions anonymously (particularly in front of peers) of what they do not know or understand in the subject.
Responding to students’ questions on the discussion board, which all students have access to, aligns with providing equitable learning opportunities.
Managing the size of discussion forums by archiving messages regularly or setting up new forums.
Students with slower Internet access have difficulty accessing discussion boards which contain hundreds of messages.
Threads in a discussion board can be moved to an archived forum. Blackboard has produced a video that gives step-by-step instructions on Archiving a Course (3min:28sec). For more information on setting up new forums, see Discussions.
