Best Practices in Online Course Communication

Best Practices in Communication

  1. Upload a profile picture to your Canvas profile.
  2. Notifications – Set your Canvas notifications to receive immediate alerts when students submit assignments.
  3. Communication Policy
    1. Include a detailed communication policy in your course syllabus. Tell students what method is best to contact you (email, Canvas inbox, Teams, etc.) and the best time to contact you. Include information regarding the email return timeline (you should return the email within 24 hours, usually sooner). Include preferred contact information (phone, email, Teams, etc.) and your virtual office hours. Be very clear and very specific.
  4. Assignment Feedback
      1. Include assignment feedback guidelines in your syllabus. Tell students when they should expect feedback and graded assignments (typically 48-72 business hours after assignment submissions). For larger assignments, allow for 2 weeks.
  5. Netiquette
      1. Include directions and expectations regarding how students are to address each other in course communications (professionally) and how they are to address you.
  6. Announcement Tool –
      1. Create a Welcome Announcement to welcome students to the course and tell them how to get started.
      2. Create Weekly Announcements to remind students about upcoming topics and assignment due dates, and to summarize what they learned during the previous week.
  7. Canvas Inbox
      1. Use the inbox to communicate with students (Conversations started in inbox also go to your GEM Outlook Email)
  8. Microsoft Teams
      1. Use Teams to text chat with students
      2. Use Teams to hold virtual office hours with students
      3. Schedule and hold virtual class sessions
      4. Record and share mini-lectures with students
  9. Canvas Studio
      1. Record mini-lectures and deploy them in your course
      2. Request machine captioning for your videos
      3. Use video to record assignment feedback
      4. Record short introduction videos for your learning units/modules