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Welcome them with a Note

Posted: October 3, 2016 | Last Modified: March 15, 2022 Leave a Comment

Imagine you are taking an online course for the very first time. You get logged in and you enter the course, now what do you do?

When you logged into this course for the very first time, what was the first thing you saw? How did you know what to do next?

The Welcome Note is the very first thing a student sees when he or she accesses the course. It is posted in the News tool, and contains the basic instructions as to how to find the materials they need to proceed. Remember– overcommunicate and don’t assume students know how to use the tools.

The idea of a Welcome Note, which students should see when they first enter a course, is found in many of the most popular rubrics used to evaluate the quality of online courses (e.g., Quality Matters, Penn State e-Learning Design Standards). Even those rubrics that don’t specifically mention a welcome note emphasize the need for orientation materials, including information about how students should get started in the course and who they can contact for different types of assistance.

Simply put, a welcome note sets the tone for your course and provides the information students need to get off to a good start. It’s also one of your first opportunities to interact with your students and build community in your course.

Listed below you’ll see what we’ve found (based on online course design rubrics and our experiences with online instructors and students) to be some of the most important characteristics of an effective welcome message.

Key Characteristics of Welcome Notes

Welcome messages should:

  • Contain around 250-350 words (this is not a hard and fast rule, but carefully consider what you include if you have much more than this)
  • Avoid repeating your Instructor Bio in your Welcome Note. Briefly introduce yourself, and direct students to your full Instructor Bio
  • Be formatted for online readability. This includes breaking up the text as appropriate with headings, paragraphs, bulleted lists. This is especially important for long Welcome Notes.
  • Explain how students should address you
  • Mention options for how students can contact you
  • Explain the overall design / structure of the course
  • Include getting started information
    • Explain where to find different course components, such as the syllabus and course calendar
    • Tell students exactly how to get started (e.g., read the syllabus, post to the Introductions discussion)
    • Emphasize how information will be shared (e.g., Announcements)
    • Explain how to ask questions (e.g., Ask the Class discussion)
    • Direct students to resources such as technical support
    • Explain any requirements students will need to abide by, such as a Code of Conduct or Academic Honesty Agreement
  • Be posted/scheduled for the day the course opens to students (preview week)

Long Welcome Notes

If you feel your Welcome Note needs to be significantly longer than the recommendation above, consider the following:

  • Your audience may include English language learners and/or students are visually impaired and using adaptive technologies that “read” the text to them.
  • Consider making a video (less than 5 minutes long and captioned) accompanied by a short text paragraph with the essential getting started information.

Sample Language for Getting Started Info

Looking for something you can copy and past for the more technical Getting Started information above? Feel free to introduce yourself and your specific class, and then copy the below for the nitty gritty. Feel free to adapt it.

Getting Started

  • Announcements on the Home tab is always the first place to check each time you log in to your course. Here you’ll find updates, announcements, and other class-related information. We will post here quite a few times, so please make it a habit to check in here.
  • After reading Announcements, check out the Syllabus by clicking on the link in the course navigation bar on the left; pay close attention to this course’s Academic Integrity policy.
  • Read through the Course Information module by clicking on Home.
  • Review the Calendar by clicking on View Calendar on the right side of the Home page.
  • Post any general course questions in the Ask the Class/Raise your Hand discussion forum. You may post questions here now or anytime throughout the course. (For technical questions of a more personal nature, please contact iDocs via email at bizhelp@uwec.edu or me, via email.)
  • Please review Online Course Resources on the navigation bar.
  • For technical help, contact bizhelp@uwec.edu, which emails all of the instructional designers at iDocs for a faster response.

Filed Under: Course Design, Online Teaching, Standards Tagged With: Announcements, Fundamentals, Instructor, Instructor Presence, Social Presence

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About This Blog

Through the partnerships we form with our instructors, we develop engaging and interactive online courses. Here you’ll find ideas on course design informed by the latest research and teaching strategies that build community and instructor presence. We’ll also we share our experiences with technology, with Canvas, and with administering our online educational programs.

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