In general, the successful online student should possess the following qualities:
- Be open minded about sharing life, work, and educational experiences as part of the learning process. This forum for communication eliminates the visual barriers that hinder some individuals in expressing themselves.
- Be able to communicate through writing. In the virtual classroom, nearly all communication is writen.
- Be self-motivated and self-disciplined. The online process takes a real commitment and discipline to keep up with the flow of the class.
- Be willing to "speak-up" if problems arise. You must communicate with your instructor or your instructor will never know if you are having difficulty.
- Be willing and able to commit to 8 to 9 hours per week per course. Online is not easier than the triditional educational process, in fact an online course requires much more time and commitment.
- Be able to meet the minimum requirements for the course. The requirements in an online course are similar to those in a face-to-face course only the communication structure is different. Online courses are a convenient way to recieve your education, not an easier way.
- Accept critical thinking and decision making as part of the learning process. The learning process requires you to make decisions based on facts as well as experience. Assimilating information and executing the right decisions requires critical thought.
- Be able to think ideas through before responding. Meaningful and quality input into the virtual classroom is an essential part of the learning process.
- Feel that high quality learning can take place without going to a traditional classroom.
- Save all work to some type of storage device, hard drive, floppy disk, USB, etc.
In case of an emergency this gives you a back-up of your course work.
- Have access to a computer and the Internet.
The following are the minimum computing requirements for an online course:
| A computer running Windows 2000 or XP with a processor running at 500MHz or better. |
| At least 256 MB of RAM (higher is highly recomended) |
| The ability to connect to the Internet at a speed of at least 56 kbps. A higher conection speed is highly recomended as some courses will not function at the lower connection speed. |
| A web browser (Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, Netscspe 7.2 or higher, or Firefox 1.5 or higher) |
| A sound card, speakers, voice recorders, and a webcam may be required for some courses. |
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