Orientation to Distance Education

UMUC's distance courses link students with their faculty member and coursemates online through the World Wide Web (WebTycho). Online courses are asynchronous, which means that students can sign on and participate at times convenient to them.

Online students need to be prepared to interact with their faculty member and coursemates in writing. Strong reading and writing skills in the English language are critical.

Typical elements of online courses include:

• asynchronous, frequent student and faculty participation
• lectures and assigned readings (from textbooks and online resources)
• individual and group assignments (for example, case studies and discussion questions)
• individual and group papers
• literature analyses (graduate)
• use of online library resources
• online (graduate) and proctored (undergraduate) quizzes and examinations