Online Respect, Etiquette, and Norms

onboarding prep

Overview

Just like the physical classroom, there are some general rules that students are expected to abide when they attend online classes. This article will help you know what is generally considered acceptable for online communication at CBU.

Guidelines

Check your Email, Moodle, and Teams often.

Your instructors often use these platforms to quickly contact their students. Try checking these at least once a day. It is recommended that you try to answer emails within two days.

Be polite and informative while corresponding online.

When sending emails to your instructors, always greet your instructors using their preferred name (usually in your syllabus, otherwise, use their full name), and sign your email using your name and class number. This ensures that everybody knows who each other is. If this is your first time emailing the instructor, please try to introduce yourself (e.g. "Hello Dr. MacDonald, My name is Jay Doe, and I am a student in....").

Please try to avoid typos, inappropriate words, and confusing sentences in official emails and correspondence.

Make sure your microphone and camera are working before you attend class.

It is very common to have issues with your audio/visual devices, fortunately, most of these are quickly resolved. Ensure your devices are working properly before you attend your first class by keeping them updated, and making sure they meet the minimum requirements for CBU.

Keep your Microphone muted during lectures.

To ensure everyone can hear the instructor, it is important to keep your microphone muted when others are speaking. You can turn your microphone on when you are ready to speak.

Try to keep distractions minimized in your web camera.

If you have to turn your web camera on, try to keep your background distraction-free (a wall, curtain,or bookshelf is appropriate, while a television, busy street, or party is not) and you are wearing appropriate clothing (wear a shirt, avoid graphics with offensive icons, etc).

Submit assignments in the appropriate format.

Check your syallabus to see if your instructor has any instructions for how to submit your assignments. If they do not, it is still best to put your first name and last name in the file name, and to save it as a PDF or Word document (e.g. Jay_Doe_Assignment1.PDF).