Engage: Course Interface, Navigation, and Structure

2.2. Orientation

Just like you would spend all or part of the first day orienting students to a face-to-face class, you need to spend time doing so in an online course as well. 

In addition to an official syllabus that describes all of the requisite policies and procedures, make sure that YOU introduce students to the course and to yourself. Create a short video to greet students and include a screen capture that demonstrates navigating the course. You may also want to include a brief explanation of important policies like communicating with you, late submission of work, and grading.

• A syllabus quiz or activity with the chance for students to somehow ask questions.
• Collect student information, just as you would with a on-ground section. You may want include questions such as preferred pronouns and names. Moreover, it's a good idea to confidentially ask students about color-blindness or the need for captioning. For instance, you may want to use color to respond to student work, so you need to know if there are exceptions to your normal work flow.
• An ice breaker discussion, where students introduce themselves to each other. Make sure that you model the type of introduction you want and greet the students with responses. Hint: Instead of simply having students introduce themselves, have students answer a unique and interesting question, perhaps relevant to course content. Check out some of the ice breaker suggestions for an online discussion.Open this document with ReadSpeaker docReader .   
• Make your contact information easy to locate. Don't just bury it in the syllabus; put it on the front page or perhaps in a custom Moodle block.