Set expectations

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College of Business academics share their insights – © RMIT University

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Barriers to online communication – © Carleton University, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence

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Establishing expectations is important to help learners navigate the learning environment and to understand the rules and expectations of studying online. Setting clear expectations early provides a model for all activity. It sets the ground rules about how learners should interact with you and with each other. Communicate expectations explicitly (i.e. what you expect learners to do each week) and frame learners’ expectations of you (i.e. how and how quickly you will respond and facilitate).

“I call it my rules of engagement.”

Dr Elsie Hooi, RMIT University

Learners need to know what they need to do to succeed. They also need to know how they are expected to communicate and participate in an online environment. The role of the facilitator is to:

• Initiate and support interesting and relevant discussions
• Monitor and moderate discussion posts
• Provide feedback on behaviour either in private or to the whole group (depending on what is appropriate)
• Model professional behaviour at all times.

Establish expectations about behaviour before the teaching period starts by explicitly outlining what is and is not acceptable. Be explicit about the conventions of academic discourse and model expected behaviours. For example, you might write,

“I’m writing in this formal way because it is expected that we will all use and model professional communication in this course – please “keep ur txt speak for ur social life”.

A dynamic and supportive learning environment can be created through video uploads, blogs and wikis, group emails, announcements and discussion posts that have a purpose, and that are clearly communicated and linked to assessment. Learners need to know from the beginning how you will communicate with them, how they should communicate with you, and how they should communicate with each other and what sort of conventions apply. Are discussions in formal academic voice? Can videos be chatty? Does it matter if there are typing errors in your blog? Communicate expectations and model the genres of communication that are expected or enabled by the different technologies.

All communication from you should be:

• To the point – don’t waffle, or include too many hyperlinks or attachments, and in too many places, or the message can be lost
• Visually appropriate and appealing – think about  ‘the look’ of your message and make sure you use a consistent font and colour choice
• Accessible on mobile devices
• Mindful of learners where English is their second language – avoid or explain colloquialisms, abbreviations, acronyms or jargon
• Free of spelling and grammatical errors

• Appropriate (one to many, one to one, one to small groups, text, audio, video etc.).

“I remind my students that they have to be open to other people’s ideas, that they have to ‘speak’ online courteously and that they have to engage in the discussions.”

Associate Professor Kathy Douglas, RMIT University

Strategies

In the discussion forum, an announcement or even in a short video:

1. Use RMIT’s Student Charter or relevant aspects of it as a discussion activity. For example, ask learners how the ideas in the Charter translate to the online learning environment.
2. Create an activity where the learners need to agree on how they would like to be treated and how they will treat each other. Summarise these ideas in an announcement.
3. Make sure discussions about communications cover everything from not using CAPS, to not posting lengthy responses, to not swearing or making derogatory remarks. Learners must understand confidentiality, what respect looks like online, and how to be fair and supportive. Ask them to think about how they would feel if they posted a comment and no one said anything.
4. Set ground rules about how learners should interact with you and each other – including the need to refer to each other by name throughout the course so that people feel acknowledged and visible online.
5. In order to set expectations, remember to also tell learners:
   • what they need to do each week and why.
   • how to participate and how much to participate each week – this makes explicit the anticipated time commitment.
   • that the law applies to online spaces just as it applies to ‘real’ spaces – and so things like copyright, discrimination, privacy and confidentiality apply.
   • the timeframes within which you will respond to an email or a discussion post and when you are available to talk synchronously (via web conferencing or phone).
   • If you have virtual office times via Blackboard Collaborate, Google Hangouts or Skype? Mention these in an announcement.

Always make sure that your tone is positive, your messages are concise and well-structured, and the language simple.

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Example of written communication

Here is an example of written communication from a facilitator to his learners. As you will read he has:

• Outlined his expectations of learners, what they are expected to do and by when, how they should communicate with each other

• Identified the communication tools they will be using.

Hi all

I thought it might be useful for all of us if I outline what I expect from you. This will make it easier for all of us to work together in the same space. So for this course I would like you to:

Please note that professional communication is required at all times. Communicate to the whole group using Blackboard. For more personal or confidential forms of communication, send me an email.

Each week I expect you will read the readings and engage with each other on the discussion board voicing your opinions, thoughts and additional information that you have found outside of the readings. Include your experiences from your professional work but be mindful of confidentiality. The more often you post and contribute, the richer your experience will be. You all have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with me and your peers.

If you are working in a group, you will need to decide how to communicate with each other, e.g. blogs, wiki, Skype, Google Hangouts, Google docs.  Make sure you use a communication tool that is available to everyone.

Make sure you have read the communication guidelines about the tone and language to be used when communicating to the whole group.

The more often you post, the richer this learning environment will become.
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Create a safe learning environment – Blackboard provides useful strategies to create a safe learning environment for student success.

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Consider the ground rules covered in this video for discussion etiquette.

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