Online College Course Forum

Having written about how difficult I'm finding fitting in my online program work, I have just managed to put in almost a whole day's work - and a very productive one too. It's peculiar how sometimes my mind plays tricks on me, and having insisted on a break from this work for more than a week, it now will work overtime and produce much more from one day's work than I can usually hope for.

I simply cannot predict how effective I am in this study. It is unusual for me, as I can usually work to order, and am quite self-disciplined. I think that the level of work I am putting into my online program is very high, and therefore I need to be able to perform at a level that I cannot produce to order.

It's the end of my academic year here in New Zealand, and I'm finding it very difficult to tear my attention away from work, and onto my online program. It's not so much the time - although there is precious little of that - but my capacity to work that is affected. At work I change my focus of attention constantly as I deal with the day to day decisions necessary to make sure that the department is working well.

I then come home a zombie, with little capability of cooking a meal, never mind sitting at a computer and concentrating on the intellectual effort necessary to do research or read an article. However, I'm lucky enough to have fairly generous holidays. This, plus the fact that most of my working year is not this pressured means that as long as I can just keep things going during this period, I should be able to study and work for most of the year.

Research skills are necessary for almost any undergraduate or graduate online programme. If you are studying online, you will find that much of your work involves research, and you need to know how to do this well and effectively. Many online programmes will include research skills as a part of the programme, but if you are studying on a programme that does not give you these skills and you have not studied them previously, you would be well advised to find yourself a research skills course - there are plenty online.

Study skills really help you to study well, and to present your work in the form that will gain you the best results. You will find that these relatively simple skills allow you to work more effectively, and your tutors and lecturers will find the way you present assessments and assignments immediately understandable and acceptable.

Learning how to write assignments for degrees can be quite difficult. There are set conventions for referencing materials that you use as research and to quote from, or to substanticate your point of view. You are also expected to wirte in a fairly literate and precise manner in order to express yourself in a suitably academic fashion.

Many online programmes have a study module that you take as a part of your induction, giving you the groundrules that you are expected to use. It is really worthwhile studying this carefully and using the rules rigorously during your work. Once you have mastered these conventions, you will use them throughout your academic life. You will find that although some conventions are slightly different, they will be acceptable in all academic institutions.