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Considering Accounting Online? |
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Welcome! I thought it would be best to make a few introductory comments about the course based on comments from students in previous semesters. Course Considerations: Please be aware online courses generally require more time than the traditional course. Students must master the course content as well as dealing with the technology of the course.. Please be aware in order to participate in my online classes you must be able to send and receive MS Word and MS Excel documents. My courses are not a variable entrance/exit courses. You must be able to adhere to a schedule. Therefore, you must be available to able access a course while the course is running. If you need to be away from home, be aware you can access the course nearly 24/7 from away computer connected to the world wide web. As I prefer to give students feedback as soon as possible, all submitted work must arrive by due dates. All exams must be taken within the allotted time. Involvement: Please note participation is greatly encouraged. Accounting is, by itself, a difficult course. Alone makes it very difficult. You need feedback on your efforts. Discussing things lets you know whether you understand it and where you stand compared to others. Students have often told me chatting greatly reinforces material. Perhaps some of you “feel weird” about typing on a message board. Online classes as well as traditional class experiences will be whatever you want them to me. In a virtual world, online students are virtually anonymous. Ask what you want, ask what you need. Probably, no one knows who you are and could be next to you in a store and you not know it. Let whatever inhibitions you may have go and get involved. I believe once you do you’ll be glad you did. If you have any questions or problems "raise your hand in class". Post a question (in appropriate chapter category) in the Discussion area. Students will respond. You can organize a study group. Get a group to meet in a Chat Room. I can't say enough times how much students say they benefit from this. Procrastination: Procrastination is the major obstacle in completing a distance learning course. Without the set schedule of a classroom course, distance learning students tend to put off doing lessons, and/or forget about them completely. But you don't have to have superhuman discipline to finish this course successfully; all you need is an organized structure for your studies. Get started as soon as possible. Experience has shown me students who submit their first assignment within the first few days are more likely to complete the course than those who delay; hence I believe structure is beneficial. Allow enough time before each exam to receive my feedback on all your previous assignments. I, generally try to grade assignments, together, the day after the assignments were due. While you are waiting for each assignment to be graded, work ahead on the next assignment. Set specific dates on your personal calendar for completing each lesson and taking your exams. You may experience some "slippage" from these dates, due to unforeseen events, but at least you will be making progress. Don't delay; turn in your first assignment within the first week after you receive your text. When stuck, I can talk you through the problem, so when possible email, include a phone number and time to reach you. Course Management: No assignment, exam or quiz may be taken or given late. Assignments: All Assignments must be forwarded on time to allow me to release the assignment solutions to students. All Assignments must be forwarded using Microsoft Excel. Exams: It is my hope that all of you will be able to take all of your exams online without the need to come to campus to take exams. However, in order to maintain the integrity of the exam process, some of you may have to come on campus. All non-BCC students must make arrangements to take exams on the Home Campus. I envision the exams working like this. I will release on the scheduled dates each exam. You can take the exam anytime from anywhere you can connect to the internet for up to a 2 hour period between 00:00 to 23:55 ( 12:00 AM to 11:55 PM). You must finish the exam and properly submit for grading before 11:55 PM. If you try to look up all 50 questions up you will not finish. Have a watch or clock handy. Do not rely on the Webct clock as it has to be refreshed to change the time remaining on the screen. Finish early, leave yourself 10 minutes. After you leave the exam go see your posted grade. If you do not see one perhaps you did not exit properly and Webct will let you back in to properly exit for a grade. You will need to come to campus to take your exam if: I do not receive a valid grade via the Webct system for whatever reason; human or technical. The reason will not matter. Examples: You finished the exam and did not submit it for grading properly within the 2 hour limit. Note: until submitted for grading the Webct clock is still ticking. So if you forget to submit, Webct may report that you had taken 734 hours to complete. Your time is limited to 2 hours. If you submit the exam for grading after the 2 hour period the exam results will not be recorded. Be careful: the Webct time remaining clock is not real time and does not change until the page is refreshed. Therefore, you may lose track of time while looking things up. Time expires. You must follow the directions very carefully. If you submit the exam for grading after the 2 hour period has expired, Webct will ignore it. You will need to make arrangements to take a proctored make-up exam. BCC students will retake at the college’s testing center located in Paramus. You hit the wrong button and it kicked you out. Your child pulls the computer plug out of the wall. You do nothing and Webct kicks you out. I am optimistic there will be no problems. I will contact you if any problem had occurred. You must take the exam on the scheduled date. There will be no make ups for missed exams. Missed exams are recorded as zero. If you have an absolute conflict, contact me immediately. Remember you can take the exam, anytime and anyplace you are connected to the internet. Excuses will be minimal. By taking the quizzes you can practice the “finishing and submitting” procedures before the real exam date. Each chapter has a Pretest, in the chapter’s content area, which you may preview to get a sample of multiple choice questions. I would suggest some questions are easier and some more challenging. Go through and answer all the easy ones first. Sometimes other multiple choice questions may contain information that may help answer others. Secondly, should time get short you are not rushing through easy ones and making mistakes you probably wouldn’t have made. Lastly, for the more challenging questions you may wish to use notes to answer them. Quizzes: The purpose of the a quiz is to help you practice exam taking procedures; opening, taking, finishing and submitting for a grade the tests within the 120 minute limit. Some quizzes will have unlimited attempts, some unlimited time and some not. The variations are to provide meaningful practice for some without discouraging all. I am, simply, hoping to provide a more formal setting then having you simply review the Pretests in the Content Area. Don't stress it. Be prepared before you take it. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time and you'll gain little from the experience. Communication: Please understand proper communication is sometimes complicated. You should be aware when you send/ receive email or post questions/answers to the site, the tone of the written words may be different than what you, or the author, intended. Since you can not see facial expressions or body language, the words may be misunderstood. At times words may seem abrupt or insensitive so please be careful. Please understand that neither I nor any student in the course wishes to offend anyone. We are probably just trying to get our message across as quickly as possible with our limited typing skills. You should be made aware that I am neither at the college nor online 24/7. Therefore, please have reasonable expectations about the amount of time it takes to get a response. While I will most likely be online regularly, I can not guarantee any immediate responses. All questions about the material content of the course should be asked in the “Discussion Area” of the course. This feature replaces the traditional classroom. Just as you would raise your hand in class, you should raise your questions here. Students, and I, can then respond to the question. Often students ask very similar questions. We have large classes, posting questions and answers allows all of to work together. Emailing me directly should be reserved for any personal issues that you might come to talk to me during my office hours. Please make note of my office hours. I prefer you call and speak to me directly about any way I can be of help. If you need to have another way to reach me beyond the course email, you can find how to contact me at my college webpage at http://www.bergen.edu/faculty/cmayer/. Discussion Area: Emailing vs. Posting
Discussion area management: The area is organized by topics and threads. I have created a few topic categories which should get us through the course. Please try to keep the discussion area organized or it will become very confusing. Nearly all posting will be associated with a chapter topic. Please try to refrain from creating new postings under the main topic. Webct will default to this unless you specify something else. It can become confusing after 400 postings are made. If wish to ask an original question please choose an appropriate topic area (such as Chapter 1 or 2…). If wish to ask a question related to a question previously posted, please do it as a reply to the original message so the questions and answered are placed together and tied together. The is called threading. Using private emails to ask classroom questions would be like whispering to me in class. Many students have similar questions and it would promote greater class involvement and everyone can see the questions others are asking along with the answers. This lets everyone know they are not alone and, in fact, lets all of us know some may be experiencing similar problems. I hope both myself and other students can enter the discussion. This should make for a more enriching experience.
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