Are you ready for Online Learning at NOVA Online?

SmarterMeasure is an assessment that measures learner readiness for Northern Virginia Community College’s Extended Learning Institute. SmarterMeasure is an indicator of the degree to which distance learning and/or learning in a technology rich environment will be a good fit for you.

SmarterMeasure is meant to be an interesting experience by which you may learn more about yourself, online learning, and how to succeed! Your SmarterMeasure score will not prevent you from registering for online classes. Take your time to rate yourself honestly. It is a tool that will help you assess your strengths and opportunities for growth related to online learning in 6 areas.

1. Life Factors
2. Individual Attributes – procrastination, time management, willingness to ask for help, academic attributes
3. Learning Styles – what is your predominant learning style?
4. Technical Competency, Skills, and Knowledge
5. Reading Rate and Recall
6. Typing Speed and Accuracy

You will receive a full color report immediately following the completion of all areas of SmarterMeasure. You may email this report, print it, or download and save for future reference. It also provides some remedial tools related to each area. For more information about SmarterMeasture, view this video.

If you are interested in taking courses through the Extended Learning Institute and would like to determine if online learning is right for you, please email NOVA Online Student Success Coach, Jennifer Reed at jereed@nvcc.edu for a user name and password and to discuss your results.

Many of you have heard that NOVA has implemented several changes to its parking policies at the beginning of the Fall 2014 semester. 

The changes are as follows:

• Free Evening and Weekend Student Parking. To minimize parking on neighborhood streets and optimize parking capacity at each campus, students will be able to park for free on all campuses after 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and all day on weekends in Student (B Lots) only. Students are not permitted to park in Faculty/Staff parking lots.

• Parking Permit Fee Reduction. To provide an incentive for students to park on-campus, the price of student parking permits will be rolled back by $15 per semester to $90.00 when purchased in-person or $80.00 when purchased on-line.

• Parking Infrastructure Support Fee. To offset the reduced parking revenue and provide continuing infrastructure support, a new per-credit-hour fee of $0.50 will be applied to support maintenance and construction of streets, walkways and lots, exterior lighting, signage and safety improvements.

• Graduation Incentive. To provide an additional incentive, graduating students will receive a full rebate of their final semester paid parking permit fee.

One assumption that some online students make is that all NOVA Online courses are self-paced. To that end, students may put off getting started and learn that their instructor has withdrawn them for not meeting course deadlines.  Don’t let this happen to you!It is very important to understand that all NOVA Online courses have weekly or even mid-weekly due dates. There are critical enrollment dates, that include your First Assignment Due Date – requiring you to log into your Blackboard course site and complete your First Assignment by the due date. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in being dropped from the course without a tuition refund. Online courses may be 16 weeks, 12 weeks, 10 weeks, 8 weeks, 6 weeks, or 4 weeks in length; each course has specific start, refund, first assignment due date, withdrawal, and end date that you should be aware of when you select a particular course.

In addition to logging in and completing your first assignments (as referenced in your Quick Start Syllabus and Blackboard Course Site), NOVA Online courses also have regular weekly assignment deadlines.

When taking a NOVA Online course, it is important to understand that assignment due dates as well as test and quiz due dates come quickly. Due dates are firm and in some NOVA Online courses, assignments and tests/quizzes are sometimes removed after the due date.

To be successful in your course:

Read through your course syllabus on the first day of class. Understand all the deadlines that apply to your course and record them in your planner.

Establish a Routine – Visit your Blackboard Course Site daily and read all of your emails and announcements.

Make Note of your Course Deadlines, and turn your assignments in on time.

If possible, take your test prior to the testing deadline—you never know what might come up at the last minute!

To ensure that you understand the NOVA Online course deadlines, please review your course specific critical course deadlines and stay on top of weekly assignments.

As your NOVA Online courses begin, it is important to keep in mind attendance and participation in your NOVA Online courses are very important. In fact your attendance and participation are not just important, they are required. Be mindful of Critical Course Deadlines and course specific deadlines so you don’t miss any assignments.  

As soon as your class begins, log into Blackboard and explore your course Blackboard. Use this opportunity to locate and review the course syllabus and assignments folder. This will give you a chance to see what you will be responsible for throughout the semester. In addition, this will also allow you sufficient time to plan your time appropriately, making certain you will be able to complete your readings, assignments, projects and tests in time for their specified due dates. It is crucial to ensure you have completed and submitted your first assignment prior to the First Assignment Due Date to avoid being administratively withdrawn from your course. 

Logging into Blackboard as soon as the semester begins will also give you the opportunity to identify any unexpected issues and provide ample time to ask any questions you might have. 

If you have any questions or you are not sure where to start, you can contact the NOVA Online Student Services Team at 703-323-3347. We are more than happy to answer your questions, as well as refer you to useful resources and services that will support your online learning experience.

Welcome to NOVA Online! We are dedicated to helping you start strong. Whatever your educational goals, we can help you achieve them. If you are a first-time-to-college student, ages 17-24 (including high school/homeschool/GED graduates), you need to Start Strong at NOVA.

Start Strong begins this fall. The six new policies will change the way new students register and prepare for classes. The new polices are part of an effort to strengthen the NOVA experience. Five of the new policies affect first-time-to-college students (ages 17-24). New students are required to attend a Student Orientation and meet with a First Year Advisor. As a new NOVA Online student, you can attend a campus Student Orientation, or you can work with NOVA Online virtually to get started.

The sixth policy requiring on-time registration impacts all students: new, current, transfer, international, military or any other type of student. All students must be registered for classes by 11:59 p.m. the day before the session’s start date. Once the session begins, registration is closed.

If you are not enrolled in a class on the start date of the session you will not be able to enroll without permission from the division dean. If you miss on-time registration you can still register for later start date. NOVA Online has several start dates each semester, for students interested in starting a class later in the semester. Check out NOVA Online Critical Course Deadlines for more information. For more information about on-time registration view this video.

Are you enrolled in your first online learning course this fall? Or, have you taken an online course previously and want to ensure that you are headed in the right direction? Do you have any questions about using Blackboard to complete your NOVA Online course? A great place to start is with the NOVA Online Orientation webinar.A webinar is a live, online instruction session. You can participate in a webinar from any computer or mobile device with Internet access and speakers. A microphone is not required as we will use a text chat for all questions. Participation in all webinars offered through NOVA Online is free, but registration is required. Prior to the webinar, all students registered will receive an email with information about how to join the webinar live. You can view the NOVA Online Webinar schedule and registration process here.

You will need the ability to run JAVA to load Blackboard Collaborate, the web conferencing tool we use for the orientation webinar. You can test your connection ability ahead of time by visiting http://support.blackboardcollaborate.com and clicking on “First Time Users — Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing”.

The NOVA Online Orientation webinar is a live, one hour online instruction session that focuses on getting started in your NOVA Online courses, navigating your Blackboard course site, identifying tips for success, and highlighting student support services. During the webinar, you will have the opportunity to ask any questions you have before you start your course.

Connect with NOVA Online on Facebook, Twitter & join fellow NOVA Online students in the Virtual Student Union.

When juggling school, life, work, and family, it is very easy for important events and deadlines to get lost in the shuffle. When it comes to events and deadlines related to your schoolwork and life at NOVA, we try to keep you informed through this blog, Twitter, Facebook, and through emails to your student email account.

Your NOVA Online Instructor(s), the Financial Aid Office, the Business Office, and the Central Records Office will also send important communications that you would need to be aware of to your student email account. If your student email account isn’t the one you are used to checking every day, you might miss something important.

Thankfully, your student emails can be forwarded to another email address automatically, or you can set up your student email to receive emails from all of your other email accounts, so you can check everything in just one place.

To forward your student emails to another account, follow these steps:

1. Log into your student email account by logging into MY NOVA and select your student email from the list of choices.

**Make sure you have upgraded to a Google+ account.

2.  Click on the head in upper right corner & then click on Account link.

3.  Click on Edit settings link.

4.  Scroll to “Notification delivery” and click on “Add email address” link. 5.  Add the email address to use when forwarding your student email and click on the Add button.

6.  A verification email will be sent to the added address. If you don’t receive it, you will need to resend the verification. You will need to go to that address and click on a Verify button in the email to complete the process.

7.  You should see a message from Google+ stating that the new email address has been verified.

8.  You can add or delete email addresses at any time.

Remember, that your NOVA Online Instructor will need you to respond to them using your student email, so you may not be able to just reply from a forwarded email. Instead, you might need to log in to your student email account to respond.

Keep in mind that all information which would be protected by privacy laws that an employee at NOVA would send you through email must be sent to your student email account to ensure a level of security. When you forward an email to another address, you take responsibility yourself for protecting your privacy regarding that information.

Having email lost because of forwarding does not absolve a student from the responsibilities associated with communication sent to his or her official email address. The VCCS is not responsible for the handling of email by outside vendors or unofficial servers.

As your NOVA Online courses begin, it is important to keep in mind attendance and participation in your NOVA Online courses are very important. In fact your attendance and participation are not just important, they are required. Be mindful of Critical Course Deadlines and course specific deadlines so you don’t miss any assignments.  

As soon as your class begins, log into Blackboard and explore your course Blackboard. Use this opportunity to locate and review the course syllabus and assignments folder. This will give you a chance to see what you will be responsible for throughout the semester. In addition, this will also allow you sufficient time to plan your time appropriately, making certain you will be able to complete your readings, assignments, projects and tests in time for their specified due dates. It is crucial to ensure you have completed and submitted your first assignment prior to the First Assignment Due Date to avoid being administratively withdrawn from your course. 

Logging into Blackboard as soon as the semester begins will also give you the opportunity to identify any unexpected issues and provide ample time to ask any questions you might have. 

If you have any questions or you are not sure where to start, you can contact the NOVA Online Student Services Team at 703-323-3347. We are more than happy to answer your questions, as well as refer you to useful resources and services that will support your online learning experience.

Be sure to check your Blackboard course site on a regular basis throughout the semester to make sure you don’t miss any course specific deadlines. Check each folder and read announcements from your instructors.

It is important to be aware of Critical Course Deadlines for your courses. In addition, you also want to be aware of course specific deadlines. Get started immediately so you don’t miss any deadlines.

NOVA Online Student Life offers various in-person and virtual events throughout the semester to help connect you to peers, faculty and staff. Join us!

Take advantage of NOVA’s Library Services from your home computer. You can access resources and refer-ences from the Library database with your VCCS username and password.

Do you have any general NOVA Online questions? The Live Chat is a great option to ask general questions, but re-member your instructors are available if you have course specific questions.

Proctor U is an online proctoring service available for some NOVA Online courses. This service gives you the opportunity to take your exams from your home computer using a webcam, microphone and speakers.

Try using Smarthinking for 24/7 online tutoring.

Checking your Student E-Mail Account is important throughout the semester. You will get updates and an-nouncements from your instructor as well as from NOVA Online. Get in the habit of checking this e-mail.

24/7 Tech Support is available from NOVA.

NOVA Online offers several webinars throughout the semester to help you succeed. Check out live sessions or request a copy of a recording.