ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the ways for guiding students’ course preparation, setting up student groups, administering email and announcements, and building community beyond the classroom. It describes activities that occur in preparation for the launch of an online course, while a course is running, and shortly after it ends. The chapter is organized in sections corresponding to the phases of course execution: pre-launch, the first week, the middle weeks, the last week, and wrapping up. When a course is running, helping students with issues that are not related to the subject matter distracts faculty from their primary responsibility of teaching. Best practice is for faculty to conduct weekly synchronous meetings with facilitators and support staff, using the faculty forum. Instructors often post Live Classroom or due date reminders in course announcements. In some advanced courses, regularly scheduled synchronous sessions allow students to present their work and have everyone discuss it.
