Getting Started for Students of Online Courses
Critical and Creative Thinking Program, UMass Boston
(although the information below is generally applicable to online students in any program)
Last Update: 21 Jan 2011
Key Links and Contacts:
Getting Connected to Online Courses - Steps to Follow
The Bottom Line: Several steps need to occur before you'll get into an online course -- if you get stuck along the way, then you'll need to determine what needs to happen next, as described below.
The general process and sequence for how things happen is given here:
1. Register and Pay
You register and pay for your course and fulfill any other obligations as required by university.
2. WISER Account
You receive a
WISER account.
WISER is the administrative system for all of your student records (used for all students, regardless of online or face-to-face attendance).
Your User ID looks like "UMSxxxxxxxx" where the x's are eight digits making up your unique login ID.
- Note that WISER uses a unique User ID and password, independent of those that you use for the email system and Blackboard.
3. Student Email Account
You receive an account for your
Student Email Address in the form of Firstname.Lastname###@umb.edu, where the ### are digits, usually 001.
For example, your email account would be something like Maria.Goodwin001@umb.edu. Once inside the
WISER system, you can look up your
Student Email Address if you don't already know it. You don't actually use email in
WISER - you can only SEE what your
Student Email Address is.
- Important note: UMass-Boston uses your student email account for all official announcements and for other correspondence. It is essential that you check this email account regularly (see login details on the Student Handout document). Alternatively, you can log in to your email the first time, then set it to automatically forward all incoming messages to a personal email account (see instructions below). If you do this, you no longer would have to log in to the UMass email system at all - any messages to your official student email address get forwarded immediately to your personal address, and you can just work from that one.
- Forwarding Student Email to Your Personal Account
- In your student email account, you may set up a filter that will cause all incoming messages to be forwarded to another email address of your choice. This will allow you to see all messages, without having to sign in to the student email system.
4. Entering the Course
When you register for an online course, you will be able to access the
Blackboard Vista system - the online learning system where course materials will be kept (you get this access after 1-3 happen above and once the online semester begins). Your
Blackboard Vista login ID is the same as the first part of your
Student Email Address (the part before the @umb.edu).
- IMPORTANT NOTE:
- there are actually two steps of "getting into" your course in Blackboard Vista:
- 1) first, you log in to Blackboard Vista with your password to access your student account; you are now in the Blackboard Vista system and can see general account information - you are NOT YET "inside" any course at this point.
- 2) then, if you see a section called "Course List", you may see the names of all online courses in which you are registered for the current semester; clicking on one will get you inside of that course, but, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO THIS UNTIL THE OFFICIAL FIRST DAY OF CLASSES. UMass Boston does not permit you to get inside of a particular course until the semester starts for online courses (typically, one week after the start of the face-to-face semester). See the Academic Calendar link on the University College page for details.
Before the course starts, the instructor may contact you via your personal email address if possible (if you have given this to UMass) to introduce herself or himself and supply preliminary details about the course. Please respond quickly if any questions are asked, especially your availability for synchronous, live "WIMBA" sessions (like a conference call with the whole class, inside the Blackboard system). These usually happen 2 or more times during the semester. Be prepared to follow up with some tasks before the course starts that might relate to working out any issues with technicalities that are presented on this page.
Student Email, Personal Email, Blackboard Mail: Additional Details
The Bottom Line: Written messages may be directed to you through several systems. You can be aware of and monitor all of these, and alternatively, you can make the various systems channel messages to just one email inbox that you check regularly.
Multiple accounts are the reality of the online world. Both students and faculty of online courses should be especially careful when referring to "email", which might be actually referring more specifically to:
Personal Email Address - email addresses that come from private services (or organizations), such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Comcast, Verizon, or a company name
Student Email Address - the email address provided by UMass-Boston ending with umb.edu
Blackboard Mail - This is an internal messaging system INSIDE of
Blackboard Vista, not necessarily linked to the
Personal or Student Email Addresses. It's not truly email - it's just a way to send private messages to a person or group who is in your online class. Each student and instructor in the course has a private mail box inside of
Blackboard Vista. You must log in to
Blackboard Vista to send or view received messages, you can ONLY exchange messages to others in your class, and others in your class must log in to
Blackboard Vista as well to send or view received messages, EXCEPT FOR THE FOLLOWING:
- IMPORTANT NOTE:
- Once the forwarding is set, from that point forward, any message arriving in your Blackboard Vista mailbox will be forwarded to your real account, but it will appear to be sent by "DO_NOT_REPLY@umassonline.net". You can see the contents of the message that arrived in your Blackboard Vista mail box, but you can't reply directly using your real email - it will not reach the recipient this way! You need to log back in to Blackboard Vista and go to your mail box there, and then reply back to the original sender.
The system works this way so that students in a course can keep course-related and other messages separate. It is up to the discretion of the instructor how the messaging relates to course work in a particular course. At the same time, efforts should be made by the instructor to establish the chain of communication early to avoid issue of "I sent that already"-"But I didn't get it" -- especially since grading in online courses may depend upon meeting deadlines with electronic submissions and communications. Be prepared to be checking all of these systems at first, and at least until you are sure that you have linked/forwarded them properly, using the forwarding procedures noted here.