Important Student Information
Welcome to class! This lecture has important information about your online course and studies at ACHS in general. Please take the time to read through the entire document. If you still have any questions, don't hesitate to call and ask.
Note that this document has multiple pages. You can navigate pages from the top at right or from the "Contents" menu at top or right. There is a link to the "Next Page" at the bottom of this page, making navigation simple. Please be careful to note when an online lecture has multiple pages. You can also easily scan the headings of a lecture from either of the "Contents" menus.
ACHS Student Protocols
You can contact Student Services for assistance at (800) 487-8839 from 8:30 am to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, PST, or anytime at stuserv@achs.edu. You can contact the Help Desk 24 hours a day, seven days a week at (888) 883-1299. The Help Desk can assist you with any technical questions, such as authentication or login errors. If you have questions about the curriculum, accessing the ACHS Virtual Library, or any other aspects of the online classroom or studies, please contact your instructor or academic advisor directly. If you prefer online chat to phone support, you can also connect with them here at http://247support.custhelp.com
Due Dates
As busy adult learners, we appreciate that life events can sometimes interfere with your studies. ACHS courses are designed to provide flexibility for your study time throughout the week, however, there are due dates for assignments each week that students are required to meet. These are designed to ensure your discussions in class are engaging and interactive, and also help you keep on track with your coursework so you will successfully complete your course(s).
If you anticipate not being able to meet a due date for a module assignment, you must contact your instructor in advance or your assignment will be graded down in accordance with ACHS's Late Grading Policy (see below).
If submitting late work, please remember to email your instructor so he or she will know your work is ready to be graded. Please do not post messages about being late in the Instructor's Virtual Office or Cyber Café, where it can negatively impact the motivation of other students.
Classroom Expectations
These "ground rules" will help your work in this course to go much more smoothly. Please carefully review these expectations and follow them:
- Be courteous and considerate. Being honest and expressing yourself freely is very important, but being considerate of others online is just as important. Try to imagine that you are standing face-to-face with someone before you send or post a message.
- Keep up with the reading. You have quite a few chapters, modules, discussion postings, and email messages to read for this class. Students who keep up with the reading tend to do much better in this kind of class than those who do not.
- Don't skip a required assessment, even if you think you will go back to it. Modules and assessments are designed to build on each other. Complete the module activities before you move on to the next module.
- Academic integrity is very important to your success. Please make sure you have read the ACHS Academic Honesty policy in the ACHS Program Catalog.
- Work with others. You are required to make every effort to work effectively and promptly with others in your groups as applicable.
- A helpful hint for both discussions and email: Compose your message in your word-processing application in order to check spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and then copy and paste into email or the Discussion Board.
- Do not use oversize fonts, JavaScript, or advanced HTML commands.
- Make every effort to be clear. Online communication lacks the nonverbal cues that fill in much of the meaning in face-to-face communication.
- Watch your language. Profanity, obscenities, sexually explicit language, sexual innuendoes, vulgar or rude comments, and expressions of bigotry are out of place here, including attempts to "mask" such words by using initials, blanks, or asterisks. Language that denigrates other students, staff, faculty, or members of the industry will not be tolerated.
ACHS Assessment Policy for Plagiarism
You have an ethical obligation as a student to correctly credit others' work. Instructors assess potential instances of plagiarism, whether intentional or otherwise, on a case-by-case basis.
If an instructor feels a student assessment may include instances of plagiarism, the instructor will first consult with the student to clarify the origin of the content as it appears in the student assessment, as well as assessment expectations including but not limited to:
- A review of what does and does not constitute plagiarism (This information can be found in the ACHS Program Catalog, downloadable from the Course Home.)
- A review of their ethical obligations as students and academics to properly credit others work through in-text citations and full-text references
- A review of the specific assessment expectations, including the generally accepted academic ratio of 90% original work to 10% referenced work
The student will then have the opportunity to revise and resubmit their work within a specified number of days as set out by the course instructor. If the instructor deems the revised student assessment meets the assessment expectations, the instructor will assign appropriate assessment points.
If, however, the student does not elect to revise and resubmit their work per their instructor's recommendation, and their work does not meet the basic requirements of the assessment, they will receive an F.
Remember, to successfully complete a course, students must complete 80% of the required assessment and the final exam, project, or paper before the final class date and achieve a minimum passing score of at least 70% across all assessments to be considered to have achieved the learning outcomes for the course. Therefore, we strongly recommend students follow the recommendations of their instructor to ensure all course requirements are met and learning opportunities are maximized.
Email Protocols
Email is an integral part of this course. Our goal is to provide you with the most accurate, thoughtful, and timely responses possible to your emails. To assist us to do this, please make sure you:
- Unless it is personal in nature, relates to a test question, or is relevant specifically to you, please post questions to the Instructor's Virtual Office rather than emailing them directly to the instructor. This allows the entire class to benefit from the instructor's response as often students have similar questions.
- On the "Subject:" line, please include your COURSE NAME and START DATE before your email topic. For your "subject," use something that is descriptive and refer to a particular assignment or topic. Example: If you are in the May 2011 cohort for Aroma 101, your "Subject:" line should look like this: Subject: AROMA 101 (5/11) - "your email topic"
- Please include your FULL NAME at the conclusion of each message.
- Never assume that your email cannot be accessed and/or read by others; others may be able to read or access your mail.
- Check your email regularly.
- Be patient. Don't expect an immediate response when you send a message. Generally, two days is considered reasonable amount of time to receive a reply.
- Do not use all caps. This makes the message very hard to read and is considered "shouting." Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation (you may want to compose in a word processor, then cut and paste the message into the email or Discussion Board).
- Break large blocks of text into paragraphs and use a space between paragraphs.
Discussion Boards
Many of the "rules of the road" or protocols that apply to email also apply to the use of Discussion Board posts, but specifically:
- It is a good practice to check the Discussion Board multiple times during the week.
- If you want to send a personal message to the instructor or to another student, use email rather than the Discussion Board (see above Email Protocols).
- Include a descriptive "Subject" heading as your first line.
- Avoid single phrase postings such as "I agree," "I don't know either," or "ditto".
- Use the Help Desk for assistance with technical issues. The Help Desk can be reached at (877) 740-2213 or at helpdesk@myachsclass.org
- Use the Instructor's Virtual Office for questions about course material or assignments. There will be specific discussion topics for particular discussions - pay close attention to the assignment and post appropriately.
- The Instructor's Virtual Office is for course-related questions and not for general chat: Students should chat with each other in the Cyber Café.
- Respect each other's ideas, feelings, and experience. If you disagree with someone's point of view, argue ideas rather than attacking individuals or groups. Derogatory statements about minorities, sexual identity, sexual preference, professions, personal characters, practices, or beliefs, and individually aimed insults or threats that cause any participant to feel discomfort will not be tolerated.
- Explore disagreements and support assertions with data and evidence. Compose carefully reasoned comments. Introducing apparently contradictory information can be very helpful in exploring the topic. Try to always analyze what you read and discuss why you agree or disagree with the author of the opposing view.
- Do not advertise. Commercial information is not permitted in the online classroom.
- Do not post copyrighted material. Instead, post URLs to Web content and cite reference information (title, publisher, etc.).
- Do not use these forums to voice complaints or ideas for improvement for the course or College, as they may not be seen by the appropriate staff; we value your comments and feedback. Please send your suggestions for improvement to updates@achs.edu.
