Characteristics of Successful online students

What are the predictors of adult students’ success in online learning environments? Is there a difference in undergraduate versus graduate online learners and their motivations? Does age play a factor? Do the course’s characteristics have an impact on performance and learner satisfaction? What are the implications of these findings for online instructors, and how could that affect their practices and approaches to retaining students in the future?
Source: Predictors of Success for Adult Online Learners: A Review of the Literature

A group of adult students who graduated from online graduate degree programs with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or better, cited the following skills and techniques that helped them achieve success
Source: Online Students Share Tips for Success

Successful online students share their secrets for getting the most from online classes, focusing on time management, active participation, and practice
Source: How Students Develop Online Learning Skills

List of Characteristics of Successful Online Learners
Source: Returning to College

Emotional Intelligence as a Predictor of Success in Online Learning
Source: The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

What are the foundations of student satisfaction or dissatisfaction with online courses? Why do online learners succeed and others fail or drop out? What kind of instructional designs, pedagogical practices and administrative standards contribute to the development of effective online courses with high retention rates and positive student learning outcomes?
Source: Online Learning and Student Satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to determine the variables significant for retention in online courses as asked by questions listed on an online course survey
Source: Staying the Course: A Study in Online Student Satisfaction and Retention

Three weeks. That’s what it takes. About three weeks and the students weren’t asking where things were located. Three weeks and things were being submitted on time. Three weeks when frustration waned and technology competence set in. How does an instructor handle a three week lag in an eight week course?
Source: Overloadjunct’s Blog

The emerging online learner can be described as someone who has a strong academic self-concept; is competent in the use of online learning technologies, particularly communication and collaborative technologies; understands, values, and engages in social interaction and collaborative learning; possesses strong interpersonal and communication skills; and is self-directed.
Source: The Online Learner: Characteristics and Pedagogical Implications

It is likely that learners everywhere are attracted to online courses for the much same reasons. The convenience and flexibility of not having a fixed, physical meeting space coupled with the ability to work from convenient locales often gives students the impression of distance learning as being pretty easy. One of the difficulties that learners have with online course comes in the area of adjusting to asynchronous interaction, if this is the communication mode of the class. A few of the qualities of asynchronous communication–the time lag between interactions, the frequent lack of clear norms of communication and the absence of visual/auditory conversation cues—created anxiety for many students
Source: Socialization in the Online Classroom

The Digest, School of Communication community at Simon Fraser University published an online learning timeline

Faculty Focus shows how teachers exert influence over students based on five different sources of power.

Excellent article from Danah Boyd explaining why you need to find a good adviser in Grad School.

So how does this relate to choosing a grad school? First things first, do NOT choose a program based solely on it being “the best.” What’s best in rankings may not be best for you and the last thing you want is to come out of grad school depressed, miserable, and cranky (although many scholars do). You need to find a place that will allow you to explore the questions you’re interested in in a way that works best for you. Success is about taking the available resources and finding the way to make a meaningful intervention while staying sane. Success is about finding the right advisor to help get you through.

Many instructors teaching online today are not “Web heads” Today’s online faculty don’t teach online because they spend their lives blogging, reading feeds, and Twittering, and one day think, “hey, I could also teach online!” Most were drafted, either because they felt their market value would slip if they didn’t teach online, or because their department or dean told them they must. Their adoption of technology is based on top–down directives rather than interest or aptitude . They do not possess the “information literacy” skills now required of many undergraduates , despite an assumption that professors are all computer–savvy.

When faced with a different interface or online environment, novices are inclined to utilize only the aspects they understand from a non–Web context. Posting a Word document online makes sense, but not creating an HTML page, because a word–processed document is a familiar unit of presentation but a Web page is not. Similarly, e–mail is the current incarnation of the familiar process of writing a memo, but there are fewer guideposts for instant messaging or video conferencing. The addition of hardware peripherals, such as a webcam or microphone, further increases the distance between the professor and familiar modes of teaching.
Source: Lisa M. Lane, First Monday

I used Typealyzer to find my Return to College blog personality.
I analyzed all the content of this blog. It shows that my personality is:

ISTJ – The Duty Fulfiller

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work in their own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

You can read more About Typealyzer and Psychographics

I found Typeanalyzer via Suifaijohnmak’s Weblog

What do you think? My personality matches what you expect from this blog

I posted before, Your Participation in Online Course Discussions is Mandatory

I have found an example of a Rubric for Online Discussion Board Participation. This rubric shows why online courses are not so easy and require higher levels of thinking and discussion from students.