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[neutralname]

Next year I will be teaching an online course over a 3-week period.  I've taught it online before, and it went well, but that was over 10 weeks.  I'm doing it as a sort of experiment to see how it goes, but I fear that it may result in a high failure rate for students who can't keep up with the intense level of work and participation required.  It's a a reading- and writing- intensive course.

Has anyone done this?  What's the best way to scare away students who are bound to fail before they start?  Any suggestions for how to structure it so that students who can succeed actually do so? 

Right now my plan is to set out all the required work at the start of the course, have hard deadlines for the discussion part, and provide frequent feedback to students.  I will be clear from the start that I don't want to hear any excuses for why their work is late.  They either do the work on time or suffer the consequences.

[glowdart]

When's the drop deadline?  I've done some short-term classes before, and the challenge is always that the drop deadline is the second day of class (or something similar).  The deluded ones who are taking this course AND another one because they failed the 15 week versions won't be easily convinced in a day or two because they're already masters of magical thinking. 

Can you have a major essay due early on, with enough time for you to grade it and get it back to them before the drop deadline? 

[neutralname]

The drop deadline is the end of the second day of class.  They can still withdraw from the class after that, but it will appear on their transcript. 

I can make the paper deadline half way through the class, about 10 days in.  I can also email students well ahead of the start of class, so that diligent ones can get started even before the class begins.  But I can't have a major essay due on the first day of class (although it is tempting)!

[proftowanda]

Two pre-course (or first day, but no later) quizzes and a course contract accomplished this for me last summer in a 4-week course, after previous experience with magical thinking by students that "online" is easy, and "summer" is easy, so an online summer course must be really easy.  Uh, no.  I also wanted to reduce the ridiculous number of emails from whiny students who could have accomplished assignments shorter than those emails.

Both quizzes were retakeable three times.  To push the last few students who did not do them to do so, I finally offered that the quizzes would gain extra credit, even before the course began.  Whoosh! all were aboard.  But not a one asked "how much extra credit?"  (One-billionth of the final grade in the course could have been the answer.:-)

One pre-course quiz was on online readiness.  I cribbed questions from such quizzes on campuses that wisely required that students achieve a sufficient score on such a quiz prior to clearance to take online courses.  It caused some students to take another course, often a classroom course rather than an online course.  

One pre-course quiz, and the one that proved to be the best predictor of success -- and the best means to persuade some students to switch to another course -- was a quiz on the syllabus.  Read:  The quiz made them really read the syllabus.  They realized the extent of the workload ahead in a concentrated course term, the lack of leeway in lateness policies or the like owing to the brevity of the course term, etc.

And then, there was the course contract to return to me by or on the first day, too, by which they agreed that they were fully informed (read: warned) of and accepted the requirements of an online course, were fully informed and accepted the (insane) requirements of a concentrated-term course, and were fully aware that their recourse was not to do whiny emails demanding a change to either of the above but was to drop by ___ date.  In all, many students switched to other courses with longer terms . . . or more lenient instructors?

I note that the syllabus quiz was the best predictor of success, because I did track this, tieing quiz scores to final grades.  That is, in part owing to far fewer F's and D's because students destined for those grades dropped but also to better work and on-time work from those who remained in the course, the median final grade was a full letter grade higher than in previous offerings of the course -- not only in the same concentrated term of only four weeks but also in the full semester offerings both online or in the classroom.

I am going to do the syllabus quiz and course contract in all of my courses, online or in the classroom, in future.  It took some time to set up, but the time was well spent not only in reducing email time during the concentrated term, when there is so little time -- and I think (but did not track and quantify) that this allowed me more time with students who were making an effort -- but also in raising the final grades.

[zuzu_]

I concur that the syllabus quiz is crucial.

Also, in the syllabus, put a breakdown of estimated time commitments. I have something like this:

Expect to spend 20-24 hours per week on this course. Depending on how fast you read and write, this could be more or less.

Reading 6-8 hours
Discussion 4-6 hours
Exams 4-6 hours
Journals 6-8 hours