These are guidelines for Tutor Participation in Email Tutorial Groups.
There are separate guidelines for Students

On this page:

•  Thank You & Welcome
• About Tutorial Groups & the Role of Tutor
• Subscribing to Your Email List
• Waiting for Students to Subscribe
• Welcome Message for Your Email List
• Contributing to the Email List
• Why Email?
• No Attachments, No Text Formatting
• Encouraging Students
• Giving Students' Feedback by Email
• Rate of Contributions
• Netiquette
• Keeping Track of Threads
• Making Limits
• Archives
• Monitoring of Tutorial Groups
• Some Final Hints & Reminders

Other policies:

• Acceptance of enrolments
• Grievance procedure
• Assessment policy
• Referencing and bibliographies
• Guidelines for the use of inclusive language

Thank You and Welcome

Thank you for taking on this important task in Coolamon College's postgraduate programs. As an email tutor, you are a member of our highly valued and dispersed faculty. Welcome to this significant role!

About Tutorial Groups and the Role of Tutor

Tutorial groups involve the interaction of individuals with both their peers and a tutor. The aims of such an interactive process include:

1. encouraging students towards their study goals (self-identified and program-identified);
2. helping students to hone their communication skills in relation to study content (are they saying what they really think they are saying?);
3. highlighting different aspects of and different approaches to the study material by the contribution of varying perspectives within the group;
4. clarifying understandings of concepts and ideas related to the study content;
5. developing the critical discernment skills of students in a discussion environment.

All members of a tutorial group are involved in this interaction and contribute to these aims.

In addition, the role of the tutor is specifically aimed at helping students to address the study assessment criteria to the best of their ability within the requirements of the program. In this respect, the tutor is responsible for making critical judgements about the way in which assessment criteria are being or are likely to be addressed based on the email tutorial group interactions, and communicating those judgements in a helpful, supportive way.

Subscribing to Your Email List

You will be advised when your email group (or list) is available for you to subscribe. When asked to subscribe to your email list, send a message like this:

to the following address:

Remember to replace "unitcode" with the code for your unit in lower case letters, e.g. tbg405, and "your@email.address" with your email address in the message that you send.

If you have any problems subscribing, then send a message to Anita Monro.

Email discussion groups are called lists because the whole list of people subscribed to the group will receive all messages sent to the email list.

Waiting for Students to Subscribe

You will be advised when students should be subscribing to the email group. You may need to allow 10-14 days for a student to subscribe just in case they also have to arrange for an email facility. If you would like to know who is subscribed to your group, then send a message like this:

to the following address:

Remember to replace "unitcode" with the code of your unit in lower case letters, e.g. pbg461, in the message that you send.

If you have any problems with accessing this information, then send a message to Anita Monro.

Welcome Message for Your Email List

When students subscribe to the list, they receive a welcome message which gives them a lengthy but not comprehensive guide to participating in the email list. You should also receive this message when you subscribe to the list, although if you have been given advance notice of the list being activated, you may subscribe before the welcome message is uploaded. If you want to check what the welcome message for your list says, send a message like this:

to the following address:

Remember to replace "unitcode" with the code of your unit in lower case letters, e.g. sbg410, in the message that you send.

If you have any problems with this request or would like to ask for changes to the welcome message for your list, then send a message to Anita Monro.

Contributing to the Email List

To make a contribution to the email list, send your message to the following address:

Remember to replace "unitcode" with the code of your unit in lower case letters, e.g. hbg411, in the address that you use.

It is best if email contributions are short. Unless otherwise specified in the study materials, students' contributions are asked to be between 5 and 15 lines long. This is a good length for emails. It is better to send a number of short emails for different topics than one long email on a whole range of topics. Short specific emails help group members to keep track of discussion "threads", and discern which emails might be most helpful to them at any particular time.

Why Email?

Coolamon has chosen email as the most appropriate facility for its postgraduate tutorial groups because:

• Email does not require that all participants in a tutorial are available at the same time. Messages can be sent and received in each individual's own time. Every subscriber to an email list receives every message sent to that list whenever they are able to access their email.
• Email users can minimise their costs by working "offline" and only connecting to their email provider in order to send and receive messages. Users only pay for a very short connection period.
• Coolamon' s policy of flexible enrolment (students enrol any time between February and November, and have 20 weeks to complete a unit) means that different students will be at different stages of the unit at different times. Email lists with various discussion threads allow students to read and respond to topics that may be relevant to them, while leaving other message aside.
• Email lists with archives allow students to access previous discussions on topics which they are now covering.

No Attachments, No Text Formatting

It is very important that all participants in email lists allow this cost-effective, efficient tutorial process to work in its own most effective way.

File attachments to emails are strongly discouraged. Not all email users are able to access attachments. In addition, attachments only increase the time needed to upload (send) and download (receive) email through a service provider. Attachments also increase the danger of the spread of computer viruses in the email environment. Many of our students (and tutors) have limited financial and technological resources. Keeping things simple helps them and the whole tutorial process.

Similarly, do not send email formatted in anything other than plain text (also known as ASCII text) only. Do not use programs such as Word, or formats such as HTML code to write your email messages. If your emails are creating difficulties, you will normally receive feedback from other participants on the list, or the email tutorial group monitor.

Note: Students may submit their assignments via email to the Coolamon College as attachments.

Encouraging Students

Once you know that students are subscribed, it is part of your task to encourage their participation in the group. In their guidelines for participation in email tutorial groups, students are encouraged to contribute approximately once a week during the period of their enrolment. Since most students are enrolled in a unit for a period of 20 weeks, it would be normal for a student to make about 12-15 contributions during their enrolment.

If the unit for which you are tutor does not already specify the particular contributions that students should make to the group, you may like to try the following strategies to encourage participation:

• Ask students to give a response to each of the lessons in the unit as they complete them.
• Pick out specific exercises from the unit's Study Guide and ask students to give their responses to these when they complete them. If you let the Coolamon College office know about your choices, we can directions to contribute particular exercises in future versions of the study materials.

Some students will be unfamiliar with email. Some students will find it very daunting to contribute to an unseen group. It may take some careful encouragement for some students to feel safe enough to contribute.

Giving Students' Feedback by Email

Because the email environment can be quite daunting, we encourage you to use the "sandwich approach" in responding to student contributions.

1. Begin with a positive affirmation about something that the student has done well, e.g. an issue the student has identified, a helpful explanation or expression the student uses, the structure of the student's response.
2. Identify one or more points for improvement. Don't overload the student. Focus on what you think might be the most significant point(s) for the student's stage of progress in the unit.
3. Re-affirm the positives of the contribution and encourage the student to keep reflecting/thinking/working.

As you become more familiar with students, you will begin to know what kind of feedback each might find helpful. Your manner of feedback may be quite different for different students. However, always remember to encourage with positive affirmation as well as giving points for improvement.

Rate of Contributions

We strongly encourage you to make a contribution once a week - no matter how many students you have, no matter whether any student has made a contribution or not. This contribution can be as simple as reassuring students that you are available if they would like any feedback on their work and to ask any questions. Often it will be a more complex response to issues raised throughout the previous week, or even more detailed individual responses to individual contributions.

It is a good idea not to respond to every student's contribution immediately. Allowing space for other students to ask questions and comment on one another's work can be very useful to the overall learning process.

Experience has shown that it is a good practice to determine a regular weekly time when you will respond/contribute to the email discussion group, and to leave the conversations to continue amongst the group for the rest of the week. If students have particular questions for you, they will get to know when your regular time is and make sure they have their contributions available for that time also. This practice also allows you to limit your involvement with the process.

If you find that students are not contributing to the email discussion group, then here a few strategies to try:

• Simply ask students to identify where they are in the unit. Making a contribution like this can be a bit less threatening for students than actually putting their thoughts out on the list for everyone to see.
• Make a comment yourself on an aspect of the unit. It is best if your comment is more exploratory than definitive, i.e. that it opens up questions, indicates that these are some questions that you have and that you are still exploring those questions yourself. If students are able to see that you are still involved in the exploration of research and do not have all the answers, they may be more willing to share some of their own tentative explorations.
• Offer a comment about the relevance of the content of the unit to a real life experience/situation. These kinds of connections help students to see the relevance of the material covered and help them to reflect on the content of the unit in a more meaningful way. Also for some people find it easier to talk about their experiences in relation to the unit, than about the content of the unit in a more abstract way.
• Ask for responses to specific issues related to the unit or specific activities undertaken within the unit.

Netiquette

Because email discussions are not face-to-face, it is sometimes easy for participants to forget that there are real people on the other end of the computer links. There are certain accepted protocols for participating in email lists. These protocols are generally called "netiquette"-the etiquette of the internet. Some of the more common protocols that can help people not to feel too threatened in this "virtual" (i.e. not quite real) environment are listed below. As tutor, it is also part of your role to help people participate appropriately in the group.

• No "yelling", i.e. messages written in capital letters are interpreted as the email equivalent of yelling. Pragmatically, it is more difficult for people to read message in capital letters.
• No "flaming", i.e. people must be careful to avoid careless choices of words which may be interpreted as insults. When discussing issues about which people are passionate via email, it can be very easy for people to forget that they are talking with real people. It may be necessary to emphasise the "reality" of group members sometimes.
• Tones of voice are not communicated in plain text. If people are being ironic, sarcastic or using other "tones of voice" that really require face-to-face communication, they need to indicate this.
• There are a lot of codes used in email messages to indicate things such as tone of voice. One common example is the side-ways smiley face winking [;-)] to indicate an irony or witticism. You may encounter some of these as you participate in the email environment. It is not necessary that they be used or that people know them, but knowing that they are around can help you to interpret some communications.
• Clarity of communication is the key to good email discussions. Keep contributions as brief and as simple as possible.

Keeping Track of Threads

Because not all students enrol in a unit at the same time, there will often be a number of topics being discussed at once. In order to keep these topics separate, you are asked to always indicate the topic you are discussing in the subject heading of your email. In this way, different "threads" can be under discussion at the same time in the discussion group. "Thread" is the email jargon for discussion around a particular topic and only that topic.

One thread may lead into another thread as discussion moves along. When a thread changes, it is usual to indicate this in the subject line, e.g. "Re: XYZ issue (was ABC issue)".

Students are not required to participate in all threads at all times. Some of the threads may refer to topics which they have not encountered yet as they work through the study materials, or which they have finished dealing with a while ago.

Making Limits

Email can take over students' lives if they let it. There are times when you may need to reassure students that they only need to deal with messages that are relevant to them right now. They can always keep copies of messages that they think they might find helpful later, or access the list archives when necessary.

There are times when you will need to be realistic about the amount of time you have available to deal with email messages. It is absolutely appropriate for you to deal only with messages related to the content of the unit, and to make responses only where you think responses are necessary. As in any tutorial process, there is an element of discernment necessary in relation to what discussion may be useful and what is not.

If you think that the assistance of another tutor is required in your group, please contact Anita Monro to discuss the best process for achieving this. There are a number of options e.g. splitting the group; or allocating students to specific tutors while all discussion still takes place on the one email list; or allocating specific content or topics for different tutors to monitor; or rostering timing of tutor contributions.

Archives

Your email list has archives of all previous messages. These archives are divided into the months in which messages were received. The names of the archive files reflect this division. The last 4 digits at the end of the archive filename indicates the year and the month of the archive, e.g. 9907. To get a full list of the archives available for your list, send a message like this:

to the following address:

Remember to replace "unitcode" with the code of your unit in lower case letters, e.g. pbg461, in the message that you send.

Once you have the list of archive files for your group, you can have them sent to you by sending a message like this:

Remember to replace "unitcode" with the code of your unit in lower case letters, e.g. pbg461, and "archivefilename" with the name of the archive file that you want, e.g. tbg405-archive.9906, in the message that you send. Don't forget to put the unit code before the name of the archive file. In many cases, this will mean that the unit code occurs twice in the request for an archive file: once on its own as the name of the list; and once at the beginning of the name of the archive file which you are requesting.

If you have any problems with accessing archives, then send a message to Anita Monro.

Monitoring of Tutorial Groups

All email tutorial groups are automatically monitored. Copies of all email messages go to the designated "list owner" who is currently Anita Monro. Monitoring does not mean that all email messages for all groups are read in detail all the time.
Technical problems with email groups will normally be picked up quite quickly. However, if you do have any questions or concerns about any part of the process, don't hesitate to contact Anita Monro.

If at any time, you wish specific feedback on the tutoring strategies you are using, then you only need to ask. Otherwise, comments will not normally be made on your teaching, unless:

• you specifically request it; or
• student feedback (general or specific) means that an issue should be raised with you; or
• it is the opinion of the list monitor that an issue should be raised with you.

Any discussion of teaching issues will occur via direct communication between the list monitor and the tutor not via the list. With sufficient notice, the list monitor is happy to provide teaching evaluations for job application portfolios.

From time to time, you may be asked to give feedback on your experience of the email tutorial process. Your feedback at any other time is also very welcome. It is such feedback that enables us to continue to improve our service to students.

Some Final Hints and Reminders

All email messages to the list go to the address:

(with "unitcode" being replaced by the code of your unit in the address).

All "command" messages, e.g. requests for archives, go to the command address:

If you want to know about any further commands available to you, email the command address with the message:

You are the tutor! It is your email list! As in any tutorial situation, the process is up to you! It is a new process though, so you will find that you do have to feel your way for a bit until the specific characteristics of tutorials in an email environment become apparent.

If you have any questions, queries, comments, please contact Anita Monro.