8. Communication

Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of an successful online class. The two learning environments used in the Penn State courses that use this text -- ANGEL and Drupal -- support several kinds of communication, as described below.

In addition, registered students have a Penn State e-mail account (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.

ANGEL Communications

The ANGEL course management system supports several modes of communication, including discussion forums and course mail.

• Discussion forums are a kind of public e-mail known as "threaded discussion." Everyone enrolled in the class can post messages of their own and can read and respond to every other message. A series of messages that make up a conversation is called a "thread."  Discussion forums are included in each chapter and project folder (under the Lessons tab). They are also available in the Discussion Forums section under the Communicate tab, in addition to a few others -- Lounge (for personal introductions), Conference Room, etc.
  • In general, questions and comments about project assignments, and about topics in the course text that pertain to more than a single page, should be shared with the entire class via the discussion forums. That way, everyone can benefit from the discussion.
  • For more information see ANGEL Discussion Forums for Students at http://kb.its.psu.edu/cms/article/343
• Course mail is private e-mail; only the recipients you designate can read your messages. Course mail is also internal to ANGEL. Links to "Send Course Mail" and "Read Course Mail" are provided under the Communicate tab.
  • Please use course mail only for private messages to instructors or fellow students.
  • Many instructors prefer to keep course mail within the course management system, except for emergencies.  Please do initiate and reply to course related mail within ANGEL coursemail, even if you're reading your email in one of the forwarded methods discussed below.
  • For more information see ANGEL Mail for Students at http://kb.its.psu.edu/cms/article/516

NOTE:   Whenever you post a message in a forum or send course mail, please title every message with a descriptive subject line. Subject lines that include the gist of a question or comment increase the chances that students and instructors can retrieve the messages we're looking for. Poor subject lines, such as "Question" or "Lesson 1", are not very useful as search keywords.  When replying to a prior message, consider whether or not the subject line should be altered to indicate the content of your reply!

Communications via the Course Text in Drupal

Registered GEOG 482 students can post comments, questions, and responses to Drupal pages. You can also request to be notified of subsequent posts by "subscribing" to Drupal pages.

• Comments to pages of the course text are preferred for observations, anecdotes, and responses to other comments and questions that pertain to one or a few pages of the course text.

Communications from the University and from the Penn State World Campus

Occasionally the University or the World Campus needs to communicate with students. To do so they use the @psu.edu e-mail address that each registered student has, not ANGEL course e-mail.

In addition a letter, in PDF format, that reports your final course grade will be automatically generated and sent to your @psu.edu e-mail address.

So, it is important that you regularly monitor your @psu.edu e-mail account.

• To monitor your @psu.edu e-mail you can use the Penn State web mail system, described here: http://www.psu.edu/dept/itscss/internet/email.html
• However, I recommend that you simply have your @psu.edu e-mail forwarded to your preferred e-mail account. You can control the forwarding of your @psu.edu e-mail account by going to https://www.work.psu.edu