Hosting Online Office Hours

When teaching online considerations need to be made not just about the course and assessments, but how those other contact hours are impacted as well. While in-person office hours can certainly provide some coverage for an otherwise fully online course, an online option should be available.

When we think of office hours, we think of synchronous instructor-student interaction which we generally try to minimize when possible for the larger class context. Because of the generally 1-on-1, student initiated nature of office hours the typical concerns are largely managed, however you will want to consider how you make yourself available for scheduling as students may live in a variety of timezones while taking your course.

Picking a Platform

One of the first things you’ll want to consider is the platform you’ll choose. If you are using a synchronous platform in the class already using it for office hours will help by providing some consistency. Managing how much technology a student has to learn for your course will let them spend their time learning the course materials.

If you don’t have a platform picked here are some options:

Google Meet — online meeting tool that can do screenshare and be set up from Google Calendar appointments with a simple button press. Recordings are automatically saved to your Google Drive

Blackboard Collaborate — an online meeting tool that can let you record, screenshare, or write on a white board. If you have a stylus tool and like to draw quick diagrams or sketch things out, this might be a better option for you.

Phone Call — if you rarely need visual aids you may want to direct students to give you a phone call rather than using a virtual meeting tool. For students in Canada and the US, they can call long-distance using the Make a Call option in their UPEI GMail and generally avoid long distance charges.

Making the Best Use of Your Time

Regardless of your platform choice, you’ll want to be strategic about how set up your office hours.

Scheduler — One approach may be providing students with an opportunity to schedule time with you. One option is the Scheduler activity in Moodle.

With Scheduler you can set up slots that students can book themselves in for. It’s completely free to use though you will want to make sure to manage the availabilities you list if you’re teaching multiple courses to avoid double-bookings.

YouCanBook.Me — Faculty who have booked meetings with me in the past might be familiar with my YouCanBook.Me link, which I’ve connected to my UPEI Google Calendar. It’s a good tool for letting students pick out your set time. It’s a freemium tool, though I currently use the free version. Because it’s connected to my calendar I don’t have to worry about double bookings.

Drop-ins — Of course one option is to do drop-ins where you give students windows of time when they can join your link. This tends to not be super ideal because if you’re using something like Collaborate you may have students drop in at the same time. If you do go this route you should make sure you have something else to work on so you don’t get bored or discouraged if students don’t show up.

Additionally, as a consideration for asynchronous benefit for students, you may want to generalize some of the questions you get and address them in a weekly re-cap email or some approach for the students who struggle with attending office hours.

Communicating Expectations

Regardless of the platform or approach that you choose to conduct your online office hours you will want to ensure that these choices are communicated to your students. When you introduce your course, you may want to explain what office hours are and why you offer them. Alongside a statement in your course syllabus, you may want to remind students when you do house-keeping announcements or when activities are coming up.

If you have any questions about online office hours, please contact the E-Learning Office!