1.2: Lane Online Guidebook
Who are our students?
One common misconception about online students is that they take only online courses or attend from far away. At Lane, traditionally, most of our online students were also taking in-person courses on campus. In fact, the vast majority of our online
students live within Lane County, meaning that our online offerings -- like those on campus -- are a gathering place for our community's learners.This has meant that students in online courses usually had more opportunities than may be obvious to access some in-person campus services (though this was limited by the campus closure during the pandemic). It also points to the many reasons that students take online courses. It's not always a choice because they physically can't come to campus; online may be the only option for students who can't find a class at the time they need, or they may feel more comfortable in a class where discussion happens through technology.
On the other hand, nearly a quarter of students live outside of Lane county, and in *fall 2019, nearly 700 students who took online classes did not have access to main campus resources. Lane Online and the Academic Technology Division have worked hard
to provide services for students who can't make it to campus, but the services are only useful when students know about them. It's vital that online faculty provide information, whenever possible, about the support that students can access.
*Pandemic numbers are hard to gauge. We will post current information for 2022-23 as soon as it is available.