Quest for Online Success

What is Quest?

Quest, short for Quest for Online Success, provides students new to online learning and experienced online students with an opportunity to understand the real challenges of this relatively new learning environment, and to develop the skills required to be successful in an online course.

Quest was developed by the Online Education Initiative (OEI) for all California Community College students. The basic components of the program are:

• Multimedia tutorials
• Quizzes
• Supplemental skill-building resources.

The program contains 9 modules.

• Modules are particularly important for students new online students or those who have had a previously unsuccessful online experience (Module 1 has been removed).
• Module 4, Becoming an Effective Online Learner is good for most students.
• Modules 5-9 are about various support services needed by most students.

How can students access Quest?

Quest is delivered within a Canvas shell. Students who are enrolled in a DE class using Canvas will be emailed instructions on how to self-enroll in the Quest course. Instructors are encouraged to add a link to Quest from within their the course menu of their Canvas courses. Before doing this, email your Canvas administrator, asking for the Quest URL. Once you have the URL, go into Settings in your course, add the Redirect app, name it Quest, and paste in the URL.

If you are using the Canvas model course template based on the OEI Course Design Rubric, the link to Quest is already built in.

You can enroll in Quest if you want to see the course. If you just want to see the multimedia tutorials, view Quest online.

How can I take advantage of Quest with my students?

The Canvas model course has an assignment for Quest already built in. Also, quizzes for some or all of the Quest modules are pre-built in and available in Commons. You can also create your own.

Here are some other possibilities, courtesy of the OEI. These are for discussion assignments:

1. Encourage students to give each other ideas about how to overcome some of the challenges of online learning.
2. You might ask students new to online learning to review the Introduction to Online Learning Module and describe what they think might be most challenging to them as an online learner. Experienced online learners might be encouraged to respond, and support students new to online learning by sharing what helped them succeed and share lessons learned things they plan to do differently in the future.
3. Module 4 has tutorials about time management, organizing physical and electronic materials, online study skills, online communication skills and online reading skills. Have students review those four tutorials (Module 4), and share with others the most important thing they learned and how it will improve their success in an online course.
4. Modules 5 and 6 have short videos about Career and Educational Planning. Have students share their college major and their dream job. Have students ask each other questions about their hopes and dreams. As a discussion starter, you might suggest some careers related to the content of your course.

Sometimes topics are of a more personal nature, and it is more appropriate to assign a reflection paper that is submitted privately. There are many topics covered in the Instructional and Personal support videos, as well as the Financial Planning video, that might get students thinking about how concerns in these areas might interfere with their academic success. Have them select one and submit a paper might also help to identify their writing style.