Creating a personalised welcome message

A welcome message is a short introductory statement that we can add to our subject sites. It includes a short personal introduction, a description of the subject and its content, and some pointers about how to use the subject site. It may include text, video, audio, or a combination of these.

An important point is to keep the message brief; we don’t want students to be scrolling past a long block of welcome message text to get to the content they need, or engaging with a lengthy audio or video clip.

Why?

Including a welcome message (especially one incorporating video) in our subject sites is a useful way to establish social presence in the online learning environment (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001; Garrison, 2017) and reveal ourselves as a ‘real person’ to our students.

We can also encourage students to create welcome messages, through the use/inclusion of an icebreaker. Students may contribute text introductions or photos, or create their own introductory videos. This enables them to establish their own presence in the online learning environment and begins to build community.

How?

1. Ensure Edit mode is on.
   
   
2. Navigate to the section to which you would like to add the Welcome message and click Add an activity or resource.
   
   Note: In the UOW Subject Site Template, a welcome message is already included in the Welcome section ('Section 0') at the top of the site.
3. Select Text and media area from the Add an activity or resource chooser. 
    
4. Add your welcome message to the Text field. 
    
   
   Note: If using audio or video in your welcome message, please refer to the Adding audio to a subject site and Adding your own videos articles. Also, ensure a text transcript is included for accessibility. 
5. Click the Save changes button. 

References