Getting Started

Student Guide
Contents
Welcome to BJU Press Distance Learning Online!........................................................................................... 3
Signing In ........................................................................................................................................................... 4
Dashboard ......................................................................................................................................................... 5
My Profile ...................................................................................................................................................... 5
My Settings.................................................................................................................................................... 6
Menu ............................................................................................................................................................. 6
Alerts History................................................................................................................................................. 8
Search ............................................................................................................................................................ 8
Personal Alerts .............................................................................................................................................. 8
Calendar ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
My Courses .................................................................................................................................................... 9
Discussion Activity ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Course Home page .......................................................................................................................................... 10
About This Course ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Course Schedule .......................................................................................................................................... 10
External Tools: Course eTextbook ............................................................................................................... 10
Lessons ........................................................................................................................................................ 11
Course Instruction ............................................................................................................................................ 11
Mark Complete Boxes ................................................................................................................................. 11
Pacing Guide................................................................................................................................................ 12
Handouts ..................................................................................................................................................... 13
Videos .......................................................................................................................................................... 13
Assignments ................................................................................................................................................ 15
Assessments ................................................................................................................................................ 16
Taking Online Assessments ............................................................................................................................. 18
eTextbooks ...................................................................................................................................................... 21
Course eTextbook........................................................................................................................................ 21
eTextbook Features..................................................................................................................................... 23
Other Tools.................................................................................................................................................. 24
Support ............................................................................................................................................................ 25

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Welcome to BJU Press Distance Learning Online!

We’re excited to have you as a student in our BJU Press Distance Learning Online program. This
blended learning program combines traditional education with an online platform to create an
engaging, efficient means of instruction. A variety of learning activities, from textbook readings
to video lessons to hands-on projects, will challenge you to think about and then interpret and
apply what you have learned. Most importantly, each course provides a biblical worldview and
a strong character-building emphasis.

Our goal is to make the program as intuitive as possible, but this guide will provide you with
step-by-step instructions for doing your online course or courses and should help you make the
most of the program.

If you still need help after viewing this guide, send us a Help Ticket, email us at
[email protected], or call us at 1-800-845-5731.

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Signing In
After you are registered for a course, you will be sent a Welcome Email.

The email will include explanations and links for setting your username and password and signing
the user agreement.

TIP: Bookmark your login page and write down your username and password until you have them
memorized.

After you have entered this information, just click Save Account & Login, and you will be logged in
for the first time.

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Dashboard

When you log in, you will see your Homepage, which is known as the Dashboard. Your Dashboard
gives you one-click access to the tasks you need to do every day. Your facilitator (usually a
homeschool parent or a school teacher) has a similar Dashboard to help him supervise your daily
work.

Next, we will briefly tour the Dashboard features. You may want to log in and follow along as you
read this Getting Started Guide. We will start in the upper right-hand corner.

My Profile
Click to add and update your photo, bio, and password. Your photo will also appear beside your
discussion posts and comments, if you participate in this area.

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My Settings
Click to set some preferences for your use of the program.

Menu
At the top of the page are links that show wherever you are in the program.

gives you a one-click return to your student Dashboard.

gives you another view of your courses.

allows you to view the running average and letter grade for your online courses and
access your course gradebooks. If you have used the online program for more than
one year, you can use the drop-down menu to view grades from previous years.

gives you access to various documents, tutorials, and the User Help Desk. Note: The
Edvance360 User Manual and video tutorials are provided by Edvance360, the
developer of the learning management system. The content in the manual and tutorials differs in
many areas from our customized use of the program.

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The most important item in Help is the User Help Desk. Click on this link to submit a Help Ticket
and then return here to see your answer. You will be notified via the email address that you have
on file when your ticket has been answered.

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Next we explore the navigation menu on the left.

Alerts History
Click to view previously read alerts and course announcements.

Search
Click to search for key words in your lessons and discussions.

In the middle of the Dashboard you will find personal alerts and the calendar.

Personal Alerts
Personal Alerts works with Mail and Contacts and tells you when you have a new message or a
new friend request.
Note: This function is not enabled at this time.

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Calendar
This Week shows you any events you and your facilitator
have entered on your personal calendar.

You can add events to your

calendar by clicking on
Calendar in the top menu. It
gives you a full-page view of your student
calendar. You can view your calendar in a yearly,
monthly, weekly, or daily view. Your facilitator
can also view your events and add new events
from his Dashboard.

The last area of the Dashboard lists your courses and discussion activity.

My Courses

Click a course name to go to the

course homepage.

Click the Next Lesson Item button to

go directly to the next uncompleted
instructions box—the box directly after
your last checked Mark Complete box.

As soon as you have an entry in the

online Gradebook for a particular
course, your letter grade and percent
will show here. Click this area to go
directly to the online Gradebook for
that course.

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Discussion Activity
If you are enrolled in a course (usually math or science)
that has a discussion forum, new posts will show up
here.

Course Home page

The course homepage displays important course information and provides access to the course
eTextbook, instruction boxes, online Gradebook, and additional resources.

About This Course

View information about the instructor and the course.

Course Schedule
View and print a course schedule called a Video Lesson Guide. This information is included in the
facilitator and/or student boxes throughout the course as appropriate, but you may find this
document helpful, especially for planning purposes.

External Tools: Course eTextbook

Course eTextbooks are provided for most Student Texts. Activity Manuals, Worktexts,
and Lab Manuals are not available as eTextbooks and need to be purchased to complete
the assignments. Course eTextbooks are provided at no extra charge for both students
and facilitators. The eTextbook can be found by clicking Connect to VitalSource Bookshelf
under External Tools.

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Lessons
Click Lessons in the navigation bar of the course homepage to access instruction arranged by
chapter/ unit. Click on a chapter title, and the program will take you to the beginning of that
chapter. Click on the “Next Lesson Item” button, and the program will take you to the first
instructions box that you have not marked as completed. If you use the “Next Lesson Item” button
on the Dashboard, you will not see this page.

Course Instruction

In the Lessons area, you will find all of the information you need to complete the course. Just
follow the instructions and work through one box at a time. You may encounter the following
items in each of the instructions boxes:

Mark Complete Boxes

Be sure to check the little Mark Complete box under the header for each instructions box after
you have completed the instructions provided in that particular instructions box. The Mark
Complete box helps to track your
progress through the course.

Clicking the Mark Complete boxes for one

day will update the Next Lesson Item
button on your Dashboard, allowing you
to go to the next day with just one click.

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Pacing Guide
The built-in pacing guide shows you how much work you would need to do each day in order to
complete the course in a typical one-semester (90 days) or two-semester (180 days) time
frame. You may find that you prefer or need to go faster or slower.

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Handouts
Some days include handouts. Those indicated with an arrow ( ) are interactive. You can
type your answers on these and do not need to print them. Others need to be downloaded and
printed. These handouts can also be found in the printed Student Handouts packet, which is
included at no extra charge for all orders.

Videos
All courses have video instruction. In some courses, the video for one day is divided into sections
with activities to complete between sections. Courses with multiple videos on one day may have a
slide that says something like “Refer to Student Guide B.” The Student Guide provides instructions
in the white boxes for each section of the video.

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When you click on a link to a video, a separate viewer will open like the one below:

The video viewer contains the typical video controls: play, pause, stop, expand to full screen,
and adjust volume. You can also adjust the playback speed at the bottom of the player.

The video viewer has two helpful tools: the Notepad and Bookmarks. You can type notes while
watching videos (as shown above) by clicking the Notepad icon.

You can also access your notes by clicking the Notes icon located at the top of most pages in the
course. The resulting notes screen is larger and more convenient for taking notes when not
viewing a video.

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Bookmarks are another useful feature. You can bookmark sections of the video lesson so you can
return to these specific sections as needed.

Assignments
Most courses have daily assignments. These assignments, when carefully completed, will help to
prepare you for the chapter/unit tests. Some assignments are optional and are provided for
review, extra practice, or enrichment. We have provided your facilitator with additional
instructions and answer keys that correspond to the assignments.

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Assessments
Assessments are various types of quizzes and tests.
a) Some assessments are oral and are given by the teacher during the video.

b) Some assessments are printed and need to be provided from the test packet (for K4–4th grade)
or downloaded and printed from the facilitator side of the program.

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 c) Most assessments in grades 5 to 12 are online.

Some online assessments contain an essay or verse passage that your facilitator will need to grade
because the computer is not able to grade these extended answers accurately. The answers for
these essays or verse passages are included online. Once your facilitator assigns a grade for the
essay or verse passage in the test area, the online Gradebook will update automatically.

Student view of an essay question in an online test:

Facilitator view of the completed essay question in an online test:

Notice that the question is considered incorrect until your facilitator grades the question.

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Taking Online Assessments

To take an online assessment you must perform the following steps.

1. Click on on the appropriate day.

2. Have your facilitator enter the password.

3. Click and to begin answering the questions.

4. For quizzes or tests with multiple pages, click on for the next set of questions.

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5. When finished, click at the bottom of the assessment. You will be reminded if you
forgot to answer any questions. Be sure to answer all the questions before clicking .

6. Your assessment will be automatically graded once you have submitted it. You will see the
following message during the grading process. Please allow this process to finish before you close
the tab or window.

7. After your assessment has been graded, you will be able to see your grade and review your
assessment. You have a couple of options for reviewing your assessment.

a) You may review your assessment from the test home page. To do so, just return to the
Lessons area and click on the “Go to Test Center”button again for the test day. If your
facilitator has the “Allow student to review test only after test is reviewed by facilitator”
setting turned on, you will see the following message:

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 If your facilitator does not have this setting turned on, or if your facilitator does and has
reviewed the assessment, then you will see a Review Test link.

b) You may review your assessment from the online Gradebook. Depending on the same
facilitator settings, you will have the assessment listed with or without an underline. If it is
underlined, your facilitator has reviewed it, and you are able to review it as well.

TIP: You may also access your online Gradebook by clicking the Grades link at the top of your page
and then the course name.

Clicking the appropriate link in either of these locations will allow you to see the assessment, the
score, the points earned for each question, your answer, the correct answer, the answer choices,
and, for some questions, additional explanations called feedback.
You will see a by questions for which you received partial credit, a by questions you
answered correctly, and an by questions you answered incorrectly.

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eTextbooks
Course eTextbook

Course eTextbooks are provided for most Student Texts. Activity Manuals, Worktexts,
and Lab Manuals are not available as eTextbooks and need to be purchased to complete
the assignments. Course eTextbooks are provided at no extra charge for both students
and facilitators.

The course eTextbook can be

found by clicking Connect to
VitalSource Bookshelf under
External Tools on the Course
Home page.

When you open VitalSource, you may choose to register. If you register, you can download your
eTextbooks. Enter your email address and click Continue. If you want to access eTextbooks only
when you are in DLO (online), click on No thanks, I’ll skip this step.

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To register, enter the required information.

If you haven’t already done so, you will need to agree to the
Terms.

This will take you to a short overview of what features are included. You may skip it by clicking
Next.

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 You may also access your eTextbooks online at online.vitalsource.com.
Some advantages of using eTextbooks online either in DLO or at the direct link include:

• Always available with internet access

• Accessible from any device
• Text-to-Speech available
• May be faster to load than the Bookshelf version
• Easier to navigate
• Greater variety of features and tools

eTextbook Features

Navigation: you can click through the Table

of Contents, move the scroll bar at the
bottom, or enter a page number to locate
the right page. Set a Bookmark to come
back later. Click on Library to go back to all
eTextbooks.

Search: You can search in a book or across

your library of books from the library page.

Notebook: All your highlights and notes become part of

your notebook that you can access here. Just highlight any
word to start adding. You can share important notes with
others as well.

Labs: These are features in progress. Here are some examples:

• Read Aloud: Text-to-Speech from your computer voice or Google Voice.

• Look up in Investopedia: Look up terms in a financial nosiness website. Wikipedia lookup
is already turned on.
• Define: Quickly defines an unknown term while reading.
• ScratchPad: Take your own notes.
• Instant Highlights: Drag to select text you want to highlight.
• Night Display: Easier to read in low light.
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 Flashcards: Create a new deck while
highlighting any term. This is a great
way to prepare for a tests.

Other Tools
The main library page has a few more tools in the drop-down at the top of the page.

Sharing: You can share highlighters with others or access their

shared highlighters.

Highlighters: Add or remove colors and

determine whether or not the highlighters can
be shared.

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Assignment: Allows facilitators and parents to create reading assignments by choosing the book,
name the assignment, select the section or specify the exact pages. The link can be copied and
emailed to students.

Update Library: Allows you to see any new books added to the library.

Support
We hope you enjoy your online course!

We’re always interested in hearing from you. Let us know what you think and make suggestions
for improvements anytime by submitting a Help Ticket or emailing us at
[email protected].

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