Quick Start Guide

• On the site home page, you should see five areas of importance:
  
  
  1. Name of course(s) − Click the course name to enter the course, or click the “Go to next” option to jump to whatever activity you need to complete next.
  2. Expiration date(s) − Please note: The registration period for a course begins the day the course is purchased, not the date of your first login.
     • “Request more time” is only available if you have not clicked to get your certificate, and, your time has expired or you have a week or less left in your registration period. Please do not contact support to ask before the option is available to you. We cannot consider requests before that time.
  3. Help:
     • The Quick Start Guide is to orient you to the Billy Graham Online Evangelism system and courses. If you are new to online learning, we recommend you go through this guide first.
     • The How to Get Help block contains Frequently Asked Questions and a link to get Request Help. The Request Help link will walk you through a few questions and if they do not resolve your issue you will be directed to a support team that should be able to help you. If you request assistance using another method, it could result in you waiting an unknown amount of time.
     • If you ask for assistance, it is likely that the support team will need to contact you via email. Please make sure you are allowing email from help@onlinecoursesupport.com and billygraham@onlinecoursesupport.com. If you do not receive an email from the support team within a few days, you should check your Trash or Spam folder. If you do not respond to the support team’s email within a few days, they will make a second attempt to reach you. After a reasonable period of time, if there is still no response from you, they will close the request as resolved.
     • In your support request, be sure to identify the course by its specific name. For example, if you simply say you need help with the “Evangelism” course, the support team may have difficulty determining which course you are enrolled in, and the assistance you need may be delayed. Billy Graham Online Evangelism Training includes multiple evangelism courses, and the support team serves other organizations in addition to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA)—so be specific!
  4. My profile and Logout links—if you edit your profile, please note: The way your name appears in your profile is what will be printed on your certificate.
  5. The User settings block allows you to change your password and modify your forum preferences, such as email digest and auto-subscription settings.
• The icon is a visual indicator that the link opens in a new window or a new tab, depending on your device and preference settings.

All courses have the same basic layout and activities—including lessons, videos, reading assignments, quizzes, and discussion forums—and must be completed in a sequential order. (The course used in the following illustrations may vary slightly from the course you are enrolled in, with different graphics and colors, but the structure is the same. Please keep this in mind as you look at the examples.)

1. On the main course page, you will see button links to each main section or lesson within the course. To begin, click on the first button. When you return to the course in the future, you can use these buttons to jump directly to the lesson where you left off.
   
2. Lesson pages indicate your progress and show what is and is not available to you:
   
   • An activity is shown as completed with a checked box. A dashed, or broken, box is checked automatically when conditions are met. A solid box can be checked manually such as a notes page.
     
   • An activity is available but not completed with an unchecked box.
     
   • Unavailable activity − indicated by dimmed text that is not clickable. To “unlock” this activity, you must complete the preceding activity which is listed as part of “Not available unless ...”.
     
3. After you have read the lesson summary, click on the first link, which is typically a video.
   Note: Each video title tells you, in parenthesis, how long the video is in minutes and seconds.
   
   • All activity pages include navigation buttons, which take you forward or backward in the course, to make it easy to proceed in the proper order.
     
   • Videos:
     On video pages you will be able to view a video. Often you will also find a transcript and/or notes pages—these open in new windows.
   • Quizzes:
     There is no time limit once you start a quiz, and you are welcome to use your notes as you take the quizzes. When you have completed a quiz, you will be presented with the option to review how you did.
     • You are told what score you need to progress to the next activity in the course.
     • You are given three attempts.
     • Questions are presented one at a time.
     • Occasionally someone may need more than three attempts, but this is very rare. If it happens to you, please use the Request Help link, and the support team will reset an attempt so you can complete the course.
   • Discussion forums:
     • You are required to post at least one reply for each discussion topic before you proceed to the next activity. Your reply can be to the original question or to a previous participant’s response.
     • You can change how the forums are displayed using the drop-down menu with the following options:
       • Display flat, oldest first − This displays with no indentations, and the oldest replies appear first.
       • Display flat, newest first − This displays with no indentations, and the newest replies appear first.
       • Display in threaded form − Only the first post is displayed in its entirety. This is followed by individual links to each of the other replies (see image).
         
       • Display in nested form − Indentations show the relationships between posts, if participants are replying to other participants.
     • It is recommended to read the best practices for discussion forums, next.

The following recommendations are based on questions we’ve encountered so far and things we have learned from our years of experience in online training. There is a lot of additional information on the Internet regarding how to be a successful online learner.

• Reading assignments and notes pages:
  • It is possible to view all course reading assignments without first watching videos, taking quizzes, or replying to discussions; however, this will require you to navigate more carefully to make sure you complete all the other activities in the proper order.
  • While we cannot allow you access to the course(s) indefinitely, we encourage you to download or print (depending on your preference) the reading assignments and notes pages and keep them for as long as you like.
• Fill-in-the-blank notes pages
  • Some of the courses include notes pages with blanks that you can fill in as you watch the videos.
  • Notes page answer keys are also provided in certain courses. If the course you are in offers answer keys, you will only be able to see them after you have scored at least 70% on the quiz.
  • By downloading or printing the notes pages, you will have access to the notes after your course registration has expired.
• Quizzes
  • You may use your notes while taking the quizzes.
  • We do not give you the correct answer if you miss a question. We believe you’ll learn more effectively by reviewing the material to find the correct answer before taking the quiz again (if required).
  • If you cannot pass a quiz in three attempts, contact Request Help, and they will reset an attempt so that you can take it again until you pass it.
  • We know some students want to score 100% on every quiz, but it is not necessary. Your quiz scores are not displayed anywhere for others to see how you performed.
• Discussion forums
  • Experience teaches us that things won’t work flawlessly 100% of the time. Sometimes you know when there is a problem immediately, but other times you don’t know until it is too late. Plan ahead for possible interruptions and don’t type your response directly into the discussion text field.
    • Use a text editor, such as Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac, to compose your response offline. When you have completed your reply, copy and paste the content into the discussion text field.
      Note: Using this method, you could keep all of your responses in a single file. Then, after your registration expires, you will still have all your responses to the discussion questions.
  • PLEASE NOTE: Subscribing to the discussion forums is not required—but it is a helpful way to enhance the community aspect of this training by allowing you to interact with others going through the course at the same time. If you desire to be notified of replies/posts by other participants, you must subscribe to the forums. Simply go to Forums in the Activities section and click on “Subscribe to all forums.”