Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

Preparing for online study 39 
by mistake. Or you could forget to press the “Save” button. Tere 
could even be a technical glitch with your computer meaning it 
rendered your fles unreadable. Tese issues can be minimised if 
you have backups of everything you do. Too many students try to 
rely on manual backups, such as copying their work to a memory 
stick. But that also has problems. What if you forget to do it or 
drop the memory stick down the toilet? Yes, students have told 
me they’ve done that. Te answer is to automate your backups. 
Tere is a wide variety of good backup software around, so check 
out the student discounts available. Plus, do not rely on saying it 
is “in the cloud”. If you delete a fle on your computer by mistake, 
then the syncing software could delete it from the cloud storage 
service as well. All too often, people think they have a backup 
when they don’t. Ideally, you should have three copies of every-
thing you do – the original, the cloud version, and a physical back-
up on a separate hard drive. Backup software will manage those 
versions for you, and therefore if something does go wrong, you 
can be sure you will have at least one fle to go back to. 
Other useful programs 
Tere are many other potentially useful software programs that 
you could investigate before you start your studies. However, at 
the early stage of your studies, it is worthwhile considering pro-
grams that will help you with: 
y
To-do lists 
y
Calendars and schedules 
y
Tracking your work. 
Crucial to your success as an online student will be keeping up 
with the work and sticking to the timetable. Selecting the software 
that can help you achieve this before you begin your studies is a 
good idea. Tat way, you can practise using it frst, and you can 
be ready to get on with studying without falling behind. Tere are 
plenty of “to-do” list programs and apps available, so it is worth-
while taking time to fnd the one that works best for you and the 

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