Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

6 Getting ready for online study 
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putting together the timetable where rooms can be matched to 
class sizes. Te result is that each term lecturers are often as sur-
prised when they are teaching a subject as the students. Lecturers 
and students alike dread seeing one thing on their timetable – the 
“9 o’clock lecture”. University students do not like getting up for a 
9:00 am lecture. Lecturers do not like seeing this on their timeta-
ble either as they know that attendance will be low. 
Enter the world of online lectures. If you want, you can watch 
a lesson at any time of the day or night. It is entirely up to you 
as a student. Lecturers also like the fexibility because they can 
record the lectures when convenient to them, rather than when 
an administrator has timetabled the event. Online learners and 
lecturers alike can be genuinely independent, deciding when they 
will deal with the lectures according to their own requirements. 
Tis appears to have a positive efect. Anecdotally, several stu-
dents have told me that they prefer the online way of studying. 
When I checked their results, they also appeared to be gaining 
higher marks after switching to online studies than they were in 
the months beforehand. Tis is borne out by research. A study 
at Tel Aviv University found that online students “reported bet-
ter understanding of the course structure, better communication 
with the course staf” and “higher engagement and satisfaction” 
(Sofer and Nachmias, 2018). 
QUICK TIP: If you have a chance to study an element of your 
degree online, choosing that option can improve your enjoy-
ment of the module. 
ONLINE LECTURES ALLOW FOR 
SELF-PACING 
One Wednesday morning in the middle of a term, I walked into 
the Sunley Lecture Teatre in the Chandos Road Building at the 
University of Buckingham. It’s a small lecture theatre holding 
about 80 students, and it is at the end of a long corridor where 

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