Lesson 9 Overview

Lesson 9: Working with Students in the WDadvising General Email Account
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In this lesson, you will learn about our general advising email account, WDAdvising. This account is used to respond to general inquiries to World Campus so your skills will be “put to the test” working in this account.  The lesson will give you general guidelines for assigning emails, common workflows and referrals, and general best practices to help you to navigate some of the more common questions and issues that arise in these emails. WDAdvising is your first experience working directly with World Campus students.

Learning Objectives

Upon the completion of Lesson 9, advising staff will be able to do the following:

  • Build their skills around the art of communicating online in preparation for using wdadvising;
  • Review tips with appropriate and inappropriate examples of how to answer emails received by wdadvising;
  • Learn common workflows and templates advisers use in wdadvising with examples of how to manage the cases;
  • Learn best practices and guiding principles for taking notes;
  • Begin responding to messages in the wdadvising account with the guidance of their mentor and supervisor.

Readings

We have a collection of commonly used responses that we tailor when responding to messages. We encourage advisers to tailor these responses to specific student situations, but by starting with these responses, you will be able to increase the speed with which you respond to students. (For example, you will not have to hyperlink text or re-explain the answer to a common question).
If you develop your own new canned responses, consult with your advising team and coordinator to determine if they would be useful to share with the team – if approved, the communications team can add them as official canned responses for the advising team.
  • Writing Effective Emails

Review these articles to learn tips and suggestions for writing emails in an effective manner.

Is it spelled Adviser or Advisor? Website or web site? According to the Penn State Editorial Style Manual, it’s adviser, and website! This manual, maintained by the Department of University Public Relations, from punctuation to spelling offers guidance on editorial style to help present the University in a consistent manner.