How UW Colleges Online Works

UW Colleges Online offers a convenient, flexible way to commence or continue your college education. In UW Colleges Online, students can earn the Associate of Arts and Science degree, a great foundation for a bachelor’s degree, or take general education courses to apply toward other degree programs.

In UW Colleges Online classes, you:

1. Engage in college credit courses over the Internet (be sure you meet specific technology requirements).

2. Complete a course within a specific semester timeframe that typically lasts about 15 weeks. UW Colleges Online courses are not accelerated nor are they self-paced; they follow the same academic calendar as the 13 UW Colleges campuses.

3. Connect to courses from a computer linked to the Internet.

4. Log into your class regularly -- daily or several times a week.

5. Work online reading lecture notes, checking assignment due dates, participating in group discussions, submitting course work, taking quizzes or exams, and communicating with your professor one-on-one.

6. Work offline reading textbook and article assignments, solving computational problems, composing written assignments, doing research, and studying for quizzes or exams.

7. Participate in class at a time that best suits you, while still ensuring your coursework is completed by any specified due dates.

8. Spend as much time completing coursework as you would in a traditional face-to-face campus course, but you can work around your own daily schedule. Expect to spend an average of 3 to 4 hours per week per credit on each fall or spring semester course and 5 to 8 hours per week per credit on each summer course.

9. While we can't give you access to a live course, we can give you access to our Desire2Learn Demonstration site. This site will allow you to become familiar with some of the technologies used in UW Colleges Online courses and see how course content is organized.

   Please take a few minutes to access https://uwc.courses.wisconsin.edu/. To log into this site you will need to enter the following:

   Username – online
   Password – guest