Student Services

Help centre

OntarioLearn provides help desk support services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (12 hours a day on weekdays in French) for students and instructors. Call, email or chat live for immediate help with your online experience, whether you’re having trouble with the OntarioLearn Portal or one of our Learning Management Systems. Visit our help centre online to review our index of popular topics, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), our glossary of terms and quick links, or click through the technical service provider knowledge base for responses to common problems.

Textbooks

Many OntarioLearn courses have textbook requirements. Please refer to the information provided by your registering institution—sent by mail, email, or posted online—for details on how to obtain your textbooks. Before purchase, be sure to take note of the return policy. If you are having trouble acquiring your textbooks, please contact the OntarioLearn Coordinator at your registering institution.

If your course uses an electronic text, OntarioLearn has a preferred partner for its fulfillment at a discounted price. For select courses, students will be able to access a Kivuto Solutions Inc. digital resource portal from within their course to complete their purchase.  With each transaction, students claim a permanent licence with prompts to download and use the Texidium eReader. 

Start-up checklist

It is essential that you log in to the Portal to connect through to each of your courses by the scheduled start date. We recommend you use our 6-Point Start-up Checklist to review key elements of your course experience at the outset:

• My news for the latest announcements
• My instructor contact information 
• My content of the lessons ahead
• My activities to complete through the course
• My progress to monitor your assessments 
• My schedule to identify key dates.

Your final grade could be determined on whether you complete assessments on time such as assignments, discussions, tests – even an exam – if required. Facilitators are not able to grant course extensions. All assignments and projects must be submitted by the deadlines established by the facilitator and prior to the course end date.

Accessibility 

OntarioLearn supports access to learning for students of all abilities. Every reasonable effort is made to provide OntarioLearn services and information to all students. Students with special needs are encouraged to contact the OntarioLearn Coordinator and/or the office for disability services at their registering institution to ensure that appropriate support services can be arranged. 

Examinations

Some courses have a final examination requirement. If your course requires an invigilated/proctored final exam, you will need to make arrangements within the exam schedule as instructed within your course. Final exams must be completed as outlined in your course timeline.  Please refer to the welcome information from your registering institution and watch the announcement area of the OntarioLearn Portal for information about exam schedules.

You will no longer have access to the course after the course end date. If your course requires a final exam conducted online, the exam must be completed before the course end date. Contact your registering institution for all program-related inquiries and questions about final examinations and final grades.

Proctoring is the process of overseeing an examination. Virtual proctoring allows you to take your exam where it is most convenient for you. OntarioLearn has a preferred partner, Examity, for supervising your exam online. Where institutions indicate, students are able to purchase the service at an OntarioLearn discounted fee and schedule their time slot within exam schedule dates. Students are able to link to the service from within their course and access specialized support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Virtual tutoring

OntarioLearn has a preferred partner for virtual tutoring. Students receive a special offer of one free hour of online tutoring available within the first seven days of a subscription plan purchase at Tutor.com. This fully online virtual tutoring company offers one-to-one sessions online with a qualified, experienced tutor suited to post-secondary education. Help in more than 40 subjects including Math, Science, Social Studies and Business is available 24/7. Find out more at https://www.tutor.com

Libraries

Presented in partnership by the Heads of Libraries/Learning Resources (HLLR) and the Ontario Colleges Library Service (OCLS), The Learning Portal supports student success online by providing a shared platform of core materials available 24/7 that can be integrated into college curricula. Built on the LibGuides platform and using software such as Articulate Storyline, Powtoon and Adobe Captivate, The Learning Portal is a space that provides direct links to college libraries’ websites, digital resources to support teaching and learning, learning objects, tutorials, videos, and other tools curated and delivered by the 24 Ontario College Libraries and several Ontario College Learning Centres. Find out more at http://tlp-lpa.ca/home .

Mobile applications (apps)

The Blackboard app for students is simple, easy to use, and enjoyable. Use these steps to install the app:

1. From your tablet or phone, access the appropriate app store.
   Download on your Apple® device
   Download on your Android™ device
   Download on your Windows® device
2. Install the Blackboard app on your mobile device.
3. Open the Blackboard app and search for “Ontario Learn”. If you can’t find Ontario Learn, contact our “help desk”.
4. Log in with your OntarioLearn Portal username and password. These are the same credentials you use to access the OntarioLearn Portal on a computer.
5. For instructions on how to use the app, plus a video guided tour, visit  https://help.blackboard.com/Blackboard_App/Student

The Blackboard app for teachers, Blackboard Instructor, gives facilitators a quick and easy way to manage courses. Use these steps to install:

1. From your tablet or phone, access the appropriate app store.
   Download on your Apple® device
   Download on your Android™ device
   Download on your Windows® device
2. Install the app on your mobile device.
3. Open Blackboard Instructor and search for Ontario Learn. If you’re unable to find Ontario Learn, contact our help desk.
4. Log in with your OntarioLearn Portal username and password. These are the same credentials you use to access the OntarioLearn Portal on a web browser.

For instructions on how to use the app, plus a video guided tour, visit https://help.blackboard.com/Blackboard_App/Instructor

More mobile apps

Please note that Daylight is required for optimal performance of the D2L mobile apps. 

Brightspace Pulse for students keeps you up-to-date. Use these steps to install:

1. From your tablet or phone, access the appropriate app store.
   Download on your Apple® device from the App Store
   Download on your Android™ device from Google play
2. Open the Pulse app, click Pick my School, and search for OntarioLearn.com. If you can’t find Ontario Learn, contact our help desk.
3. Log in with your OntarioLearn Portal username and password. These are the same credentials you use to access the OntarioLearn Portal on a computer.

This Brightspace Assignment Grader for instructors gives access to assignments and tools. Use these steps to install:

1. From your tablet or phone, access the appropriate app store.
   Download on your Apple® device from the App Store
   Download on your Android™ device from Google play
2. Open the Brightspace Assignment Grader app, click Pick my School, and search for OntarioLearn.com. If you can’t find Ontario Learn, contact our help desk.
3. Log in with your OntarioLearn Portal username and password. These are the same credentials you use to access the OntarioLearn Portal on a computer.

With Moodle Mobile for students or teachers, you can browse course content, and much more.  Use these steps to install:

1. From your tablet or phone, access the appropriate app store.
   Download on your Apple® device from the App Store
   Download on your Android™ device from Google play
2. Open the Moodle Mobile app and type olmoodle.ontariolearn.com in the Site address field. Click Connect.
3. Click the Continue button.
4. The OntarioLearn Portal login page will load. Log in with your OntarioLearn Portal username and password. These are the same credentials you use to access the OntarioLearn Portal on a computer.

For instructions on how to use the app, plus a video guided tour, visit https://docs.moodle.org/34/en/Moodle_Mobile

Quality

OntarioLearn upholds high-quality standards for the courses and programs they offer.  The OntarioLearn Quality Control and Quality Assurance Specialist works with member institutions to conduct course reviews based on feedback from student course evaluations and spot-checks, using a customized framework based on a rubric developed by Quality Matters^TM.

Students provide their feedback in an online course evaluation questionnaire, which measures the overall effectiveness of the facilitator, course content and students’ general perceptions of quality. Courses with inferior results are subject to additional steps like a course review, facilitator review, course suspension or loss of the course claim.

Standards

OntarioLearn is committed to implement the Quality Matters^TM standards for the design of online courses. Our consortium is systematically building and evaluating our courses based on these rigorous, research-based standards. The standards assure that the online components of our courses promote learner engagement and provide students with all the tools and information they need to be successful learners. More information regarding Quality Matters may be found at www.qmprogram.org.