EDUCAUSE Review. Monday, May 22, 2017 http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/5/helping-graduate-students-join-an-online-learning-community Helping Graduate Students Join an Online Learning Community by Christina Yao, Brian Wilson, Crystal Garcia, Erica DeFrain and Andrew Cano Key Takeaways  Online learners in graduate studies often face two new realities at the start of their academic careers: shifting identity into becoming graduate students, and developing online course competency.  The Student Success Center — a strong orientation to online learning and graduate education — provides a foundation for establishing a community of online graduate program learners.  Through that community of learners and with frequent interactions with instructors and staff, students can begin the process of becoming socialized into our department and their field of study.  Finding collaborative ways to reduce their feelings of isolation and help online graduate students realize that they are part of a learning community that spans the university greatly improves the student experience and helps foster their success. Graduate education requires both independent and group learning to create a community of engaged learners who not only develop content knowledge but also become socialized into their chosen discipline. Traditionally, much of this community building and socialization happens in face-to-face interactions with both faculty and other graduate students. Replicating these types of interactions and experiences can be very challenging when graduate programs move online. In spring 2016, two individuals (authors Christina Yao and Brian Wilson) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) came together to address the challenge of creating a community of engaged learners in the Department of Educational Administration (EDAD). Our department currently has 423 students, with 66 percent of them fully online. In our discussion, we realized that online learners in graduate studies often face two new realities at the start of their academic brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska