Get Connected: A Scoping Review of Advising Online Graduate Students

The rate of online graduate education programs grows annually. Yet, dropout rates and student satisfaction rates continue to lag behind in-person programs. Advising practices may offer unique opportunities to reverse or alter these challenges. While the body of literature about undergraduate advising and online advising is robust, literature on current online graduate-level advising is sparse. Therefore, a scoping review of the literature was undertaken to answer the research question: What does the literature tell us about advising in online graduate programs? The search revealed ten relevant studies, and after conducting a thematic network analysis, two global themes and five organizing themes were presented. There are two global themes, “Create Connections” and “Know Your Program.” The “Create Connections” global theme is supported by three organizing themes: (a) Communication and Feedback, (b) Building Relationships and Community, and (c) Investment in student’s personal and academic growth. The “Know Your Program” global theme is supported by organizing themes (d) Program Requirements and Policies and (e) Technical skills. Based on the data, three recommendations are presented to aid online graduate advisors, including building trusting relationships with advisees, building a community of students, and knowing program policies, requirements, and technology platforms.

Online graduate education is here to stay (Allen & Seaman, 2016). It provides flexibility and increases access to certificates and degrees for adult learners (Exter et al., 2009). In 2018, 30% of graduate students in the United States were enrolled in fully online education courses. By 2029, this number is projected to increase by another three percent totaling 3.1 million students (The Condition of Education, 2020). While enrollment numbers are rising, this learning modality presents additional challenges, including declining retention rates (Mancini et al., 2018), students struggling to feel engaged (Shea et al., 2015), and a persistent need for students to feel a sense of belonging (Baxter, 2012). Enhancing student engagement is important because engagement improves student performance in courses and reduces a sense of isolation (Martin, 2020). In online learning, advisors play a key role in connecting with students and engaging them with the institution (German et al., 2019).
Advisors serve various critical functions within two broad classifications: general and research. General advisors typically focus on ensuring course requirements are fulfilled, managing program requirements, alerting advisees of program updates, and providing connection to university services (Ewing-Cooper & Parker, 2013;McConnell, 2018;Sutton & Sankar, 2011). Research advisors may fulfill all of these requirements and serve as a guide for the student's research project, including developing, designing, implementing, and disseminating the research (Spillett & Moisiewicz, 2004).
Both roles can involve complex academic and interpersonal skills in which supervisors are required to play multiple functions such as advisor, quality controller, and guide (Fynn & van Vuuren, 2017). Also included are aspects of mentorship and life coaching that extend beyond program requirements to ensure that the advisee is positioned for future success after graduation (Taylor et al., 2018). Without proper support and training, advisors cite feelings of isolation and workload inequity (Hart-Baldridge, 2020). Given the complexity of these tasks and the important role that advisors play in student experiences, it is important to look at the broader landscape of graduate student advising and examine the best practices that have been proposed in the literature (Erichsen et al., 2014;Spaulding & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2012).

Review of Literature
A review of student support literature shows that minimal research has been conducted in advising online graduate students. Numerous scholars (McConnell, 2018;Omar et al., 2015;Shen et al., 2018) have published informative articles on graduate student advising. Unfortunately, these articles focus on traditional face-to-face learning environments and are not aimed at online graduate students. Deshpande (2017) exemplifies this in exploratory research of literature published between 1993-2015 to draw out the best practices for supporting doctoral students in completing their programs, including quality feedback, continuous support including peer-to-peer engagement, pairing new and experienced faculties, mentoring students, and developing sensitivity to cultural issues. A broader study of the complex landscape of advising graduate online learners is needed. Therefore, a scoping review of the literature was undertaken to answer the research question: What does the literature tell us about advising in online graduate programs?

Method
Guided by Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) five-stage framework, a scoping review was conducted to answer the research question. Scoping reviews enable researchers to broadly map complex topics (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005). Various types of literature can be included: theoretical, empirical, and gray literature, which help identify gaps in the research and offer opportunities to inform future research and application. Throughout the review process, the authors met routinely to discuss findings and establish alignment before proceeding through the process (Colquhoun et al., 2014;Levac et al., 2010).

Stage 1: Identifying the Research Question
The research team included members with expertise in graduate education advising, distance learning, knowledge syntheses, and literature reviews. The authors are advisors in online graduate programs, hence incorporating stakeholder views. A broad research question was collectively developed, "Based on the literature, what are some recommended advising practices for online graduate programs?" Stage 2: Identifying Relevant Articles All authors collaboratively developed the search strategy. A search was conducted on November 2, 2020, using multiple databases, including Academic Search Complete, Web of Science, and ERIC. Search terms included a combination of keywords and controlled vocabulary terms optimized for each database, including, but not limited to, online learning, distance learning, distributed learning, web-based courses, advising, academic advising, research advising, supervision, onboarding, orientation, registration, graduate education, continuing education, advanced degree, graduate program. The research team hand-searched the citations of all included articles for additional manuscripts that met inclusion criteria. Additionally, the team used EndNote and Zotero to manage citations and remove duplicates. The authorship team collaboratively developed inclusion and exclusion criteria. The criteria can be found in Table 1.

Stage 3: Study Selection
The authors used a two-phase process to determine the alignment between the retrieved citations and the research question. This iterative process was managed in Covidence, a systematic review program. First, two authors independently reviewed the first twenty titles and abstracts to see if they fit inclusion criteria. After reviewing titles and abstracts, the authors refined the inclusion and exclusion criteria (e.g., clarifying the number of days the online program meets in person). The review also enabled the team to norm on a process. Each of the two authors independently reviewed all remaining records. All discrepancies (approximately 5%) were discussed and, where alignment could not be reached, the article was retrieved for a fulltext review. Table 1 shows inclusion/exclusion criteria.

Stage 4: Data Charting Stage
The authors collaboratively developed a data charting tool in Google sheets. All authors independently piloted the data charting tool using the same three articles. The results were reviewed and the charting tool was further refined. Next, two authors independently reviewed all articles, and the third author reviewed half. The three authors met to review all discrepancies, which were resolved by consensus. Articles were reviewed for inclusion criteria and were removed if all three authors agreed they did not meet the criteria. The following elements were extracted from each included article:

Stage 5: Collating, Summarizing, and Reporting Results
After completing the data extraction chart for each article, the data were coded using Attride-Stirling's (2001) thematic network analysis technique. All advising methods were extracted from the articles; however, they were not evaluated for effectiveness in keeping with the protocol for scoping reviews. Using the data extraction chart, a list of basic codes about advising were extracted from the articles such as a) Provide quality interaction (Kara & Can, 2019); b) Help students make the transition to a new learning environment (Cross, 2018); and c) Know programs and policies (Cross, 2018). The team collaborated on basic codes to identify a respective coding scheme. As needed, authors returned to the articles for context until consensus was met. Once consensus was met, the basic codes were categorized into organizing themes, with some basic codes fitting into more than one organizing theme. The categorization was reviewed collectively, and consensus on all organizing themes and categorizations of basic codes within was reached. Subsequently, the organizing themes were analyzed to develop two overarching global themes.

Figure 1
Search Results According to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Criteria

Five Organizing Themes for Investing in Advisees
Attride-Stirling's (2001) thematic network analysis technique resulted in two global themes, "Create Connections" and "Know Your Program."' The "Create Connections" global theme is supported by three organizing themes: (a) Communication and Feedback, (b) Building Relationships and Community, and (c), Investment in student's personal and academic growth. The "Know Your Program" global theme is supported by organizing themes (d) Program Requirements and Policies and (e) Technical Skills. "Create Connections" entails connecting with advisees through communication and feedback; providing spaces for them to build relationships and community within the program; and demonstrating investment in their growth within and beyond the program. Figure 2 provides a visual of the hierarchy of global themes and organizing themes. "Know Your Program" incorporates the need to know the requirements and policies of the program an advisor supports in addition to the technology platforms the program uses.

Figure 2 Global Ideas and Themes
Under each organizing theme were codes. Table 3 provides an overview of the codes that make up each organizing theme, along with an example.

Organizing Theme A: Communication and Feedback
Eighty percent (n=8) of the manuscripts in this review included discussions of communication and feedback (Cross, 2018;Grady, 2018b;Gupta, 2018;Kara & Can, 2019;Kumar & Coe, 2017;Kumar & Johnson, 2017, 2019Schroeder et al., 2016). Communication and feedback were a complex theme given the vast nature of these concepts and the multiple ways they can be enacted. Several articles posit that advisors should be available (Gupta, 2018;Kumar & Johnson, 2017), flexible (Kumar & Coe, 2017;Kumar & Johnson, 2017), and proactive and timely (Cross, 2018 (Kumar & Coe, 2017;Kumar & Johnson, 2017). Advisors were expected to be proactive and actively communicate with their advisees.

Organizing Theme B: Building Relationships and Community
Advisors build relationships and community with their advisees and across the institution. This theme was acknowledged in 90% (n=9) of the articles. Closely aligned with theme 1, advisors built relationships through skills including being available (Gupta, 2018), setting expectations (Kumar & Johnson, 2017, 2019, and practicing a caring tone (Cross, 2018;Fynn & van Vuuren, 2017;Grady, 2016a;Gupta, 2018;Kumar & Coe, 2017). Building relationships requires finding time in busy schedules to meet when students need advising support. Students need advisors to set expectations, provide structure, to scaffold experiences, and to set deadlines. Advisors that practice a caring and encouraging tone were specifically mentioned in half the articles either through directly acknowledging the need for advisors to care about their students (Cross, 2018) and/or advisors encouraging students to present at conferences (Grady, 2018b). Beyond the skills that overlap with the first theme, building relationships and community also entails accommodating needs (Grady, 2018b;Kumar & Johnson, 2017), practicing developmental advising (Schroeder et al., 2016), leveraging interpersonal interactions, and using personal knowledge (Fynn & van Vuuren, 2017;Grady, 2018b;Kumar & Coe, 2017;Kumar & Johnson, 2017, 2019Schroeder et al., 2016). Developmental advising provides students with a more personal relationship whereby advisors are invested in their academic, career, and personal goals (Schroeder et al., 2016). Advisors are a human link to the institution and to other students. This means they can coordinate group meetings to support peer feedback (Kumar & Johnson, 2019) or create a video to provide dissertation strategies (Grady, 2018b). Advisors need to tap their colleagues for knowledge (21) (Kumar & Johnson, 2017) and use their own prior experiences to best support their advisees (Kumar & Johnson, 2017).

Organizing Theme C: Investment in Student's Personal and Academic Growth
All articles highlighted this theme. Several of the codes in this theme interconnect across themes. As seen in Communication and Feedback and Building Relationships and Community, advisors need to be available (Gupta, 2018). Availability demonstrated an advisor's investment in the student's personal and academic growth. Similarly, advisees need feedback to grow. This feedback should be provided throughout the writing process (Kumar & Coe, 2017) and in conjunction with meeting following asynchronous written feedback (Kumar & Johnson, 2019). Like other organizing themes, advisors tap into their knowledge, including knowing their field (Kara & Can, 2019).

Organizing Theme D: Program Requirements and Policies
Advisors need to know their program, its requirements, and policies. Advisors should orient and guide students through the requirements of the program (Grady, 2016a(Grady, , 2018bGupta, 2018). This may occur through learning management system advising modules (Gupta, 2018), visual presentations of different aspects of campus (Grady, 2018b), and/or an overview of the steps for completing the program requirements (Grady, 2016a). To help students accomplish these requirements, advisors provide resources which include creating academic plans and providing hands-on work with programs of study creation registration, etc. (Gupta, 2018;Schroeder et al., 2016), . Lastly, advisors need to know the program, its policies, requirements, and protocols (Cross, 2018). Half the articles explicitly acknowledge the need for advisors to be knowledgeable in program requirements and policies.

Organizing Theme E: Technical Skills
Online programs need advisors with technical expertise. They need to be comfortable working in an online learning environment with synchronous and asynchronous technologies, utilizing various technologies, websites, and online environments, and be adept at learning new teaching styles and new technologies (Kara & Can, 2019;Kumar & Coe, 2017;Schroeder et al., 2016). In an online environment, these skills are essential.

Discussion
In this scoping review of advising in online graduate education programs, ten articles revealed concrete actions advisors can take to invest in the success of each advisee. Through Attride-Stirling's (2001) thematic network analysis of the data, two global themes "Create Connections" and "Know Your Program" emerged. The "Create Connections" global theme is supported by three organizing themes: (a) Communication and Feedback, (b) Building Relationships and Community, (c), Investment in student's personal and academic growth. The "Know Your Program" global theme is supported by organizing themes (d) Program Requirements and Policies and (e) Technical skills. These themes build off the work of Deshpande (2017) reinforcing the need for connections, community, and feedback. However, the findings veered away from Deshpande's sensitivity to cultural issues and pairing of faculties and focused on the need for program knowledge and technical skills. Based on the themes identified, the researchers posit three recommendations to help advisors purposefully invest in their advisees. These recommendations are not sequenced in any order and should be provided in tandem with one another.

Recommendation 1. Build a Trusting Relationship with Your Advisees
Building a trusting relationship with each advisee means learning their motivators and goals and caring about them as an individual beyond being a student in the program (Masengeni, 2019). The data demonstrated that students needed to feel valued, connected, and important. This is consistent with the larger body of literature that relationships help students, in person or online, to mitigate feelings of isolation (Berry, 2017;McEvoy et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2019). Trust is particularly important to develop an advising relationship (Houdyshell & Kirk, 2018). Given that an advisor's role is to provide feedback and guidance, a fundamental pillar of that relationship needs to be trust. Feedback is more effectively delivered when trust is formed between individuals (Carless, 2013). Students are learning, and they need feedback to know how to improve, know when to improve, know what they are doing well, and prioritize and work on next. Advisors and advisees with a trusting relationship create a safe space for providing constructive feedback. Advisors will know if this is going well if the student acknowledges and demonstrates progress and improvement. Conversely, feedback delivered in a relationship not built on trust may be missed or, worse, detrimental to the student's sense of self. Based on the analysis of the data, the following are recommendations advisors can use to build trust: 1) Meet with students. Individually meeting with students at the start of the program to learn about their goals and motivators and at regular intervals to accommodate students' needs and individualize the process (Kumar & Johnson, 2017) helps build trust. 2) Set clear expectations. Programs have a responsibility to ensure advisors implement advising practices and policies consistently.
3) Deliver feedback via phone or video conference. When delivering written feedback (e.g., editing a paper), ensure a scheduled time to follow up and review the feedback. Delivering feedback synchronously is encouraged because miscommunications are inevitable, but they are worse online when tone and intent can be lost and/or misinterpreted.

Recommendation 2. Build a Community of Students
Engagement matters (Martin & Bolliger, 2018). Developing a sense of belonging among online graduate students is critical to preventing burnout, decreasing dropout rates, and easing feelings of isolation (Gillett-Swan, 2017). Group meetings are a chance for students to engage with other students outside of their coursework (Kumar & Johnson, 2019). These meetings can be held for multiple purposes, including meeting with the director of the program, hearing from alumni, providing context for programmatic requirements, enhancing students' technology skill set, creating a space for peer feedback, etc. (Martin & Bolliger, 2018;Stone & Springer, 2019).
The purpose of the meeting is to create a safe space where individuals can feel part of a community of students.
Group meetings can build a community of students, which helps students feel connected to one another and provides a collective feeling of getting things done (Peacock et al., 2020). They offer accountability and encouragement for students to overcome obstacles, whether personal, academic, or professional. Additionally, sharing challenges can ward off imposter syndrome and normalize the learning curve (Wilson & Cutri, 2019). Done in tandem with the first best practice, students can feel like they matter to a larger group rather than just one advisor. Beyond feelings of connectedness (De Pryck et al., 2021;Suhlmann et al., 2018), group meetings can serve practical purposes such as developing collective practices that can contribute to success (e.g., writing groups) (Maher et al., 2013), helping students make the transition to a new learning environment (Cross, 2018); providing a structure for offering peer feedback (Kumar & Johnson, 2019), and easing faculty/advisor capacity. Advisors might know if this is going well if students voluntarily attend sessions and if alumni describe their peers' influence on their progression.
During group meetings, the advisor needs to ensure all voices are heard and that one student does not dominate the group's time, agenda, or attitudes (Woodley et al., 2017). Grounded in the data analysis, it is recommended that advisors coordinate purposeful group meetings based on the following suggestions. First, set up group meetings at key points in the student's experience (e.g., at the beginning to get comfortable with the new learning environment, when new technology is rolled out), when students typically face challenges (e.g., developing a research question), or when there is programmatic information to share (e.g., describing the portfolio process). Second, use structured processes. For example, if the group meeting intends to offer programmatic feedback, consider using the Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID) process (Bowden, 2004;Clark & Redmond, 1982), which ensures all voices are heard, and consensus is reached. If the purpose of the group meeting is to offer peer feedback, consider implementing Pendleton's rules for feedback (Pendleton et al., 2003) to help guide the process. Finally, provide opportunities for students to meet individuals outside of their usual interactions. For example, invite an alumnus, faculty member, or near-peer student to share on a topic. These activities can demonstrate to students individual and collective investment in their success.

Recommendation 3. Know Your Program Policies, Requirements, and Technology Platforms
Advisors must know their program. It is the advisor's role to know what students need to accomplish and how to get them there. Knowing the program can be particularly challenging in today's fast-paced environment where programs experience rapid growth and change. Despite the best intentions, these changes can make it hard for advisors (and students) to keep up with expectations/requirements. However, advisors must keep abreast of programmatic changes to best serve their advisees.
Additionally, advisors must be competent in using online technology, which is constantly evolving and changing. They must be willing and able to learn new technology as needed. Advisors need to adapt and learn new technology and see the implications technology changes may have on students. Competency in technology platforms is essential for clear communication without technology causing unnecessary interruptions. Based on the data analysis, it is recommended that advisors make the time to know their program and the technology it uses. First, program leaders, update the program handbook as needed, and ensure that students and advisors can reference policies and expectations for their specific year. Second, if there is a team of advisors, meet frequently to discuss changes and roll out communication together. Lastly, provide an overview of the steps in completing their graduate program (i.e., course completion, topic identification, proposal development and presentation to the doctoral committee, collection of data for the doctoral study, and the details of the final oral defense) (Grady, 2016a).

Limitations
Though the researchers were as thorough as possible when examining the literature on advising in online programs, there are limitations to this scoping review. First, the research team noted that there were multiple terms for advisor at the graduate level of education, especially at the doctoral level. Ultimately, the focus settled upon advisor and supervisor as the two most common roles in graduate education. More research could be conducted to focus on other terminology, such as mentor, to uncover all possibilities of advising in the graduate virtual setting. Second, the research focused on online graduate programs and did not include articles that focused on individual courses. Third, the research team opted to review literature from 2015 forward. This decision was made based on a previous review of literature that was completed by Deshpande (2017) who completed an exploratory research that examined journals from 1993-2015. It only made sense to review the literature written since that time to find the most current practices used in online graduate advising. Finally, the studies offered numerous advising strategies; however, the strategies were offered in groups. Additional research is needed to isolate the effectiveness of individual strategies.

Conclusion
In conclusion, online education is an enduring force in the education world. It will continue to grow as more institutions provide opportunities for learners to gain their degree in the virtual format. It is vital to attend to the needs of students not only in the classrooms but also through advising. The literature on online graduate level advising can be organized into five themes (a) communication and feedback, (b) building relationships and community, (c) program requirements and policies, (d) investment in advisee's personal and academic growth, and (e) technical skills. Three recommendations for online graduate advisors were explored from the themes in the literature, including building trusting relationships with advisees; building a community of students; and knowing program policies, requirements, and technology platforms. Following these recommendations may best support advisors leading students to graduation.

Disclaimer
The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences or the Department of Defense or the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for Military Medicine. Written work prepared by employees of the Federal Government as part of their official duties is, under the U.S. Copyright Act, a "work of the United States Government" for which copyright protection under Title 17 of the United States Code is not available. As such, copyright does not extend to the contributions of employees of the Federal Government.