It is strongly recommended that the first ALEKS session be conducted under supervision, perhaps with another instructor on hand to help your students get started. You may also choose to schedule supervised assessments at midterm and at the end of the course. It is not generally necessary to schedule a separate orientation meeting before the students actually begin using the system, although in some cases there may be reasons for doing so. Presumably, the students will all have copies of the ALEKS User's Guide. You should encourage students to familiarize themselves with this brief guide. You may wish to remind your students to bring it along to the first session as it contains their Access Code, which is required for registration. It is also advisable to emphasize the few requirements for assessments in ALEKS: paper and pencil are needed, as well as simple calculators. (A basic calculator is part of ALEKS.) Remind your students that help is not allowed during the assessment because if the student being assessed does not do their own work, the assessment results may not be accurate, and this will hinder that student's progress in the Learning Mode.

If at all possible, the students' first session with ALEKS should be long enough for them to complete their assessments and begin work in the Learning Mode. One hour may be considered a reasonable period of time. If the students cannot finish their assessments during this time, ALEKS will automatically keep their place, and they will resume next time where they had left off. No work will be lost.