The Course Guide and it's purpose

The course guide in orientation is not the same information as the course guide in your classes. They have vastly different pieces of information in them.

The Orientation Course Guide

The Class Course Guide

In the course guide for your class you will find the information you need about how attendance works, a bit about the course, all of the grading rubrics for discussion threads, connections, homework, project and tests. It also lays out the expectations of time and logging in. It talks about the Announcements and how important they are to get all kinds of information from downloading access, codes for some classes and information for you to be successful. 

Make sure you read all the information in your class. Each class syllabus will be a little different.