More and more courses are being ported to an asynchronous online format. Courses in which learning outcomes include mastery of a technology component, such as a database system, introduce additional challenges. This paper investigates student perceptions of the value of various types of instructional materials and methods for facilitating faculty contact utilized in an online introductory database course. The findings suggest that detailed online lecture notes have the most value with high ratings also given to narrated lecture notes and online interactive tutorials. Learning activities and assignments were also deemed to be extremely important with over eighty-nine percent of the students indicating preference for weekly assignments. The most common method used for faculty contact was email and students consistently cited that quick response turnaround and instructive feedback enhanced learning. In an online course, student learning can be enhanced by incorporating a variety of instructional materials and requiring students to frequently engage in structured learning activities.