Regular and Substantive Contact
Any portion of a course conducted through distance education must regular and substantive contact between instructor and students (Title 5 Regulation Section 55204 Links to an external site.). Instructor contact may be accomplished in a variety of ways and is subject to local definition, however, it must be able to be verified by the college to comply with federal regulations Links to an external site..
Instructor-initiated regular effective contact requires early, continuing, and consistent communication from the instructor of record. This includes the instructions for accessing the course and directions on how to use the tools and materials. In other words, this means more than just a Q & A or FAQ discussion.
Paramount to the development and actualization of Online/ Hybrid courses is the responsibility of the instructor to ensure substantive regular and effective contact with students. This challenge is often equated as parity with face-to-face (F2F) courses. This means that interaction and content delivery must parallel a F2F class.
The Canvas course “shell” must be developed to be more than a “container for lectures” and multiple-choice tests. An Online/Hybrid instructor must create active interactions between instructor and student and between student and student. Online tools can provide methods for achieving both synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous interaction.
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Use Canvas. Faculty teaching Online/Hybrid courses may only use Canvas and the tools within the Canvas environment as the learning management system for Online and Hybrid course delivery.
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Instructor Presence. Instructors needs to create a sense of “presence” for which students are aware and with whom interaction is available. Presence is the most important best practice for an online course (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 53
Links to an external site.). Research has shown that an important component in students ‘performance in and satisfaction with their online course is the active participation of the instructor within their course (Picciano, 2002
Links to an external site.; Rovai, 2002
Links to an external site.; Swan & Shih, 2005
Links to an external site.)
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Office Hours. Regular contact hours should be listed through published office hours (whether virtual or F2F) and availability for answering questions and giving feedback that includes both synchronous and asynchronous modes.
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Feedback. Timely feedback must replicate the contact of F2F courses, with communication between faculty and students occurring no less frequently than in a comparable F2F course. Instructors should clearly indicate when they will be available to students, and when they will not be available (i.e., weekends, vacations, holidays, if appropriate), how often they will respond to student work, and in what manner they will respond to student work (i.e., email, text message, phone, online chat). SMCCCD best practice guidelines suggest instructors should answer student questions as soon as possible within 24 hours, the outside being 48 hours.
Feedback must be substantive, i.e., of an academic nature, whereby the interaction furthers learning or assesses learning, rather than being organizational or procedural communications. Proving a score or grade is not considered substantive. The December 2014 Dear Colleague letter explains, “merely grading a test or paper would not be substantive interaction.”The December 2014 Dear Colleague letter Links to an external site.further explains, “merely grading a test or paper would not be substantive interaction.” Best practices include using rubrics, providing inline annotations on submitted documents, and leaving constructive comments via text, audio, or video messages in SpeedGrader.
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Substantive Interactions. Interaction between faculty and students should use multiple channels, besides just Conversations, the email tool in Canvas. Discussions, and regular announcements, are an added but minimal way to connect with students. Interaction must be substantive, i.e., of an academic nature, whereby the interaction furthers learning or assesses learning, rather than being organizational or procedural communications. Best practices are that faculty should use a variety of communication tools available in Canvas in their classes. These tools include both real time modes, such as Chat and Conferences and asynchronous tools such as Conversations, which is the email/inbox app in Canvas.
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Instructor Initiated Interaction. Instructors will regularly initiate interaction with students on a group or one-to-one basis. The instructor should be cognizant of the degree to which students are participating in the course and review such participation regularly – similar to how a face-to-face instructor is constantly aware of how many students are attending and participating in the class. Based on the Distance Education Guidelines (2008) published by the CCC Chancellor's Office, the DE instructor is responsible for initiating regular contact with students to verify their participation and performance. Note that responding to queries from students alone does NOT meet this criterion. The following statement is made in the December 2014 Dear Colleague letter:
“We do not consider interaction that is wholly optional or initiated primarily by the student to be regular and substantive interaction between students and instructors. Interaction that occurs only upon the request of the student (either electronically or otherwise) would not be considered regular and substantive interaction.”
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Student to Student Contact. Faculty will ensure ongoing regular and substantive student-to-student contact. Best practices include implementing communication means for varied types of interaction in the course design, assigning and monitoring weekly assignments and projects that promote collaboration among students, posing questions in the discussion boards that encourage critical thinking skills and promote interaction, and monitoring student engagement to ensure that students participate with depth. Collaborative tools within Canvas are often one of the best ways to achieve student to student interaction, in addition to discussions.
- Third-Party Integrations. Best practice for the application of FERPA guidelines requires single sign-on and that Assignments and Grades are only kept with Canvas, the District required Course Management System. Use of publishers’ materials compromises student’s private data if faculty send the student out of Canvas or directly to a publisher’s site. Canvas enables LTI integration of publisher content with a single sign on. This integration allows faculty to keep all student data within Canvas on the District Servers and therefore not violate FERPA.