These guidelines are a companion to the Substantive Interaction Policy for Online Courses (see the current Student Bulletin), which was approved at the Graduate Council on 4/24/2023 and the Academic Council on 1/22/2024. This policy is in alignment with federal regulations that apply to all online courses for which students may use Title IV funds and current practice in our online graduate programs, which emphasize substantive interactions in the online classroom that foster intellectual engagement and deeper understanding among diverse individuals.
This article covers the following topics:
Interaction between students and the instructor should be regular (at least once weekly), and interaction should be academic. This interaction should occur with reasonable frequency, given the length of the course.
To establish participation, students must log in to each course within the posted Schedule Adjustment Period and either submit an assignment or substantively interact with classmates and/or the professor. Your class must have trackable opportunities to meet these requirements to comply with financial aid requirements and to allow you to drop students who do not meet the requirements.
All of this means students are engaged through teaching, learning, and assessment. In addition, the course must include at least two of the following 5 categories.
- Providing direct instruction via live lecture or videoconferencing.
- This does not include micro-lectures or recorded webinars.
- Assessing or providing feedback on a student's coursework.
- Limited feedback, such as posting "good job" or just entering a numerical grade, does not qualify as substantive.
- Providing information or responding to questions about the course content.
- Actively facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course.
- Limited feedback, such as posting "good job" or just entering a numerical grade, does not qualify as active facilitation in a discussion.
- Other instructional activities approved by the institutions' or programs' accrediting agency.
Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) in Distance Learning
- Provide regular direct interaction via Zoom
- Provide meaningful assessment feedback, both when a student is doing well and in areas where they could improve. Feedback can be written, audio or video.
- Provide information by responding to questions via announcements, messages in Canvas, discussion boards or email.
- Summarize discussions with highlights in a post from the faculty.
- Instructor-created Video lectures with discussions
- Post a video as part of the discussion with discussion prompts tied to video content
- Group discussions of the video lecture
- Weekly Announcements explaining content (not just due dates)
- Regularly scheduled Office Hours/Help Sessions/Review Sessions
We recommend discussing this with your chair or program director for the correct procedure in your program for reporting students who do not meet the requirement. Typically, this procedure includes reaching out to the student and the success coach or other academic support staff to encourage interaction, notifying your chair or program director, and then initiating an administrative withdrawal due to no substantive interaction.
A procedure for faculty might look like the following:
- Check for Substantive Interaction: Note that the student has not met the substantive interaction requirements by the end of the Schedule Adjustment Period.
- Students must log in to each course within the posted Schedule Adjustment Period and either submit an assignment or substantively interact with classmates and/or the professor.
- Direct Outreach to Student: Reach out directly to the student to attempt to initiate contact.
- Outreach through Academic Support Staff: Notify success coaches and/or academic advisors to have them check with the student.
- Notify Academic Administrator: Contact the department chair and/or program director for guidance on next steps.
- Administrative Withdrawal: Proceed with administrative withdrawal only if directed by academic administrators. An administrative withdrawal is initiated by the instructor and approved by the appropriate school dean and the director of Academic Policies and Procedures.
How to Do an Administrative Withdrawal
- OSCQR SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric: The SUNY website provides a rubric for evaluating the quality of online course materials based on 50 criteria organized into nine categories. This rubric is designed to help instructors and instructional designers ensure that their online courses are effective and engaging for students.
- U.S. Department of Education Issues Final Rules on Distance Education and Innovation: The US Department of Education has released final regulations on distance education and innovation. The new rules aim to provide more flexibility to institutions offering online programs and ensure quality standards are maintained.
- UTRGV Regular Substantive Interaction: The UTRGV Teaching Online Process emphasizes the importance of regular and substantive interaction between instructors and students in online courses to promote engagement, communication, and learning.
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The above graphic and examples are based on Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) in Distance Learning. (n.d.). UTRGV. Retrieved August 3, 2023, from https://www.utrgv.edu/online/teaching-online/process/regular-substantive-interaction/index.htm