Regular and Effective Contact

Written by COA DE Coordinator, Jennifer Fowler

Regular effective instructor-student and student-student contact is required in all online courses. Research has shown that online courses with high levels of social interaction have a positive impact on learning.

Click the links below to familiarize yourself with regulations about regular effective contact in online courses. You will also find examples and best practices for incorporating regular effective contact in your course.

Title 5

Title 5, § 55204, Instructor Contact of California Education Code requires distance education courses to have “regular effective contact between instructor and students, and among students*.”

*Please Note: In Spring 2019, Title 5 was amended to include the phrase “among students” to require student-student interaction in addition to instructor-student interaction. Review this resource to learn more about this update to Title 5.

ACCJC

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) requires distance education courses to have “regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor.” Read this article to learn more about four elements that guide regular and substantive interaction and this document for ACCJC’s guide for evaluating distance education.

Federal Regulations

ACCJC’s definition of distance education above mirrors federal regulatory requirements.

ASCCC

The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) recommends that colleges develop regular and effective contact policies and adopted a paper providing guidance on professional standards for educational practices in online education.

Examples

Below you will find examples of instructor-student and student-student interaction. You do not need to incorporate all the examples below. They are intended as a suggested guide and may vary by discipline or instructional design:

Welcome email or video

  • Ideally a welcome email or video is emailed to students before the class begins to promote early engagement and set the tone for the course
  • Some instructors send more than one pre-semester communication to create multiple touch points with students before the class begins

First day or week of course check-in assignment

  • Examples: a discussion forum with a self-introduction, icebreaker, internet scavenger hunt, etc.
  • A first day or week check-in assignment also helps determine non-participation for census roster reporting

Video conferencing via Zoom

  • Examples: use for office hours, exam review sessions, lectures, student presentations, group projects, guest speakers, virtual field trips, etc.

Customized front page

  • Use a Front Page to post engaging content and important information about your course

Discussion boards

  • Instructor moderated discussions

    • Equity Tip: Consider creating a system to track which students you respond to in the forum each week to ensure every student gets at least one response from you throughout the term. You can create an Excel spreadsheet to track responses or divide your roster into groups (i.e. alphabetical by last name– group #1 is A-F, group #2 is G-L, etc.) and respond to each group in intervals
  • Q&A board where instructors or fellow students answer questions

Weekly announcements

  • Create written, audio, or video announcements
  • Can be used to preview, summarize, or clarify course content
  • Post announcements with links to relevant articles or videos about course content

Individual contact with students via e-mail, phone, or video

Facilitating student to student contact

  • Learn how to create groups in Canvas for small group projects, assignments, or presentations
  • Learn how to use peer review assignments and create peer review assignments in Canvas
  • Use Zoom to facilitate group projects or presentations

Timely and individualized feedback on student work

Note: If you are using a publisher 3rd party website that only allows for automatically graded assignments, this should be supplemented with assignments in Canvas that allow you to give individualized, thorough feedback. When possible, course activity and interaction should be kept in Canvas for documentation.

If you’d like to add additional examples to this list, please email Distance Education Coordinators Chris Bernard or Cora Leighton.