The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) requires all institutions offering distance education (online) courses to ensure that both regular and substantive interaction (RSI) is occurring between the instructors and students in order to promote student engagement and success. Courses that do not meet the criteria for RSI will be considered correspondence courses, and thereby not eligible for Title IV funding. Pensacola State College does not offer correspondence courses. Faculty are encouraged to use the following guidance to ensure compliance with federal RSI standards.
Regular Interaction
An institution must ensure regular interaction between a student and instructor or instructors by:
Providing the opportunity for substantive interactions with the student on a predictable and scheduled basis commensurate with the length of time and the amount of content in the course or competency
AND
Monitoring the student’s academic engagement and success and ensuring that an instructor is responsible for promptly and proactively engaging in substantive interaction with the student when needed on the basis of such monitoring, or upon request by the student. (Distance Education and Innovation, 2020, pg. 54809)
Substantive Interaction
Engaging students in teaching, learning, and assessment; consistent with the content under discussion, and must includes at least 2 of the following:
Providing direct instruction (synchronous courses only)
Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework
Providing information or responding to questions about the content of the course or competency
Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of the course or competency
Other instructional activities approved by the institutional or program accrediting agency (Distance Education and Innovation, 2020, pg. 54809)
Applying RSI to Online Courses
Very High Confidence in long-term RSI inclusion:
- Weekly synchronous lectures with synchronous discussion (Live Online courses)
- Weekly video lectures with synchronous discussion (Live Online courses)
- Weekly conference phone calls
- Regularly scheduled help sessions
- Conducting content-based survey with structured feedback and multiple data points
High Confidence in long-term RSI Inclusion:
- Graded assignments with rich feedback
- Weekly announcements explaining content
- Facilitating asynchronous discussions
- Video feedback
Low Confidence in long-term RSI inclusion:
- Scheduled office hours
- Asynchronous “Ask you Professor” discussion board
Does not count toward RSI:
- Weekly announcements explaining administration of the class
- Weekly video pages that state what is coming up this week
- Graded assignments without feedback (Rubrics without additional comments do not
count towards RSI) - Video lectures
- Autograded quizzes and exams
- Autograded publisher coursework (including AI)
- One off interactions (i.e., not regular) such as one on one emails and one on one
meetings - Student-student interaction (unfacilitated discussions, groupwork)
- Providing an open forum for students to talk, peer-tutor, etc.
- Interaction with non-credentialed staff
- Automated feedback