This month's TOPkit Digest is brought to you by Nancy Keefer, M.A. Education, Instructional Designer/Compliance Specialist (keefern@cf.edu), E-Learning and Learning Support at the College of Central Florida. She discusses the topic of Helping Faculty Meet Regular and Substantive Interaction Requirements.

The video identifies the four types of online activities that your faculty can use to meet RSI standards. New faculty – or faculty new to online teaching – will likely benefit from the simple explanation given. Beginning at the 1:30 mark, this video includes some great ideas you can suggest to your faculty as you help them design RSI-compliant courses. Do, however, note that at about the 54-second mark, the speaker indicates recorded lectures are an option for Direct Instruction and recent clarifications indicate recorded lectures generally do not count toward RSI. See the Top Tips section of this TOPkit Digest for how they can count!

The DOE defines two types of interactions as the measure of the “amount" of interaction. Here at College of Central Florida (CF), our frequency guidelines are that each online course (and the online portions of hybrid and hyflex courses) must have at least two types of regular and substantive interactions (RSI) per week in a full-semester course (shorter courses might have different requirements). Here are some ideas we suggest to our faculty for use in their courses to ensure they meet requirements.

Graphic retrieved from Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) in Distance Education by UTRGV’s Center for Online Learning and Teaching Technology

#1: The Regular Part. It might be necessary to remind faculty that the phrase is Regular AND Substantive Interactions. The interactions must be “scheduled and predictable” to count toward RSI, boiling down to students being able to know when they can reach out to and/or expect to see faculty, even though they are participating in online learning.

To help faculty ensure they are meeting the standards, many schools have created documents similar to this one, due with the course syllabus each term. As instructional designers, one of our most important roles will be to help our faculty members properly categorize the types of interactivity they’re including – and help them not focus solely on the instances themselves. This Faculty Worksheet helps with this need.

#2: Direct Instruction. Because recorded lectures do not count toward RSI, many faculty members struggle with finding a way to give direct instruction. It’s good to note that it is not specifically required, simply one option faculty can use to meet RSI guidelines.

The Department of Education uses “Direct Instruction” only when referring to “live, synchronous instruction.” If your faculty do not have synchronous meetings in-person or via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Big Blue Button, they should not classify any of their course activities as Direct Instruction. 

#3: Assessments and Feedback. Auto-grading of tests, quizzes, and software application activities do not count toward this. However, faculty can: Review and comment on areas of concern with students who did not score well on tests/quizzes. Give positive feedback to students who do well, keeping in mind the responses must be substantive. Posting, "Good job on this quiz!" does not count; it might be difficult, if not impossible, to give substantive positive feedback on straight auto-graded materials. For this reason, faculty should include other forms of student assessments in each course. Faculty new to providing feedback to students digitally can get additional guidance from this Helpful Professor article. 

#4: Responding to Questions. Due to the "Regular" element of RSI, simply answering student questions, even when done in a trackable manner, will not count. To meet this requirement, faculty: Should schedule their office hours and post them into their syllabus. Include a Zoom or MS Teams recurring meeting link to enhance this activity. Reminder: Make sure faculty know to set up the meeting’s "Waiting Room" so that students do not accidentally enter a session in which faculty are with other students. 

Faculty can summarize questions received during office hours into a weekly announcement so all students can benefit from the questions that others ask, just as they would in a lecture hall. Posting questions received via email into the weekly summary is a good practice, too, for the same reason. It's a best practice to make sure student identifying information is not included. Students choose online learning for a variety of reasons, and sometimes the reason includes a higher comfort level with being more anonymous, usually when bullying was a part of the elementary and/or secondary school experience. 

Students may not utilize office hours or send emails with questions every week. If there are no questions, faculty should write and post an announcement at the end of each week summarizing the week’s objectives and giving details, suggestions, links, or other extra help for students who “missed the mark” on the week’s work.

#5: Group Discussion. You may hear that faculty dislike this element in an online course, but it can be very important! Online discussions can be challenging for topics requiring specific answers, such as math. Faculty should consider group discussions using scenario-based options when possible, and if they aren’t they can post their recorded lectures as discussions so they count toward RSI. While "optional discussions" do not count, the element of focused instruction, required viewing, and asking questions in anticipation means these discussions can meet RSI Group Discussion requirements. Remind faculty they must be present in the discussions for them to count toward RSI. The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering advises faculty to “create opportunities for and encourage the continuation of peer-to-peer interactions,” as they “are responsible for managing and guiding the discussions by ensuring tone and content is appropriate, providing feedback, and grading” traditional discussions.  

There are many ways to make sure faculty are hitting the mark with regular, scheduled, and substantive interactivity in their courses. More and more of these ideas will need to be shared as we become more accustomed to working within the constraints of RSI requirements.

RSI is still a fairly new topic, having only gone into effect on July 1, 2021, However, here are some resources you can use to help your faculty feel more comfortable with RSI Standards

Bren Bedford, MNM, SFC®, Web Project Analyst, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida

Florence Williams, Ph.D., Associate Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida