Though we hope all online courses are carefully planned, the first two criteria in Section B speak specifically to the instructor's plan for initiating and maintaining communication with the students and support the need for Regular Effective Contact.

B1: Pre-Course Contact
B2: Regular Effective Contact

This criterion may not be evident in the course, but we'd like to make the case that it should be. Pre-course "Welcome" letters are a ubiquitous element of online teaching. These letters are designed to get online students in the course and participating in the first week, and often contain important information about the instructor, the CMS, the course, and the work in week 1. This letter should be archived in the course in an easy to locate the spot. While the information will be redundant to most students, it may be critical to late adds, or to students who did not receive the pre-course email.

Instructors may choose to archive the letter in their first announcements, in their orientation, or with their syllabus, but they should be encouraged to recognize this pre-course contact is, indeed, an important part of their course, as well. Aligned courses include pre-course contact, while exemplary courses provide essential resources within the contact that help students successfully start the course.

The purpose of this communication is to welcome the students, establish a comfortable class environment, introduce the class syllabus, log-in details, protocols, and/or establish a weekly routine.

Also, this communication is intended to support students in accessing the course and participating in the first week. The letter ideally contains important preliminary information about the instructor, Canvas, the course, and initial activities. It's not meant to serve the function of a syllabus, though. You want it to be welcoming, not overwhelming!

We recommend that the letter be archived in the course in an easy-to-locate spot (most likely your Orientation module). While the information will be redundant to most students, it may be critical to late adds and other students who, for whatever reason, didn't receive the pre-course email.

This criterion focuses on setting expectations for communication in the course, and on the instructor's "plans" for their own participation within the course, including participation in discussions and interactive projects or assignments. Aligned courses include time frames for responses to inquiries and feedback on assignments, while exemplary courses build on this by offering a range of communication tools, such as the Canvas Inbox, online office hours, announcements, a Q&A discussion, and others.

There are a number of ways for instructors to stay in communication with students. An important aspect of this rubric element is to make sure you've let students know how and when they can expect to hear from you.

For example:

What communications methods will you be using? (In box, email, announcements, Speedgrader. . .)
How often will you be interacting in the discussions?
Do you offer office hours? How and when?

When you're looking for evidence of this in the course, your first strategy should be looking for low hanging fruit--the obvious places you would expect to find communication policies, such as the syllabus, the instructor's profile or bio page, or on a page in the orientation unit, such as "contact" or "communication" (you can brainstorm more of these in this module's discussion). That said, you don't want to overlook other areas that might not be as obvious, but maybe just as effective. This information might also be in announcements or on the homepage, for instance.

Be sure to review the relevant tabs before you leave this page.

The CVC-OEI Course Design Resources by CVC-OEI is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Development of this course was funded by a grant from the California Community Colleges' Chancellor's Office.