Faculty Resources

Regular and Substantive Interaction

Distance Education courses must meet specific college, state, and federal requirements that apply specifically to the online environment. The most important DE regulation is "regular substantive interaction," which indicates that the instructor initiates communication with students on a regular basis and that this communication contains instructional content. Contact also includes responsiveness to student-initiated contact, providing direct instruction, assessing or providing feedback to a student's coursework, and facilitating a group discussion. This instructive communication is a large component that differentiates distance education from correspondence courses, and it is critically important because it helps to determine eligibility for students to receive financial aid to take the course!