Title 5 Section 55204 of California Ed Code states that “any portion of a course conducted through distance education includes regular effective contact between instructor and students.”

In Spring 2019, Title 5 was amended to include the phrase “among students” to require student-student interaction in addition to instructor-student interaction.

Initiating regular effective contact with online students is not just required for Title 5 compliance – it is critical to student success.

As an online instructor, you have to do three things:

You have to make frequent contact with your students that is initiated by you,
Your students have to interact regularly with each other,
You have to make your policies for the interaction clear to students.

What does contact mean?

Instructors should use multiple forms of communication that address a variety of learning styles and modalities in order to ensure regular, effective contact and student success. These should include, at a minimum:

Discussions with regular instructor presence and interaction.
Contact with individuals, groups, and/or the whole class using the Canvas inbox or email.
Course announcements.
Timely feedback and comments on student work.

How do you make your policies clear to students?

Each instructor should include a communication “policy” in the course syllabus, letting students know the methods of contact that will be used and the timeframe in which students can expect responses to their emails or inquiries (e.g. “within 48 hours”).

How often do you have to make contact?

Distance Education courses are considered the “virtual equivalent” to face-to-face courses. The number of instructor contact hours per week that would be available for face-to-face students will also be available, in asynchronous and/or synchronous mode, with students in the DE format. Contact shall be distributed in a manner that will ensure that regular contact is maintained over the course of a week and should occur as often as is appropriate for the contact hours described in the course outline of record.

In other words, the amount of time you spend contacting your students should be about the same amount of time you would be in contact with them in your face-to-face class. Do you normally have class twice a week and give them feedback on their work about once a week? Then your goal should be to initiate contact with your students on average 2-3 times per week.