Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)

U.S. Department of Education regulations require that all online courses for which students may use federal financial aid “ensure that there is regular and substantive interaction between students and instructors.”  

RSI isn’t just about regulations, it’s also beneficial to your students. Providing predictable and robust interactions in online courses is fundamental to creating an environment of student success.

Graphic credit: RSI Dashboard graphic – SUNY 

Substantive interaction refers to the depth and degree of interaction you have with your students in teaching and assessment. It’s the difference between writing “great work” and providing detailed, critical feedback on an assignment that helps your students grow as learners. It must include at least two of five components: 

• Providing direct instruction 
• Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework 
• Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course or competency 
• Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course or competency 
• Other instructional activities as approved by the institution’s or program’s accrediting agency. 

Why Does RSI Matter? 

RSI matters for your students. The components and requirements of RSI create robust courses that provide meaningful opportunities for students to engage with the content and to benefit from your teaching. 

RSI is also a matter of compliance – it is a legal federal requirement that distinguishes the status of courses between distance education and correspondence courses. 

Correspondence courses are not eligible for financial aid. Institutions risk losing access to student financial aid if the institution is audited by the US Department of Education’s (DoE) Office of Inspector General, or as part of a periodic Departmental financial aid program review, and found to be out of compliance. Institutions may be required to repay financial aid associated with the correspondence courses and students. 

How to Include RSI in Your Online Courses 

There is no one way to do RSI. RSI isn’t about checking a box to meet a legal requirement, it’s about your teaching style and goals, and the educational goals and needs of your students. You still have as much freedom to run your course online as you do face-to-face. To help you out, here are some general ideas to think about as you plan how you’ll incorporate RSI into your online courses:  

Set clear expectations for interaction in the syllabus.

The syllabus is a good place to tell your students how you’ll communicate with them as well as how you expect them to communicate with you. Let students know how frequently they can expect to hear from you, when you will or will not be available to respond to messages, and how quickly they can expect a response to questions and to work they submit. If you have participation expectations for your students, be sure to include those as well—especially if they affect students’ grades. 

Provide timely, individualized, and in-depth feedback on student work.

Research shows faculty feedback is most beneficial when it comes soon after students submit work, so avoid lengthy delays in providing students with comments about their progress. Feedback can take many forms: written comments, audio or video notes, individual conferences conducted in person or via online meeting tools, and so on.

In all cases, though, feedback should go beyond simply assigning a grade or automatically displaying pre-written comments or general statements (‘good work’, ‘needs improvement’, etc.). Effective feedback communicates to students both what they have accomplished and areas where they may need to improve. It also often offers examples and concrete suggestions for actions students can take in the future to make further progress in their learning. 

Send course announcements or other messages at regular intervals.

Announcements can sometimes be housekeeping, like reminders of course deadlines, but they can also be used to support instruction. Your announcements can be used to highlight key concepts, provide additional context for the week’s material, or synthesize and respond to comments and questions from the previous week. 

Keep in mind the “regular” in RSI – establish consistency with your announcements. Consider sending a weekly announcement as the baseline. 

Conduct regularly scheduled online review sessions, tutorials, office hours, or individual appointments.

Holding regular office hours for online courses provides an opportunity for extra interaction with your students. They can use this time to ask questions, get more feedback, or receive supplemental instruction. 

You can also set up individual appointments with students to do regular check-ins throughout the semester. Make sure if you do this that you don’t end up limiting the flexibility of online courses – establish in the syllabus and early on if students will need to schedule times to meet with you. 

Collect regular feedback from students. 

RSI doesn’t have to be driven completely by you – gathering feedback from your students a couple times a semester can help you adjust or refine your approach. You can collect ongoing feedback through discussion boards, or you can send out surveys at set points during the term. 

Ask your students if they think they are hearing from you enough, what types of interactions they find valuable, and if they have ideas for other methods of interaction or changes they would make to the course. 

Doing this can promote engagement with the class, and possibly give you some new ideas for running your courses! 

Actively facilitate online discussions.

Discussion boards shouldn’t be one way communications from student to instructor. Spending time posting and responding can guide discussions and prompt further engagement. You can draw together ideas, highlight themes in the discussion, or propose alternative ideas and points of view. 

Choose online tools and learning environments that make interactions easy – and easy to document.

There are a lot of educational tools out there you might want to use in your courses, and it’s always good to be open to innovation. But make sure when you use an online tool that you know how it will affect interactions with you students. 

Before you decide to use a tool, ask yourself if you understand how it works from the student perspective, how will it impact communications with students, is it accessible, and is it duplicating a tool you already have access to in Blackboard? 

You also want to make sure any tool you use allows you to keep records of your interactions with students. You don’t want all their work, and all your feedback, to disappear or become inaccessible at the end of the semester. This will help ensure you’re prepared in case you are asked to provide evidence of regular and substantive interaction in the future. 

Ask for feedback from Learning Technologies or your peers.

An extra set of eyes is a great way to help figure out if you’re meeting RSI standards. The Instructional Design team in Learning Technologies is here to help – contact us if you’d like us to look at your courses and provide you with feedback on ways to implement RSI. 

It can also be helpful to work with your peers. Ask another instructor to look over your course, or ask if they’d be willing to share their methods for implementing RSI in their own courses. 

Want to Learn More? 

Below are some helpful resources that go into more detail about RSI: 

• • • Regular and Substantive Interaction: Background, Concerns, and Guiding Principles |U.S. Department of Education
    • Faculty Worksheet for RSI and Instructions | College of Central Florida
    • Additional RSI Examples | Blue Mountain Community College
    • RSI Guidance and Resources | SUNY Online