The Importance of the Quality and Quantity of Content

Student working on laptop — The rigor of a course should not change because of format

Online courses should be equivalent to face-to-face courses in every way except how the materials are delivered. Instructors should be actively involved in the course by interacting with students and teaching course content.

Students, in turn, can expect to learn the same material, complete similar assignments, and experience the same workload that they would in an on-campus course.

Clock and Credit Hour Requirements

In designing online courses, it is important to remember that it must have enough content to meet OU's clock hour requirements. Intersession and summer courses are not excluded. They also must adhere to clock hour requirements in spite of their condensed format.

Federal Regulations Regarding Clock and Credit Hours

Read through the definitions of Clock Hour and Credit Hour as defined by the US government below (codified as 34 C.F.R. § 600).

Clock and Credit Hour Definitions
CLOCK HOUR	A period of time consisting of a 50- to 60-minute class, lecture, or recitation in a 60-minute period.
CREDIT HOUR	A credit hour is an amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement that is an institutionally established equivalency that reasonably approximates not less than one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction, and a minimum of two hours of out of class student work each week for approximately fifteen weeks for one semester.

As can be seen above, students in a regular length semester can expect to work on their course at least 9 hours each week for a 3 credit hour class (3 hours for in class lecture/work and 6 hours of out of class work). The same holds true for online.

The following chart illustrates the minimum amount of time students can expect to work each week for a 3 credit online course in varying length semesters:

Online Course Student Time Allotment
Semester	Student Time Allotment
16 Week Semester	9+ hours/week
8 Week Semester	18+ hours/week
4 Week Semester	36+ hours/week

It is helpful to keep this in mind when designing an online course. It can be tempting to cut back on the content, teaching, and requirements simply because it is in an online environment or because it is a condensed semester. Do not short change your students because of format or semester length.

➜ Are you adding too much? Not enough? Try this Workload Calculator.

>> The next section will discuss additional university requirements to consider.

Image by khamkhor from Pixabay