Be “present” in your online classroom. To meet the U.S. Department of Education's Regular and Substantive Interaction regulations a course must have at least 2 of the following

- Post weekly announcements explaining the module content for the week. Providing the opportunity for substantive interactions with the student on a predictable and scheduled basis commensurate with the length of time and the amount of content in the course or competency.
- Respond to student messages by the next business day. If you cannot provide a detailed response, we still ask that you respond to the message letting the student know that they will receive a complete response soon.
- Facilitate by engaging with students in discussion boards. Monitoring the student’s academic engagement and success and ensuring that an instructor is responsible for promptly and proactively engaging in substantive interaction.
- Provide meaningful feedback on student assignments. Please treat the grading of assignments as a teaching moment in which the student can be instructed on how to improve the quality of their work. Let students know beforehand when they can expect to receive their grade updates.

- Set up your courses early so students are not trying to access an unpublished class on the first day of the class.
- Complete the "Instructor Information" page before the first day of class. Include your online office hours and preferred method of contact; scheduled “office hours” can fulfill part of the requirement for regular interaction between instructors and students.
- Notify us immediately if there are corrections that need to be made within the class. Please provide recommended updates. Please notify us if you plan on making any changes within the course on your own.
- Be familiar with the assessments and activities within the course. We encourage you to recommend improvements to quiz questions and course activities.
- Occasionally, the courses are refreshed with new layouts, assessments, and activities. Please work with us on these revision projects. While course updates should happen each semester, full refresh projects should only happen every 2-3 years.

- Remind students of upcoming deadlines. Please post weekly reminders of upcoming assignments and due dates.
- Early Alert is a program that allows instructors to identify students who are struggling academically or not attending class regularly. More information is available at UVU Early Alert.
- UVU administration strongly encourages faculty who teach freshman courses (and courses that have a high failure rate) to provide and post a mid-term grade. More information is available at Midterm Grades.

Professional Expectations
1. As an employee of UVU, you are expected to check and regularly monitor your UVU email account. This is how the school will contact you and provide important information. It is also how students will reach you after the semester ends, should the need arise.
2. Maintain professionalism – in all interactions with students, both written and verbal, maintain a professional and respectful tone, even if a student is not offering the same courtesy to you. In most cases in an online course, student/instructor interactions consist of written communication, thus proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling should be given appropriate attention.
3. Understand the scope and limits of your authority – As the instructor of the course, you have the authority manage the course, including accepting or not accepting late work, allowing resubmission of an assignment, issuing Incomplete Grades, etc. All these should be kept within the guidelines of UVU academic policies, understanding that instructor discretion applies in several areas. Familiarize yourself with UVU academic policies at Academic Policies & Standards .