Best Practice 3: Share a Set of Very Clear Expectations for Your Students and for Yourself as to (1) how you will communicate and (2) how much time students should be working on the course each week.

This best practice cannot be overemphasized. It can be helpful to include on the course site a set of expectations for how students communicate and dialogue online with the instructor, and with each other. For example, many faculty tell students that they can expect a response within 24 or 48 hours during the week. Often before a major test or assignment, faculty will agree to hold special office hours (using web conferencing tools or other methods), and/or being available either by chat/live classroom or email, or phone. In the interests of time and community, it is best to use a tool where responses and content can be shared with everyone and archived for flexibility in access and review.

This basic expectation of response time can easily be modified - so long as the change is communicated to the students. Students are very accepting of a faculty member's time and life requirements if they know what is going on. And students often step in and help each other even more when they know a faculty member is sick, traveling or otherwise not available.

Often students can agree to monitor course questions posted in the Open Forum or in the discussion boards for a week for example.

Online learning is just as intensive as learning face-to-face, and time to do the work needs to be scheduled and planned for, just as if one were attending face-to-face classes. Being clear as to how much effort and time will be required on a weekly basis keeps surprises to a minimum.