Interaction between instructors and students is a key factor in student success regardless of the mode of instruction. It's particularly important in a remote teaching environment, like the Covid pandemic classes and online courses. Instructor-initiated regular and substantive interaction (RSI) is the term given to a federal Department of Education financial aid regulation that is applied to online courses.

Highline's definition of instructor-initiated regular-and-substantive interaction is as follows:

To meet federal regulations (34 CFR 600.2), all online courses must feature regular and substantive interaction between students and instructors.

Regular: at least once a week
Substantive: regarding or focused on course content

Each weekly interaction with students must include at least two of the following:

Direct instruction, e.g., meeting with students one-on-one,
Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework within a reasonable amount of time (as defined in the syllabus),
Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course, or
Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course.

Instructors must monitor student progress in the course and communicate with students as needed regarding their progress.

The next few pages go into detail about the definition and some suggestions for implementing regular and substantive interaction in your classes.