Definition of Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)

Interaction between instructors and students is a key factor in student success, regardless of the mode of instruction. It's particularly important in online courses. 

Instructor-initiated Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) is part of the federal Education Department regulations for institutions that disburse federal financial aid to students. RSI outlines requirements for interaction in asynchronous online courses. At Highline, this means courses that occur entirely online, and do not meet in real-time (aka asynchronous online courses, or just online courses). It also applies to the online asynchronous portion of hyflex courses, if the "clustered sections" approach to hyflex is used. Zoom courses and hybrid courses are not impacted by this regulation.

The college has adopted the following definition of Instructor-initiated Regular and Substantive Interaction:

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 week's interactions with students must include at least two of the following:

  • Proactively inviting students to connect outside of class;
  • 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; and/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 course must include a substantive (related to academic content of the course) assignment due by the third day of the class, with substantive feedback from the instructor. 

Assessing RSI

To help the college ensure that we meet these regulations, we have developed a checklist that you can use to self-assess whether your online section meets the standard. In addition, each instructor will be required to submit an RSI self-assessment at some point in the year. 

The next few pages go into detail about how to implement RSI, and also how to complete the self-assessment process.