Regular and substantive interaction (RSI) is a set of practices that aims to create
active learning communities in online courses, and is essential for keeping students
engaged, promoting learning, and ensuring they stay motivated. It intends to create
meaningful and consistent engagement between students and their instructors.
Institutions that offer distance learning courses are held to a standard defined at
the federal level through the Higher Education Act (HEA) (CFR 600.2), in which the definitions of distance education state that it must “support regular
and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor, synchronously
or asynchronously."
The definition of Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) is left flexible such
that individual institutions interpret its meaning. At Mt. SAC, RSI is defined in
the Administrative Procedure on Distance Learning (AP 4105), which interprets Regular
and Substantive Interaction in Distance Learning Courses at Mt. SAC. The full text of AP 4105 is available on the Mt. SAC website, which was last revised in January 2023.
This opening paragraph of AP 4105 (immediately below) describes which courses must
use Regular and Substantive interaction (RSI).
Any portion of a course conducted through distance education must include regular
and substantive interaction between the instructor(s) and students (and among students
if described in the distance education addendum), either synchronously or asynchronously,
through group or individual meetings, orientation, and review sessions, supplemental
seminar or study sessions, field trips, library workshops, telephone contact, voice
mail, e-mail, or other activities. An instructor is an individual responsible for
delivering course content and who meets the qualifications for instruction established
by an institution's accrediting agency.
