Distance Learning Compliance

According to the United States Department of Education, regular and substantive interaction (RSI) is the distinguishing feature of distance education versus correspondence education. Distance education courses must meet the RSI requirement in order for students to be eligible for Title IV federal financial aid.

UH West Oʻahu online or hybrid courses, interaction meets RSI through the following criteria:

• be with an instructor;

• be initiated by the instructor;

• be scheduled and predictable;

• Include the following:

  • direct instruction,

  • coursework assessment and feedback,

  • information about the course content,

  • group discussions of the course content, or

  • other instructional methods approved by the institution's accreditor.

Learn more about from the WCET article "Interpreting What is Required for Regular and Substantive Interactions" by Russ Poulin

Credit Hour Executive Policy 5.228

The purpose of the Credit Hour policy is to define credit hour and direct units to develop a process to assure reliability and accuracy of assignment of credit hours across activities earning academic credit.

A credit hour is associated with an amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement.

Reasonably approximates but is not less than;

1. One hour of class or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours of out of class student work each week for approximately 15 weeks for one semester or the equivalent amount of work over a different period of time.

OR

2. At least an equivalent amount of work for other academic activities such as online instruction, laboratory work, internships, practica, studio work and other work that earns academic credit.

The course syllabus for an online or hybrid course must document the academic activities associated with student work that satisfies the credit hour requirement.

Examples of academic activities in an online course include:

• Accessing course content such as instructional audio or videos, slide presentations, lesson modules.

• Posting, reviewing, and replying to discussion posts in a discussion forum.

• Attending synchronous online course sessions.

• Taking quizzes or exams.

• Interacting with classmates to complete course activities in pairs or small groups.

• Peer reviewing and providing feedback to classmates.

Activities that would typically be completed outside of class in a face-to-face delivery mode such as reading assignments, conducting research, writing essays or papers, studying for exams, etc. would be considered preparation for engaging in the academic activity of the course.

NOTE: When faculty are proposing a course for a new or renewal of a distance education designation, the proposer will need to identify the academic activities will meet the credit hour policy. Academic activities must range from 12.5 to 15 hours per credit hour. A 3-credit course must have between 37.5 to 45 hours accounted for through academic activities, excluding academic preparation. An example can be found in this guide in DE Courses or on the OPDAS - UHWO Laulima site in the Kuali Tutorials.

Student Identity Verification, also referred to as Student Authentication, means that institutions are required to have processes in place through which the institution establishes that a student who registers in any course offered via distance education is the same student who academically engages in the course or program, and document processes that protect student privacy and notify students of any projected additional student charges associated with the verification of student identity at the time of registration or enrollment. 34 CFR 6.2.17 (g) and (h)

The following practices help to ensure student privacy and verify student identity:

• Conducting distance education courses through the Laulima LMS is highly encouraged because the log-in is secure, is initiated by verification of enrollment in the course, and protects the privacy of student information and educational records.

• When using 3rd party educational technology tools for course activities, it's important to verify that the tool has been approved through the UH Data Governance Office. This list of Commonly Used Third Party Online Tools has been approved by UH Data Governance. Use your UH Google account to access the link.

• If exam proctoring services are either required or provided as an option to students in your course, and the fee for proctoring is passed on to the student, this proctoring fee information must be made available to the student prior to enrollment in the course, and also included in the course syllabus.

• Should an instructor suspect that the course activities are being conducted by someone other than the student who is enrolled in the course, consult with the UH West O'ahu Office of Compliance, as an identified or potential academic integrity violation of the Student Code of Conduct.

Student Participation Verification in Coursework Executive Policy 7.209

Institutions disburse financial aid to students under the assumption that the student will participate and complete the academic term. Every term the Financial Aid Office conducts a Return to Title IV (R2T4) calculation to ascertain the balance between how much aid the student earned for the term and how much was disbursed. For students who fail to initiate academic engagement or those who withdraw before the end of the term for any reason will be asked to pay back the financial aid that was disbursed.

All instructors are responsible for reporting students who do not initiate academic engagement by the end of the late registration period (end of the first week of instruction) by documenting the students as a "no show" and then certifying student participation in the MyUH portal. For in-person courses, mere proof that a student attended a class is sufficient, while there is a higher bar for distance education courses. Students who are reported as "no show" will be notified by the registrar of their disenrollment in the course.

Students who have been notified of their "no show" status will have an opportunity to challenge the "no show" reporting prior to being disenrolled. Faculty approval is required to prevent disenrollment of any student in their course. A disenrolled student will also have an opportunity to appeal their disenrollment and be reinstated in the course immediately after disenrollment. Reinstatement of enrollment requires both faculty and administrative approval.

At the end of the term, any student who does not earn a passing grade in a course will need to be reported as well as the last date of academic engagement. The instructor will report both items when submitting a course grade for the student.

In a distance education context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. The instructor needs to determine that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity. (Please refer to Welcome Announcements & Check-In Activity)

Examples of acceptable evidence of academic attendance and attendance at an academically related activity in a distance education program include:

• student submission of an academic assignment,

• student submission of an exam,

• documented student participation in an interactive tutorial or computer-assisted instruction,

• a posting by the student in a discussion forum showing the student's participation in an online discussion about the academic matter,

• a posting by the student showing the student's participation in an online study group that is assigned for the course.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (also known as the Buckley Amendment) affords students four primary rights with respect to their education records.

UH Hilo Registrar's Office has a great tutorial regarding FERPA on their website, and we encourage you to participate in it. It should take about 10 minutes to read through and take a review quiz.

NOTE: Laulima requires students to log in using the Student Identity Verification (Student Authentication), using Laulima is an easy first step to protect student work and identity in a course.

Educational Record

Educational records are records directly related to a student and are maintained by the institution or by a party acting for the institution. In many cases, written consent from the student is required to disclose any of the contents of an education record from the institution.

A Student's Rights:

• Inspect and review their education records.

• Have some control over the disclosure of information from their education records.

• Seek to amend incorrect education records.

• File a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Family Policy Compliance Office.

Parents, spouses and other relations do not have a right to information contained in a student’s education record. These rights transfer to the student upon enrolling at a post-secondary institution (i.e., any of our UH campuses), regardless of the student’s age or student who are considered minors. Employers also do not have a right to educational information pertaining to a student.

Directory Information

Although most student data are subject to privacy considerations, directory information is considered public and is subject to open records requests.

UH has designated the following information from a student’s education record as “directory information”:

• Name of student;

• Major field of study;

• Class (i.e., freshman, sophomore, etc.);

• Past and present participation in officially recognized activities (including positions held and official statistics related to such participation and performance);

• Past and present participation in officially recognized sports (including positions held and official statistics related to such participation and performance);

• Weight and height of members of athletic teams;

• Dates of attendance;

• Previous institution(s) attended;

• Full or part-time status;

• Degree(s) conferred (including dates);

• Honors and awards (including dean’s list).

Students do have the right to opt out of having their directory information being shared openly. A form will be needed to be filled out and submitted for the opt-out option. The Registrar Office keeps a record of students who have opted out of directory information sharing.

Course Work, Grades & Email

Educational records such as a student's coursework and/or grades are considered part of their educational record. Email's as well can be compromised, and therefore should not be used to communicate with a student about matters of educational record such as grades. If a student inquires about their grade in a course or a grade on an assignment, it is safest to direct the student to access their grade and feedback on their assignment in the gradebook on the course LMS (Laulima).

Do not forward an email message from a student to another colleague, unless the colleague has a specific need to know. If you need input from a colleague, it is best practice to paraphrase the information from the student in a separate email message to seek input from a colleague.

Online Technology Tools

Even if Data Governance has reviewed and approved the privacy policy of a 3rd party provider of an educational technology tool, be aware of how student data is collected and used by the provider. Also, encourage students to read privacy policies, including publisher content used in the iDAP program.

If alternatives such as Google Classroom or free versions of other learning management platforms are used instead of Laulima, it is best practice to have students submit assignments and to keep grade records in Laulima which is protected by the student's UH credentials.

Zoom Cloud Recording

If you are recording an online class session, and students image, voice and/or name can be identified in the recording, the recording is considered an educational record. If access to the recording will extend beyond the class, written consent is required, unless the video is edited to remove or de-identify students.

Guidance on Zoom recordings and written student consent as required by FERPA are available at on the ITS website FERPA and Guidance on Online Lectures and Recordings.

Fair Use

In a traditional face-to-face course, faculty are accustomed to using many kinds of copyrighted materials. Obtaining the rights for faculty and students to use such materials in a course may happen in several ways. Traditionally, students purchase a required textbook and/or licensed software. Alternatively, faculty may rely on the concept of fair use, which is a legal doctrine that permits the use of copyrighted works, but only under certain circumstances.

When a course is offered through a distance mode of delivery, either online or hybrid, the calculus may change for whether the work is still covered by fair use or not. While the factors for determining fair use remain the same, the act of digitizing materials and the opportunity for increased access and distribution of the work change the calculation. Unfortunately, there is no clear boundary that delineates which activities are considered fair use and which are not.

TEACH Act

The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act went into effect in 2002. The Act clarifies and expands the ways in which copyrighted material can be used for distance education.

Permissions under the TEACH Act

• Allows for the display or performance of most mediums of copyrighted materials.

• Permits the digitization of analog materials for a limited period of time.

• Loosens copyright restrictions related to the storage, copying, and digitization of protected materials.

• Expands the guidelines regarding the transmission of materials (which were previously limited to face-to-face instruction), essentially allowing for distance education students from any location to use the material.

The Instructor Must:

1. Use material that is directly related to the course content and that is part of mediated instructional activities.

2. Legally obtain the materials, which cannot include textbooks or other materials traditionally purchased by the student.

If you wish to share a film with your distance education class, visit the UHWO IT Policies page and submit a TEACH Act request to the IT service desk. If approved, the film will be made available to you during the time you specified on the checklist.

To learn more about copyright, fair use, and the TEACH Act, visit the Scholarly Communication page on the UH West O'ahu library website.

Digital Images

Copyright applies to any thought or idea that is fixed in a tangible form, and provides the creator with certain legal rights to the work. Therefore, copyright applies to digital images on the internet. Copyright is granted as soon as the work is fixed in a tangible form, and applies regardless of the copyright symbol being attached to the work.

Digital images can easily be copied for reuse in a different digital location. Instructors must be aware that images may be protected under copyright. It is important to attribute images appropriately. Faculty should also learn how to identity images that are either in the public domain, or where the creator has released certain rights by open licensing of the image, usually through a Creative Commons license. The OER Committee at UH West Oahu provides professional development for faculty to learn how to identity images that are openly licensed and/or located in the public domain.

Visit the Educational Technology section on the Office of Distance Learning website for resources for photo editing and websites where access to free images can be accessed.

Helpful Tip: Use the acronym TASL to remember the elements of appropriate attribution of digital images:

T - Title (if applicable) A - Author (or creator) S - Source (or website where the image was originally accessed) L - Link to the site

Accessibility Overview

A person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use. The person with a disability must be able to obtain the information as fully, equally and independently as a person without a disability. Although this might not result in identical ease of use compared to that of persons without disabilities, it still must ensure equal treatment in the use of such technology (Office of Civil Rights (OCR), 2013).

Higher education accessibility regulations stem from the following guidelines and pieces of legislation including:

• Section 504 of the 1973 Federal Rehabilitation Act and subsequent amendments; - requires higher education institutions provide appropriate academic adjustments in a way that is not discriminatory against students with disabilities.

• Titles I and II of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - ensures physical and academic accessibility at public and private institutions receiving federal funds.

• 1998 amendment to Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act, - ensuring that all electronic and information technology of all federal agencies, including public, private and for-profit higher educational institutions, is accessible for all Americans.

• 2016 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) - requires that web content be accessible to people with disabilities. Accessibility to web content including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.

• 2010 21st Century Communications and Accessibility Act (CCAA) - requires all video and other communication technologies be made accessible to individuals with disabilities, including students.

Accessible Design Habits

Faculty should develop the following habits when creating accessible course content:

• When creating text-based content, use hierarchical heading styles in sequential order (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3). Do not use heading styles out of order, and do not adjust "normal text" with font size, bold, italics, etc. to format text in documents.

• Use tables only to display data, not for formatting of text content. Do not merge cells in tables. Use column and row headings. Avoid empty cells in tables.

• Provide alternative text for all images in documents, on websites or used in slide presentations. The alternative text should succinctly describe the image's intent in one or two brief sentences. Unlike captions, alt text is not visible on the screen, but will be accessed by a screen reading device. Alt text is available in the image properties when inserting an image into a digital document or when double-clicking on the image in Laulima.

• Use true lists when creating ordered or unordered lists. Use bullets for lists that do not have a particular order or sequence. Use numbered lists when the order of the listed information has significance.

• Include captions for all video content. Provide a transcript for all audio content. Transcripts are also helpful for video content as well.

• Use templates when creating slide presentations.

• Use unique titles (using the Title heading style) for each slide in a slide deck.

• Use the accessibility checker for the platform that you use such as Grackle for Google Apps, Microsoft Accessibility Checker for Word documents and PowerPoint slides, and Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker for PDF files.

Helpful Tip: You can find resources and information about creating accessible content on the Accessibility at UH website.

Digital Textbooks and Publisher Content

It is the instructor's responsibility to ensure that all instructional materials in the course are accessible to all learners. When adopting course materials from a publisher, the instructor should request access to accessible instructional content. If the publisher cannot provide accessible content, the instructor is responsible for finding or creating accessible alternatives, or switching to a publisher who can provide accessible content.

Accessibility Support

• UHWO Office of Distance Learning

• UHWO Information Technology Help Request Form

• UHWO Office of Disability Services