Calculating contact hours in online and hybrid classes
USC adheres to the Carnegie Unit for determining required time for instruction in each course. Each course in the USC Catalogue has a number of units assigned (a few specific courses have variable units). These units translate to earned credit hours that a successful student will receive at the end of the semester. Contact hours quantify the amount of regular and substantive interaction between students and their instructor, and are most traditionally associated with the number of hours that a class meets on campus. In the online format, this can be interpreted as the number of hours of synchronous online instruction. However, best practice dictates that a combination of synchronous and asynchronous class activities is preferred for online and hybrid courses. The general guideline is that in order to count as a functional equivalent of contact time, an asynchronous online activity must a) be required for all students (not optional), and b) involve substantive interaction with the faculty. Below are examples of such combinations and how they meet contact hour requirements.
Online Live/Synchronous Activities
Contact hours may be met through live synchronous class meetings and office hours, as well as organized live discussion groups between students.
- Live class meetings: The most straightforward way to fulfill contact time is through live class meetings. For example, a 2-hour synchronous meeting might be useful during the initial class meeting to orient students to a course. Live sessions may also be useful during key points in the course, for example before exams or other major assignments such as student presentations.
- Live required office hours: Another way to plan contact time with students is to schedule required office hours during the term. These could be held individually with all students, or they could be broken into several times with smaller groups, such that all can participate during a given week. Note that office hours that are optional can’t be counted toward the required contact hours.
- Guided student groups: Another option is to require live group sessions between students. This could be considered contact time if treated much like a break-out discussion during a traditional in-person meeting. For example, the faculty provides a task and guidelines for the study group discussion (or this could be videotaped instructions which students then review at the top of their study session or individually in advance). Using Zoom or other tools, the students can also record their discussion and then submit the recording to the faculty for accountability or for review. Other ad-hoc or student-initiated study sessions would not count as required contact hours.
Online Asynchronous Activities
In addition to online activities involving live/synchronous contact or interaction, there are asynchronous activities that can be considered functionally equivalent to contact hours. The following is a non-exhaustive list to provide some examples.
- Video lecture of faculty or invited expert: Faculty or invited expert is recorded giving a mini-lecture which all students are required to view and then respond to in some way. Note that for an outside or invited expert or guest, this would need to be someone invited by the faculty and filmed for purposes of the course, as opposed to simply having students watch existing footage (e.g. watch a TED talk), which generally wouldn’t be deemed as equivalent to contact time with the faculty.
- Recorded interview with expert: Faculty may wish to interview someone and film the interview for students to view and respond to. This would be reminiscent of inviting an expert or guest to class and facilitating a discussion. This can be done in-person or remotely using Zoom or Skype for example. VoiceThread would be another suitable technology to use for this type of content. This could also be an audio-only capture and presented as a podcast.
- Faculty mediated online discussion forum: Students are asked to respond to prompts on a discussion forum, which faculty monitors and participates in at some level. Again, VoiceThread and other tools offer a video-based form of interactive discussion.
- Moderated video viewing/discussion: Faculty may wish to have students watch a video or other type of media content asynchronously and then facilitate dialogue via a discussion forum. This would go beyond simply having students watch a film and instead involve faculty directly in the subsequent discussion in some way.
- Required or scheduled communication with faculty: In some rare instances, a required communication between students and faculty as part of a course could feasibly be counted as part of contact time. This would not include normal exchanges that typically occur as part of a course, but rather a specific required part of an assignment, for example, exchanging a product with the instructor and receiving feedback, whether through email, a discussion forum, the course wall, VoiceThread or a video file.
The two-by-two table below delineates how contact hours and non-contact hours are related to synchronous and asynchronous activities. For example, in the top left box, Live class meetings via Zoom are classified as synchronous contact hours. In the box below that, Recorded video lectures by the instructor have been marked as asynchronous contact hours. As you examine this table, you may notice that the unifying theme for contact hours is that there is a substantial amount of interaction or oversight that an instructor has with students or student groups.
| Contact Hours | Non-Contact Hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Synchronous |
|
|
| Asynchronous |
|
|
Hours per Week
The way that contact hours are accounted for will vary by the nature of the course and the activities that match the instructional goals set by the program and the instructor. Below are some examples of how contact hours are realized for courses of different modalities.
4-Unit Course: Traditional In-Person
Examples of the weekly instructional hours for traditional, in-person 4-unit course.
| Course Type | Contact Hours | Non-Contact Hours | Total Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-Person Example 1 | Lecture: MWF – 50 minutes per lecture | 7.5 hours of reading and homework | 10 hours per week |
| In-Person Example 2 | Lecture: Tu, Th – 80 minutes per lecture | 7.5 hours of reading and homework | ~10 hours per week |
4-Unit Course: Online, Synchronous
Examples of the weekly instructional hours for online, fully synchronous, 4-unit course.
| Course Type | Contact Hours | Non-Contact Hours | Total Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Example 1 | Zoom Lecture: MWF – 50 minutes per lecture | 7.5 hours of reading and homework | 10 hours per week |
| Online Example 2 | Zoom Lecture: Tu, Th – 50 minutes per lecture | 7.5 hours of reading and homework | ~10 hours per week |
4-Unit Course: Online, Synchronous and Asynchronous
Examples of the weekly instructional hours for online 4-unit, course with synchronous and asynchronous contact hours.
| Course Type | Contact Hours | Non-Contact Hours | Total Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sync/Async Combo Example 1 |
Recorded Worked-Out Examples: Instructor-created videos, 6 recordings per week, ~10 minutes each) Zoom Meetings: Discussions about problems that students encountered and application to real world: MWF, 30 minutes per meeting |
|
10 hours per week |
| Sync/Async Combo Example 2 |
Recorded Lecture: Instructor-created videos that discuss media artifacts, 6 recordings per week, ~10 minutes each Zoom Meetings: Discussions around areas of uncertainty and implications from the recorded lectures, MWF, 30 minutes per meeting |
|
10 hours per week |
| Sync/Async Combo Example 3 |
Virtual Tours: Instructor-created videos that narrate visits to museums, 6 recordings per week, ~10 minutes each Zoom Meetings: Discussions around areas of uncertainty and the implications of museum artifacts from the virtual tours, MWF, 30 minutes per meeting |
|
10 hours per week |
| Sync/Async Combo Example 4 |
Recorded Expert Interviews: Instructor-led interviews of media experts, 1-hour interview each week Zoom Discussion and Lecture: The first part of the Wednesday meeting is a discussion of the recorded interview. The last part of Wednesday and all of Friday is lecture and discussion of other course material, WF, 50 minutes per meeting (the class would normally meet on Monday but that is replaced with the recorded interview) |
|
10 hours per week |
| Sync/Async Combo Example 5 |
Live Small Group Writing: Structured Student Peer Review: |
|
10 hours per week |