Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Providing timely feedback to students

Posted by Andy Freed

This week¡¯s topic may come across as a ¡°well duh¡± concept, but timely feedback from an instructor is identified over (sc.edu) and over (facultyfocus.com) as an important way to keep students engaged in your online course. It¡¯s critical that students know how long it takes to get a response on homework, but timeliness is a somewhat subjective term. For email, the expectation is much for a much shorter turn around. For assignments, which often take much more time to respond to, there¡¯s a different expectation. For context, let¡¯s look at what your students expect in terms of response times based on our Spring 2013 Distance Learning Student Survey.

For emails

Emails are typically much quicker to respond to and are used when students need clarification on assignments or other class details. A majority of PCC students (Spring 2013) indicated that when they ¡°email my online instructor, I think it is fair and reasonable for my instructor to respond¡± within 24 hours. Here are the details:

When I email my online instructor, I think it is fair and reasonable for my instructor to respond:

Response	Percent
Within a week	1.4%
Within 48 hours	42%
Within 24 hours	56.6%

For assignments

Assignments typically take a lot of work on the part of the student. A thoughtful and constructive response likewise takes time. Especially when you have a full class submitting their work at the same time. When asked, a majority of PCC students indicated that they thought it was fair and reasonable to have an assignment graded and returned within a week. Again, the details:

When I turn in an assignment in my online classes, I think it is fair and reasonable to have it graded and returned:

Response	Percent
Within 24 hours	5.2%
Within 48 hours	19.2%
Within a week	50.6%
Before the next assignment is due	24.0%
By the end of the term	1.1%

There you have the student perspective. But most critical of all is communicating your expectations and estimated response time to students in the syllabus. Setting the expectation early will help with student anxiety and floods of emails.