Every course reflects the idea of "contact hours," the sum of time spent in class and out of class. For graduate study, for every hour of in class time, a student should be spending three hours studying and working on assignments outside of class.  It is one indication of appropriate academic rigor, and we are all familiar with it in face-to-face instruction.

But how does this equate to online learning? The "in class" and "out of class" distinction does not hold here, although the same rigor is required. In this course, you can expect about 10 contact hours per lesson, on average. This number represents a sum of all activity in a typical week in the course. This would include: