While good design in the course content is crucial, even the best designed course will fall flat if the instructor is "absent". We monitor weekly engagement activity and provide a scorecard of all majors so that instructors know that being engaged in the class is vital and is being monitored.
I am always surprised that even though this is a standard at our school, there are still some faculty that might only post once or twice in a week with 14 students in the course!
