Whenever anything in an online class goes wrong, nine times out of ten it can be solved by contacting your instructor. For example:

• Say you’ve spent all day searching for a reading but you absolutely cannot find it, contact your instructor.
• You don’t understand the instructions to an assignment, contact your instructor.
• There’s something wrong with a file you’re supposed to download and Google doesn’t have the answer, contact your instructor.
• Maybe you’re moving and going to have trouble keeping up in class for a few weeks– you guessed it, contact your instructor.

But, when and how do you contact your instructor?

In a face-to-face class you might wait to speak with them after lecture or you might visit during their office hours. While you can’t do the first in an online class, most colleges still require online instructors to also host office hours and provide a method by which to be contacted.

In a good online course, an instructor’s accessibility will not only be clear and consistent, but it should also be varied. Aside from specific times that they’re available (the actual office hours) a good class will also offer:

• the ability to schedule time outside of office hours
• allow for different means of contact (video call, phone, email)
• promise a decent turnaround time for email communication, which is the primary communication method between an online instructor and their students

Not only will all, or at least some, of these be offered, the instructor will actually follow through. The university can require an instructor to be available but it is up to the instructor to actually do so. In my experience not only does an instructor’s accessibility heavily affect how I feel about them and their class, it also has a positive impact on my ability to be successful in that class.

Above is the instructor availability from one of my current classes. I can’t think of any other online class that I have ever taken where the instructor not only offers the level of accessibility shown here but also actually follows through on it. If ever there was an shining example of good communication in a good online class, this would be it!