Faculty Role in Ensuring Student Participation

It is the Faculty members' job to ensure students are actively participating in online courses, and that the person participating is an actual human being.

Important Canvas log-ins, or other analytic type of data, is not enough to determine participation in a distance education course.

It is important that students do something education-related prior to census to determine meaningful participation in the course.

Importance of the Census Roster

Faculty are required to certify their census roster.

The censure roster is completed at the 20% mark in the course.

The census roster indicates all students who are actively participating in the course; Faculty must drop students who are not actively participating in the course.

Why do we have to certify a census roster? Two important reasons are to reduce Financial Aid Fraud and ensure your students are real students and not bots.

Faculty Role in Reducing Financial Aid Fraud

Per Federal Financial Aid 2024-2025 Student Aid Handbook (chapter 2),

"For distance education, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. A school must demonstrate that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity. Examples of acceptable evidence of academic attendance and attendance at an academically related activity in a distance education course/program include, but are not limited to:

student submission of an academic assignment,

student submission of an exam,

documented student participation in an interactive tutorial, webinar or other interactive or computer-assisted instruction,

a posting by the student showing the student’s participation in an online study group that is assigned by the institution,

a posting by the student in a discussion forum showing the student’s participation in an online discussion about academic matters, and

an email from the student or other documentation showing that the student-initiated contact with a faculty member to ask a question about the academic subject studied in the course.

Please note that only active participation by a student in an instructional activity related to the student's course of study that meets the definition of “academic engagement” in 34 CFR 600.2 and takes place during a payment period or period of enrollment qualifies as attendance in an academically related activity. If a period of orientation takes place prior to the start of a course, it would not qualify as attendance in an academically related activity."

Mitigate Enrollment Fraud and Increase Engagement

Unfortunately, the CCC's have seen an increase in enrollment fraud across the system. The CCCCO attempts to identify bots within the CCCApply application process and the colleges try to catch them within the colleges application. However, they can still get in to your course. From the first day of class onward, our faculty are the ones who are best at detecting fraudulent students.

Here are some tips:

Start your course with several varied assignments intended for students to initially engage in the course within the first day or two. For example:
- An introduction discussion where they post a picture of their favorite hobby,
- an assignment that requires them to upload their profile picture,
- a syllabus quiz,
- a discussion about what they are most excited to learn about,
- or an assignment to input their name in NameCoach.
By adding several of these low stakes assignments, you are engaging students and reducing the chance that a bot will complete the assignments.
For additional tips, review: ASCCC How Student Engagement Can Mitigate Enrollment Fraud