Credit Hour Compliance

In an effort to more clearly communicate the time students are expected to spend for a particular course and to ensure our courses meet federal credit hour guidelines,¹ UM-Dearborn is launching a new process to ensure our University remains in compliance with federal regulations and expectations around the awarding of academic credit. In particular, as an accredited institution, UM-Dearborn must maintain a credit hour definition for all courses, regardless of modality, and ensure that we are adhering to our policies. The first two sections below detail how our institution has traditionally monitored and ensured that our courses do comply with federal and institutional definitions of a credit hour. The third section provides information for the new compliance process.

Credit Hour Compliance at the Curriculum Development Stage

Compliance with the approved definition of a credit hour begins at the curriculum development stage where all faculty and disciplines are encouraged to consult UM-Dearborn’s Definition of the Credit Hour to ensure all courses contain sufficient minimum contact hours. For courses with a distance education component, faculty are guided by the federal definition of “substantive interaction”. Faculty are asked to follow the Digital Education Subcommittee’s approved Rubric for Online Instruction which was developed by the Hub for Teaching and Learning Resources and integrated separate college-level standards. This rubric was constructed to guide course design using learner-centered instructional design principles; as well as to recognize instructors who have developed expertise in online/hybrid instruction as part of our commitment to high quality learning environments.

Credit Hour Compliance at the Course Scheduling and Course Delivery Stage

Faculty and the department schedulers are responsible for ensuring the credit hour standards are met at course scheduling for each course, based on the modality being offered and the credit hour that is listed. The dean’s office is responsible for the review of their college’s schedule and signing off that not only the proper courses are being offered but that the credit hours, modalities, and days/times are accurate.

The Registrar’s Office ensures that in-person courses are scheduled in approved time blocks where the instructional mode matches the scheduling information. For example, a course scheduled as CLASS (i.e., in person) has the necessary meeting days and times as stipulated by the campus’s approved time blocks.

New Process – For course modalities that include some online components replacing in-person class time (i.e., “HYB,” “ONMST,” “ONREG,” or “ONLN”), UM-Dearborn has developed a worksheet and process to verify that the course’s stated credit hours are aligned with the expected student time, as defined by our credit hour definition. For further information, please see the Credit Hour Work Check Process document.

¹  Per question 1 of the Federal Compliance Report, UM-Dearborn must: “Describe the process the institution utilizes to verify length of academic period and compliance with credit hour requirements through course scheduling”. According to the Federal Compliance Overview (pg. 5), “HLC’s intent is (i) to review an institution’s policies regarding the award of credit in relation to the types of courses, disciplines, programs, credential levels and formats offered, regardless of modality; (ii) to determine how the institution ensures it is adhering to those policies; and (iii) to review the institution’s process for verifying length of academic period and compliance with credit hour requirements through course scheduling.”