The instructor's personal presence is very important in an online course, and it can have a major impact on students' performance and learning satisfaction. One strategy to increase what the literature refers to as "immediacy" is by responding to students' questions and inquiries promptly.

I take pride in being accessible to students virtually 24/7. If a student emails me at 2:00am, chances are that he or she will receive an answer within minutes. My email client is always open on my computer, and I can hear a sound alert when I receive a new message. If I am away from my desk, I check my messages on my iPhone regularly. My response speed does not decrease with time. I am just as accessible at the end of the semester as I am at the beginning. For me, there are no weekends or holidays when I would not check or respond to students' questions.

Blackboard's Questions and Comments forum is most of our communication takes place. I prefer this virtual space to email communication because all students can have access to the questions and answers on Blackboard, whereas email is usually limited to information exchance between student and instructor. I check the Blackboard forum four or five times every day. When a student has a question which is relevant to the entire class, I respond to the student and also make an announcement to the entire class based on that information.

If I need time to check something before can I answer a student's questions, I always acknowledge receiving the email and give the student a time line when he or she can expect to receive the requested information.

When it comes to providing feedback on the three major paper assignments, it is usually the thoroughness of the feedback and the medium of delivery that impresses students rather than promptness. Based on their preferences, students can request feedback on their papers via text, audio or video files. Text feedback is provided by using MS Word's Track Changes function. I use my digital voice recorder to create an audio file and edit it in Adobe Audition before posting it on Blackboard. The most popular kind of feedback is a Tegrity video recording, which allows students to view their paper as I am making comments in the text using a digital pen. At the same time, they can see me talking to them. Feedback is followed by one-on-one teacher-student telephone conferences which can be scheduled until midnight on certain days and last between 15 minutes to an hour.

Feedback on Blackboard posts is provided a few times during the semester. I read and respond to student posts randomly and leave evaluative comments in their Personal Folder.