This is important enough to be a course standard for the clarity of direction. Without the classroom meeting to interact with questions, the expectations need to be quite clear.

Although important in all instruction, this is especially important in online courses as the teacher does not have the benefit of looking into the students' eyes for feedback on understanding to determine the need to switch directions so the variety needs to be their right from the beginning.

Online instruction gives rise to the challenge of knowing your students. Feedback is not immediate which creates confusion at time as a student may believe they interpreted directives correctly when in reality did not.