I find the course syllabus as the key to many of the discussions posted: late assignments turned in, student motivation, etc. I am a student and found one of the best syllabus seen allowed adult student choices in work with each one have a point value and out of all the choices you needed 40 points to complete the work. The student could choose to write papers, find 5 websites that supported the material discussed, post online discussion similar to what we are doing here. The key was the student had a choice and each choice empowered the adult learner by choosing his or her best way of learning. I have also had a syllabus that was 35 pages long and took me two days to determine the expectations and when and what was due to the Professor.