Joe, Your statements bear out the findings of the May 2009 published meta-analysis from the Department of Education indicating individualization of instructional components for each student in the online environment provided some of the most significant findings of positive effect over a ten-year period of research conducted to identify best practices in online instruction. I believe the policy for online course load is a wise endeavor and I expect the positive benefit is significant and measurable. Thank you for sharing these guidelines. I'm sure they will be helpful to many in this forum. Dr. S. David Vaillancourt