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=Course documentation provides an explicit process for negotiating variances to timetables and deadlines. =

Evidence
The flexibility of an e-learning environment requires that particular attention is paid to timeliness in the planning, performing and completion of students’ work, and teachers’ responses to it (Laurillard, 2002; Salmon, 2000). Flexibility of delivery should also be extended to negotiating agreements over the ordering and timing of course elements. Clearly communicated course timetables and assignment deadlines, with explicit expectations and guidelines, encourage and motivate learners to make the most effective use of time, and enable teachers to facilitate effective time management by learners (Clarke, 2004).

A review of online courses by Tallent-Runnels et al. (2006) found that ‘students preferred to move at their own pace even though this required a high degree of self management. They did not want to be locked into completing assignments at the same time as others and wanted to be able to move ahead at their own pace.’ (p. 116) However, Wilson and Whitelock (1998) indicate that instruction needs some dramatic tension from week to week in order to sustain high levels of participation.

This tension between students’ desire for flexibility and the need to ensure that students actually do the work necessitates that there be processes for negotiating timetables and deadlines with students. This is particularly apparent when we realize that the main factor cited by students for workload being perceived as unmanageable was that the assessments were all due around the same time (Giles 2007).

Schrader & Davis (2008) found that the most frequently selected accommodation to be negotiated by adult students in a nursing course was assignment deadlines (46%), followed by attendance requirements (35%) and testing deadlines (28%). Personal or family issues were identified by more than 80% of students as the reason they would request a change.