Time on Task

For many years, institutions of higher education have been using the Carnegie unit to measure academic attainment. For credit-based courses, a “semester credit hour” is typically designated as at least fifteen 50-minute sessions of face-to-face classroom meetings, plus about 30 additional hours of outside work, such as reading or research (SUNY).

For online classes, the credit-earning process for online courses should be based on the time it takes to complete each task, instead of just the amount of time spent in direct contact with a professor.  

Please refer to the table below to estimate time-on-task for online classes.

Time on Task Calculator

Credits	15 weeks	8 weeks	3 weeks
3 credits	9 hours per week	17 hours per week	45 hours per week
2 credits	6 hours per week	12 hours per week	30 hours per week
1 credit	3 hours per week	6 hours per week	15 hours per week

 

References:

SUNY (2026).Teach Online:Calculating Time on Task. Retrieved from https://online.suny.edu/onlineteaching/page/timeontask/