It is important to impress upon students the time and dedication required to become a successful student at the University of Iowa.

New students are often unaware of University traditions and expectations, and it can be helpful to inform them of the credit hour to workload ratio and to remind them of faculty expectations. Clear definitions of expectations as well as rubrics and models of excellence for the course's assignments can also be illuminating for students and is considered a best practice.

In planning assignments for a course, an instructor should be aware of the guideline that for each semester hour of class time around two hours per week of outside homework and class preparation should be completed by the average student.

For example, in a 3 semester hour course, students should expect (on average) 6 additional hours of outside work per week or a total of around 9 hours per course per week if classroom time is included. A student taking 5 courses (3 semester hours each) should expect to spend around 45 hours a week on academic work.

Many students need to be taught the importance of this figure and that faculty consider 45 hours of academic work a week the norm. Many students, especially first-year students, believe that studying "a lot" can be defined as around 12 hours a week.

The Registrar uses time within the classroom to assign credit hours to a course, with 750 minutes of instructional time per semester equal to 1 semester hour of credit. (Courses worth 3 semester hours thus meet for 2250 minutes per semester.)

When planning outside workload for students, instructors should take into consideration both the credit hours of the course and the ratio of the classroom time to preparatory work performed by students.