Newlane Clock/Credit Hour Policy

Updated February 2026

Newlane University espouses a Clock Time/credit hour competency-based education approach. 

Clock Time

At Newlane University, clock time refers to conventional elapsed time as measured by a clock (i.e., minutes and hours). Newlane uses clock time as an estimating and planning tool to determine how much time is reasonably required for students to engage in learning and assessment activities in order to complete a course. Newlane assumes that a student in a course has met any prerequisites for the course, but is otherwise a novice with regard to the course materials.

Newlane’s clock/credit hour policy specifies how much clock time is allotted for different categories of academic work (e.g., reading, writing, research, assessment activities). These time estimates are aggregated to arrive at a total number of hours for a course. 

Newlane aligns course design with clock time standards for semester credit hours, and may adjust the number of objectives, the selection of instructional resources, the project description or goals, or exercises during course development or review, as needed, to ensure clock hours align with the allotted credit hours.

Newlane uses the “semester credit hour” unit of academic measurement, defined as follows: “Academic degree or academic credit-bearing distance education courses are measured by the learning outcomes normally achieved through 45 hours of student work for one semester credit.” as the reference for our credit hour equivalencies. While Newlane works with this definition in developing courses, and in documenting the semester credit hours for Newlane courses, the University’s philosophical approach to college credit is that credit should denote mastery over a set of learning objectives suitable for a college-level course, independent of instructional or student work time. In many ways, this approach is closer to the actual experience of many college students today–in both competency-based and time-based programs, it facilitates more rigorous attention to course outcomes, and it provides more flexibility in course design and assessment. 

Nevertheless, despite Newlane’s commitment to a competency-based learning approach, Newlane courses are designed to require academic rigor and effort that requires time equivalent to traditional time-based courses. For the purposes of assigning semester credit hours, Newlane course developers assume only that the student has met the criteria to enroll in a degree program, and that they have completed any prerequisite courses for a given course. These criteria accommodate different levels for courses (e.g., introductory, intermediate, and advanced) and degrees (Associate and Bachelor’s). In determining and assigning semester credit hours, outside of these criteria, Newlane course developers assume the student is unfamiliar with the course content. 

Newlane course developers use the following estimates for time for academic tasks (Newlane organizes the tasks into four categories: Engagement–engaging in activities related to mastering the course goals or objectives; Preparation–conducting research, studying for assessments, etc.; Presentation–work related to producing a course project or a mini-course project exercise; Assessment–participating in assessment activities):

Courses are the smallest unit for which students can earn credit. To justify the credit hour estimation for a given course when developing a course, and where possible, Newlane course developers first align the course with a comparable course, including aligning to the number of semester credit hours. Newlane course developers also use the times noted above allotted for different types of academic tasks to arrive at a total number of hours for a course (including instructional and student work). Newlane also references feedback from students in End of Course Evaluations to get an informal estimate of the time students spend on academic activities related to the course to inform semester credit hour estimates.