Providing Feedback

Nearly a month into the semester, I can already tell what is the most time-consuming part of teaching an online course: providing student feedback. Each week, my Creative Writing students post something, either a new creative work or a general literary analysis. Anything they post, of course, should have some personal feedback attached to that, at least according to my philosophy. Anyway, I've been using a discussion rubric to give them feedback on their work, as well as give them a scale that evaluates their feedback to each other. My reading of their work and providing this feedback takes a great deal of time.