Policies Facilitators Should Know
Welcome to the Policies that Facilitators Should Know website! We created this page to explain the requirements and responsibilities of the students as DeCal facilitators. If you have any suggestions or comments, please call 510.642.9127 or e-mail decalprogram@gmail.com.
Did you read the Student Checklist for Student-Facilitated 98 and 198 Courses?
Here’s the link to the checklist: http://education.berkeley.edu/specialstudies/student_checklist.pdf
Make sure you read this checklist thoroughly and understand the requirements for your DeCal. Confusion emerges when facilitators fail to read the entire list. One time, a facilitator insisted on enrolling in his own DeCal. He even petitioned his dean after the Registrar’s Office repeatedly removed his name from his class roster! Eventually, even the Vice Provost was alerted. Facilitators cannot enroll in their own courses. To receive academic credits for facilitating a DeCal, please sign up for a separate independent studies course with your faculty sponsor, which is usually listed as a 99 or 199 course. All facilitators should read this one-page checklist carefully. We can’t afford to show incompetence in the eyes of the administration. After all, facilitators are expected to be taking leadership responsibilities.
According to Regulation A230 and a new initiative adopted by the Academic Senate’s Committee on Courses of Instruction (COCI) on July 5, 2006, proposals for courses to be taught in the fall will be due to COCI one month before the end of summer instruction; proposals for courses to be taught in the spring will be due one month before the last day of fall instruction. Late submissions must be accompanied by a letter from the dean or department chair clearly laying out the reasons for the lateness. COCI will make every effort to work with departments but reserves the authority to revoke approval of individual sections or entire courses that fail to abide by Regulation A230 and COCI procedures.
Unauthorized Levying of Course Fee
A common campus policy violation is the collection of unauthorized course materials fees that include instructional fees, payment for guest speakers’ parking and gifts, equipment rental costs, etc.
What is the policy? – You CANNOT collect a fee from your students for a mandatory part of the class unless you have formal campus approval! – You CANNOT require students to pitch in to cover your costs for guest speakers or course materials!
Guest Speakers – You CANNOT require your students to pitch in for a guest speaker’s travel or up-front costs.
Course Materials/ Rentals – Have your students directly pay for art supplies, cooking ingredients, or equipment rentals. They CANNOT go through the facilitator to buy in bulk. Send your students to the art store, send your students to Safeway, send them to Copy Central, but DO NOT collect money yourselves!
Field trips – Students must pay all their own expenses on field trips to directly cover travel, food, lodging, and activities.
And, of course, have all information about course fees in your class in a prominent location on your class description and syllabus!
The Course Materials Fee Committee requires that a fee request be made and approved under exceptional situations a year before the course is offered. In the past, when the Registrar’s Office learned of the unsanctioned levying of fees in a DeCal-listed class, the undergraduate course facilitators were given the option of either refunding the fees, or canceling the class. The administration takes this policy very seriously. For more information on course fees, please contact the Budget Office Help Desk. The help desk can be reached by phone at 510.643.4243.
Don’t feel intimidated to ask your departments for support! Your DeCal is an official course approved by your department. There are resources available to you. Take advantage of them.
If facilitators need resources beyond the scope that the departments can provide, they should consider applying for the Education Enhancement Fund, which the Associated Students of University California created specifically for DeCal courses. Funding is allocated to applicants based on their proposed classroom curriculum and ability to demonstrate the compatibility of their course with EEF goals. Applicants must also provide a valid list of expenses. The EEF has a limit of usually $100 to $200 (the maximum amount depends on the ASUC Senate’s budget allocation for the academic year). Facilitators should contact the board if they need additional funding. Check out the Funding website for more information.
University Regulations and Risk Management
Before attending any official off-campus field trips, your students must sign one of the following two forms:
Remember that a “waiver of liability” protects the university, not the students. Risk Management has important information on other liability issues and also encourages people to call to ask about their specific situations at 510.643.9318 or 510.642.5141.
The Vice Chancellor’s Office of Undergraduate Affairs asks that organizers of student activities and organizations become familiar with the University’s regulations.
Here are a couple of regulations from the University that you should know about; for the rest, use your common sense or ask us.
- Don’t Discriminate.
- Don’t Sexually Harass Others.
- Do Respect the Religious Needs of Your Students.
Important: Facilitators cannot accept gifts, food, financial incentives, sexual favors and other extraneous services for personal benefit that would influence course enrollment or the final grade. Infringement would constitute the university’s breach of academic contract with the students. The penality may include expulsion from the university for violators. Departments are committed to abide by university equal opportunity statures and will help settle disputes between the students and facilitators through the Berkeley Campus Student Grievance Procedure.
We’ve also added a few things to the University’s list that are important to us, too.
- Students have a right to be engaged by your class.
- Students have a right to drop your class.
- Students have a right to have their opinions respected and heard.
- Students have a right to pass, and to not be made to speak.
- Students have a right to know what the expectations are in the class.
Accommodating Students with Disabilities
The administrative heads of departments and schools are responsible for ensuring that the instructional staff of their units understand the Berkeley Campus’ full commitment to implementing Federal law and University policy assuring nondiscrimination for students on the basis of disability. Please ask your faculty sponsors and department for support to accommodate the academic needs of students with disabilities. Here’s the link to Berkeley Campus Plan for Accommodating the Academic Needs of Students with Disabilities and FAQ’s.
Use of Copyrighted Materials for Your Class
According to the University of California Policy on the Reproduction of Copyrighted Materials for Teaching and Research, copyright is a constitutionally conceived property right which is designed to promote the creation and dissemination of original works of authorship. That purpose is implemented by giving a copyright owner certain exclusive rights with respect to the owner’s work, subject to certain limitations, in the mutual interest of the author, the owner, and the public. These rights include exclusive rights of reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution, and performance. The University strongly believes that these rights are vital in maintaining a free flow of ideas in our society.
A major limitation on the exclusive rights granted to the copyright owner is the doctrine of “fair use” (17 United States Code, Section 107) which permits certain limited copying of copyrighted works for educational or research purposes without the permission of the copyright owner. “Fair use” is a limited exception to the exclusive use of the copyright owner, which if exceeded, can subject the one making unauthorized copies and the University to severe penalties. The wide availability of copying machines has created a situation where this exception can easily be breached.
To provide guidance to all University employees, the Guidelines for the Reproduction of Copyrighted Materials for Teaching and Research are used to determine whether copying is within the “fair use” doctrine. If the copying is not within the Guidelines, permission should be obtained from the copyright owner before any copies are made. If it is unclear whether copying would require such permission guidance should be requested from the Office of the General Counsel.
For policy on copyrighted materials online, including digital media and electronic copies of articles and books, please read the Guidelines for Compliance with the Online Service Provider Provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
It is important that this Policy and the guidelines be widely distributed so that the numerous users of photocopied materials in the University will be aware of the Copyright Law.
Creating a Course Website
The Educational Technology Services (ETS) helps UC Berkeley instructors supplement classroom teaching by giving students access to digitized course materials, broadcasting announcements, providing assessment opportunities, and hosting online discussions on a course website. Student-facilitators may also use the same service at the discretion of the sponsoring departments and ETS. Please contact department officials and ETS for further instructions. The DeCal Board recommends setting up the course website at the same time that you are doing the paperwork for your class. Be sure to allow sufficient time for preparation. The following are several different course website options that ETS supports.
bSpace (http://bspace.berkeley.edu)
bSpace is the new online collaboration and learning environment at UC Berkeley. Instructors and GSIs can log in to bSpace with their CalNet ID and Passphrase to create a course or project site at any time. Once a website is created for a course or project, the members of that site will see a tab when they log in to their bSpace account. In the case of a course website, the class roster is pulled from the Registrar’s database and is updated daily; students who are officially enrolled in or waitlisted for a course will see the tab upon logging in to bSpace.
Information to get you started with bSpace is available from the Training & Support Center.
CourseWeb (http://courseweb.berkeley.edu)
CourseWeb is the gateway to Berkeley’s online teaching and learning environment. This integrated system automatically provides a basic website for every course. Instructors can enhance the site by posting office hours, an extended course description, biographical information, and uploading a course syllabus. In addition to providing information for student reference, instructors can use CourseWeb to access a current class roster, view a photo roster, and send email messages to students without having to maintain a class email list.
Information to get you started with bSpace is available from the Training & Support Center.
Blackboard (http://blackboard.berkeley.edu)
Blackboard is a learning management system (LMS) that has built-in tools for developing, administering, and publishing a course website. Easy-to-use forms allow instructors to post announcements, share lecture materials and other course documents, and provide links to websites without requiring any knowledge of HTML. Instructors can also use the system to encourage online collaboration through the discussion board, chat feature, and group communication tools. Since Blackboard is not integrated with other campus systems, instructors must request a site and tell students to add the Blackboard site to their account.
Information to get you started with bSpace is available from the Training & Support Center.
WebCT (http://webct.berkeley.edu)
WebCT is a learning management system (LMS) that is only available to instructors who used the system prior to the Summer 2003 semester. FAQs for students and instructors are available from the Training & Support Center.
Free-form Websites (http://uas.berkeley.edu/forms/UAS.Application.plain.pdf)
Some instructors prefer the flexibility of creating their own course website using web authoring tools such as Dreamweaver, GoLive, or Netscape Composer. This type of free-form website could be hosted on a departmental server or through a campus web account, like socrates. Members of the ETS staff are available to help instructors determine whether this is the best option.
Classrooms and Multi-purpose Rooms Reservations
To reserve a classroom or change/add to an existing room assignment for your class, you need to contact the designated course scheduler of the sponsoring department. Every academic department has at least two persons recognized by the Classroom Scheduling Office. To find out who your designated scheduler is, please call 510.642.0313. The course scheduler handles room reservation for academic classes and follows the Classroom Requests and Reservations procedure identified by the Office of Registrar below:
Classroom Requests at Semester Start-Up:
Here are the guidelines to use that will help us respond to your requests. Please inform your instructors of the following deadlines.
- We will accept requests for either primary or secondary sections starting with the first day of the Tele-BEARS Adjustment Period.
- All room requests should be sent via fax at 510.642.0238 or mail on a Room Request Form. You may download a PDF version of this form.
- Room requests will not be accepted after Friday of the second week of instruction. You will receive final notification concerning your requests by Friday of the third week of instruction.
- Please do not call us regarding the status of previously submitted requests; you will be notified of the final outcome.
- Please do not submit requests more than once or otherwise duplicate your requests.
- Changes or cancellations involving a cross-listed course scheduled in a general assignment classroom must be submitted on a General Assignment Room Switch & Release Form. You may download a PDF version of this form. All other changes may be made directly online.
Before contacting the department scheduler to modify any room assignments, faciliators should have the consent of the faculty sponsor, department chair, the Academic Senate and any other officals in charge of departmental DeCal affairs to expand/reduce the class size.
Questions about classroom access for disabled students should be directed to the Mobility Access Specialist at 510.252.7671 or TDD 510.642.6376. If you have concerns about course enrollments relative to classroom capacity, please call the Classroom Scheduling Office at 510.642.0313 or to Space Management and Capital Projects at 510.642.1781, which maintains the campus classroom inventory.
If you’d like to reserve a multi-purpose room for an end-of-the-semester party/function, please contact your course scheduler and find out whether the department may reserve a room on your behalf as a departmental event. If the department denies your request, you will need to reserve a room yourself by contacting the building coordinator of the room, in which you are interested. To let you have an idea of the choices available, here are the Rental Fees and Policies to reserve a room at the Haas School of Business. In most cases, a fee is applied. The use of audio-visual equipment, such as LCD projector, mic, etc. also costs extra. Reservations for these equipments are usually made separately with the media services department of the building. The Educational Technology Services (ETS) also offers equipment rentals. Check out their rates and policies. Make sure reservations for the room and equipments are coordinated and made well in advance (at least a month for many places). The odds are that you are not the only one who wants to have an end-of-the-semester final get-together. Funding from the Education Enhancement Fund (EEF) may also be restricted. For more information, please visit the Funding page and contact the ASUC Grants Department via e-mail asucgrants@gmail.com, by phone 510.642.0256 or stop by 205 Eshleman Hall and sign up for Office Hours to discuss your grants applications with a representative.
Another alternative is to hold your party/function at a nearby restaurant. The Spring 2006’s DeCal Board party for about 15 people was held at Le Cheval on Bancroft. There was no reservation fee. The owner simply required that we spent at least $200 on food. This is a good option for some of the smaller classes. Good luck!
Sponsoring a Course
Sponsoring a Course is a companion of this website. As facilitators, you should be aware of the administrative process that your sponsoring faculty and department go through. First-time faculty sponsor may need your assistance to clarify some of the procedures. Also, use this site to your advantage. If you are proposing a course, tell them about it among the other helpful links listed in there. There is nothing more appealing than presenting a thorough assessment of your proposal. Faculty members will appreciate that you have considered both the academic and administrative aspects of starting a DeCal. You would be in a very awkward situation if a professor agrees to sponsor your course, then asks you “What should I do now?” and you don’t know the answer!
Don’t Let Down Your Faculty Sponsors and Departments
When the faculty sponsors and the department chairs put their signatures on your course proposal form, they have assumed the responsibility for your course. They are putting themselves on the line for you and the DeCal Program! Please don’t do anything that would make them regret their decisions. As long as facilitators act responsibly in their courses, there should not be any problems.
Frequently Asked Questions also addresses some common issues that facilitators have had in the past.
Thank you for facilitating. Your support and commitment are essential to the development and expansion of the DeCal Program!
Updated September 23, 2006.