Visiting Faculty Portal

Orientation to UB

UB's University employee welcome site (http://www.business.buffalo.edu/welcome/) offers orientation to UB resources & services such as the UB Card, child care, parking, the Libraries, facilities, and more.

For more information, see the UB Faculty/Staff Handbook (http://ubbusiness.buffalo.edu/ubb/cfm/ubs_pages/displayPage.cfm?page_id=10560)

Computer Accounts

Once your appointment papers are processed, your personal information is entered into the "institutional database," automatically creating a UB IT Name for you.  To see the UB IT name assigned to you,  go to a UB Card Swipe terminal at any one of the CIT Computing sites, or outside the CIT Accounts Office (215 Computing Center), and swipe your UB Card through the card reader. Your UB IT name, password and E-mail address will be displayed on the screen.  For more information contact the CIT Accounts Office (http://ubit.buffalo.edu/faculty/). Once added to the University Administrative Database, you can go to the UB Commons, suite 211, on campus to get your UB Card (http://www.myubcard.com/).

Rochester Faculty

To get your UB IT name without coming to campus, Fax a copy of your UB card to Ann Marie Landel at 645-3617 (Academic Services, CIT Accounts Office) and include a phone number where you can be reached.

Course Evaluations

UBCATS (http://ubcats.cas.buffalo.edu) course and teacher evaluation surveys will be administered online to your students, whose responses are anonymous, pooled, and cannot be connected with individual students. An E-mail announcement will be sent to students two weeks before the semester’s end. Because participation is voluntary, please encourage your students to participate by telling them their comments are important to you. Encouraging student participation is the most effective way to improve response rates.

After the semester you will receive an E-mail with instructions for accessing the results, using your UBIT name and your 8-digit person number (found at the bottom of your UB ID card).

Class Roster

For a list of students registered in your class, log into MyUB (http://myub.buffalo.edu/) and click on "Courses I Am Teaching."

classroster.gif

Course Planning

Content should conform to the catalog description (http://gse.buffalo.edu/lis/course-lis) and be appropriate for graduate-level work. Visiting faculty have the same flexibility as full-time faculty in developing specific learning experiences, quizzes, exercises, readings, handouts, etc. Many courses are coordinated by Lead Faculty, who are happy to consult about any aspect of course planning and management:

UB policy requires that during the first week of class (ideally during the initial class meeting) students receive a course syllabus specifying attendance policies, exams, class calendar, and other required activities. Instructors must provide students with alternatives for required course activities which they justifiably miss due to religious observances, documented illness, or documented personal or family emergencies. Syllabi should include the statements below:

  • Written Assignments: The following writers' handbook will be used for all research papers and other writings in this course. Aaron, Jane E. The Little, Brown Essential Handbook for Writers. Third Edition (or later). NY: Longman, 1999 (or later).
  • Academic Honesty Policy: All work during evaluations, on papers or in other academic activities must be the student's own work. Cheating, plagiarism or other academic dishonesty is clearly a violation of academic standards and will be dealt with accordingly. Depending on the severity of the violation, disciplinary action may range from a warning or admonition to expulsion from a degree program. For guidelines on specific actions and procedures to be followed in negotiating and adjudicating charges, see the UB policy on academic integrity (http://www.grad.buffalo.edu/policies/academicintegrity.php#preamble).

LIS Website

The LIS website (http://gse.buffalo.edu/lis) is equivalent to our printed catalog, with information about our department, a list of required courses, and course descriptions.

E-mail

In order to access your UB E-mail ([your UBIT name]@buffalo.edu) you must first enable your E-mail account (http://email.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/enable.pl). This can be done after your appointment papers are processed. After your E-mail account has been activated, you may access it via the web using UB's Central E-Mail System: UBmail (http://ubmail.buffalo.edu/).

To forward your UB E-mail to another account, visit http://ldap.buffalo.edu/forward.html.

Submitting Grades

Grades must be submitted via the Web (http://myub.buffalo.edu/webgrd/) (see the link for Webgrade on the UBlearns graphic (pictured under "Roster", above), to the left of Classlist). Username and password information are required and are the same as your email log-in information. If you don't know your UB IT Name and password, please contact the CIT Accounts Office at (716) 645-3542. Once you have submitted your grades, please e-mail the confirmation from UB to Rita Packard, our Administrative Assistant.

LIS calculates grades as: A (GPA = 4.0), A- (3.67), B+ (3.33), B (3.0), B- (2.67), C+ (2.33), C (2.0), D (1.0) and F (0.). B- and below are not considered passing grades. If you are unsure about how to grade, please feel free to contact the department chair or the lead faculty for your course.

Incompletes

An incomplete (I) will be granted only with the instructor's agreement and is not the instructor's obligation to grant. Students must fill out a "Request for Grade of Incomplete" (http://gse.buffalo.edu/lis/forms) form - a contractual agreement between student and instructor outlining the conditions and deadlines for removing an I.

Handouts

Your handouts can be uploaded to UBlearns as Word files. For paper copies, please mail or bring materials to 534 Baldy Hall and allow one week for photocopying. Rochester Extension instructors may have their photocopying completed at a copy center such as Kinko’s – keep your receipts to submit for reimbursement at the end of the semester.

Lab

To reserve the GSE Instructional Technology Lab, send a request to the Assistant to the Department Chair, Rita Packard, telephone: (716) 645-1475. Your UB card can be swiped to open the lab (please keep door closed).

Library

Once your appointment papers are processed, you are eligible for a UB card, which allows borrowing privileges at UB Libraries. You can connect to BISON via the Internet (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/) and can remotely access UB databases in the same way as distance students (http://ubit.buffalo.edu/internet/). For help with making the connection from off-campus, consult Off Campus Access to the UB Libraries' Resources (http://ubit.buffalo.edu/internet/). To take full advantage of the Libraries' resources you will want to apply for a UB library number (http://library.buffalo.edu/libraries/help/distance.html).

Reserve

You may submit your list of required, reserve reading electronically or in paper. After submitting your reserve list, you must provide a single photocopy of each journal article or book chapter to the library. Your reward is that these are scanned and made available online to your class. For details see the UB Libraries' Reserve Guidelines for Faculty and Submit Course Reserve Lists (for faculty) under Additional Course Reserve Information (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/creserve/).

Returning assignments & Exams

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act forbids leaving student exams or papers in any unattended public location. You may elect to add this statement to your syllabus:

Leave a stamped ($2.50 would be average), self-addressed envelope with your instructor to ensure that your final papers, exams, assignments, etc. are returned to you after the end of class. Otherwise your submissions will be discarded.

Religious Holidays

It is a policy throughout the State University system that:

“on those religious holidays when members of a faith typically observe the expectation of church or synagogue that they be absent from school or work, campuses will avoid the scheduling of such events as registration, the first day of classes, or student convocations, and individual students will be excused from class without penalty if expressly requested.” (From SUNY Policy Manual, 1975, Section No. 091.3.)

If such a requested absence results in a student’s inability to fulfill an academic requirement of a course scheduled on that particular day, the instructor should provide an opportunity for the student to make up the requirement without penalty.

Office Staff

Your primary liaison is Rita Packard, LIS Administrative Assistant. Reach her by phone at (716) 645-1476, or Fax (716) 645-3775. The office is generally open M-F from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m..

Parking

UB: After 3 pm, visitors may park in designated UB faculty/student lots. The “parking police” patrol regularly for violations. To obtain a hang tag, after your UB paperwork has been processed, visit the Parking Office between 8:30-5:00 (102 Spaulding Bldg. 2 - North Campus, 645-2516) to fill out a vehicle registration form. If you plan to be on campus before receiving your parking tag, contact Rita Packard for a one-visit guest tag. (Fill-in the date in on both sides of parking tag the day you visit campus.)

Rochester: You will need an MCC parking permit. Information is provided in the Brighton campus parking brochure (http://www.monroecc.edu/depts/pstd/pdfs/parkorient.pdf).

Classrooms

UB: Your room is is likely to be a technology classroom equipped for showing videos, accessing the Internet and other computer technology, with projection on a large screen for your class. To discern your classroom's capabilities, consult the TC matrix (http://www.its.buffalo.edu/ClassAttributes/tblRoomMatrix.pdf).

Technology Classrooms use combination lock cabinets. If you have an acsu.buffalo.edu E-mail address you may get your combination online (http://wings.buffalo.edu/services/media/combo/). If your E-mail address is not buffalo.edu, ask Rita to get the combination for you (645-2412). Orientation sessions for the Tech Classrooms are provided early each term.

Rochester: Monroe Community College classrooms and services (http://www.monroecc.edu/depts/instech/SmartClass.htm#list) are described on their web page, and a map (http://www.monroecc.edu/depts/instech/Locations.htm) is provided.

Teaching Tips

UB's Teacher and Learning Center (http://ubtlc.buffalo.edu/)

Library Instruction Round Table Research Committee's Library Instruction Teaching Tips (http://www.baylor.edu/LIRT/brochures.html)

Textbooks

UB requires listing of textbooks at both the UB Bookstore and the College Store. Barbara Routhier will mail you textbook order forms, or you may order by either fax, phone or e-mail.

  • The UB Bookstore phone number is (716) 645-3131 ext. 16, Fax: (716) 645-3732. Or E-mail textbook orders to the UB Bookstore. You may order textbooks online (http://www.buffalo.bkstr.com/) if you have a UB e-mail address: your initial password is 405. A field asking for a “username identification” can simply be bypassed.
  • To list texts with the College Store (3908 Maple Road, Amherst, NY), use their web form or telephone (716) 332-3040.

You can request your own textbook desk copy free from its publisher. Your letter should say that you have ordered x copies of the text for LIS xxx through the University Bookstore or the College Store.

Web Pages

For a link from the LIS web course listings to your course web site or to get web server space, send a request to Rita Packard.

UBlearns

The UBlearns system (Blackboard) is a great way to create a course web site with interactive capabilities for course discussion and group interactions.

Your handouts should be uploaded to UBlearns (https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/), UB's Web-accessible course management tool, to maximize their availability to your students. UBlearns also supports a class listserv and Bulletin Board and provides E-mail addresses of each of your students. The class listserv, allowing messages to be posted from you or your students to everyone in class, is useful for discussion or announcements. UBLearns also includes wiki, blog, and journal options.

To enable your course, you must select "UBlearns Course Setup"; select the semester, then "Edit Course." You must first have been issued your UB IT name.

  1. When a list of courses you are teaching appears, click the "enable" button next to the course you wish to activate (It takes a day or two to become active.)
  2. If you do not see your course, or if you wish to set up a UBlearns space for a reason that is not connected with a course contact ublearns@buffalo.edu.
  3. If have any difficulties or need support contact contact ublearns@buffalo.edu or call the CIT help desk at (716) 645-3542.
  4. Great animated tutorials (http://www.princeton.edu/as/bb_animated_tutor.shtml) show steps in developing your course site!

UB automatically enrolls all your students in your Blackboard site by the first day of class. User guides are available on the Blackboard site (http://wings.buffalo.edu/services/ublearns/faq.html#Accessing), or attend a free workshop about using the UBLearns class at UB's Teaching and Learning Center (http://ubtlc.buffalo.edu/) on the second floor of the Capen Hall Libraries.