From: hutchin@cs.stanford.edu Subject: Course Assistant Information Sheet Date: September 18, 2007 11:01:10 AM PDT To: tas@cs.stanford.edu Cc: korolova@cs.stanford.edu, stager@cs.stanford.edu Reply-To: hutchin@cs.stanford.edu Hi Fall quarter CAs, Please read over the following. It contains useful information, including -how to reserve space for your office hours or discussion sections -how and when you will be paid -how to handle your tuition bill -how to reserve extra equipment -how to make photocopies for course handouts, and much more If you have any questions, just let me know. Thanks, and best wishes, Meredith ---------------------------------------------- COURSE ASSISTANT INFORMATION SHEET Please Note: **CAs may NOT be enrolled in the course they are CAing, and should plan to attend each session of the class. **CAs MUST be on campus, and ready to start work, at the beginning of the quarter. Returning to campus after classes have begun, or leaving before final exam grading is completed, is not acceptable. **See the CS CA website for further useful information: http://www.stanford.edu/group/sutacs/ Office Hours ------------ CAs may hold office hours in their own offices, or in the Gates CA office cubicles in rooms B24 and B26 (basement, B wing). Gates B24 is divided into 2 cubicles, as is Gates B26. Each cubicle serves as a CA office, and may be reserved using the "taoffice" program. Cubicles contain a desk, chairs, a phone, a computer, and two white boards. A list of the cubicle numbers and phone numbers follows: Gates 24A (650)725-4385 Gates 24B (650)736-1816 Gates 26A (650)723-6319 Gates 26B (650)736-1817 Students with Xenon accounts may sign up for office hours in Gates B24 and 26 by entering "taoffice" at the prompt; this will bring up an easy to follow program. Students without Xenon accounts should ask Meredith Hutchin in Gates 193 to enter their office hours for them. The CA offices will be locked when not in use, so CAs who hold office hours in Gates B24 and B26 will need to get a key. We will be sending a list of the names of all our CAs to key@cs. If your name is on this list, you will be able to put down a $20 deposit and sign out a new Intellikey, or have your existing Intellikey reprogrammed for Gates B24 or B26 access. Keys are issued in Gates room 176. Note that your access to these rooms will expire at the end of the quarter. Also note that the exterior basement doors will be LOCKED at 5:30pm every day, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Please remind your students that they will need to carry their Stanford ID cards with them and swipe them through the card reader on the door facing the Gilbert Biology Building in order to gain access to the basement CA offices. IMPORTANT NOTE: CAs with 25% appointments are expected to hold at least 2 office hours per week, and CAs with 50% appointments at least 4 hours per week. Salary and Hours ---------------- The majority of our CS Course Assistant appointments are half-time (50%), with a small minority being quarter-time (25%). The appointment level represents the percentage of full-time employment. Thus, if you consider full-time work to be 40 hours, a half-time CA should expect to work an average of 20 hours per week during the 10-week quarter, and a quarter-time CA should expect to work an average of 10. Most CA appointments in CS are salaried rather than hourly. As such, we expect CAs to make a professional commitment to getting the job done. In some weeks, a CA position may require more than an average number of hours; in others, it may require less. If you discover that a position is consistently taking more time than you feel is appropriate, please feel free to talk about the situation with the faculty member teaching the course or with Meredith Hutchin in Gates 193. Because most CS CA positions are salaried, timesheets do not need to be submitted. (However, if you are working hourly, contact Nikkie at nikkie@cs.stanford.edu for instructions on submitting timesheets online.) Paydays are semi-weekly, and fall on the 7th and 22nd of each month. If the 7th or 22nd falls on a weekend, paychecks will be issued the preceding Friday. Summer Quarter appointments run for two months, and the pay rate is the same as the rest of the year: Fall Quarter October 1 - December 31 Winter Quarter January 1 - March 31 Spring Quarter April 1 - June 30 Summer Quarter July 1 - August 31 Six paydays will occur during Fall quarter, on the following dates: October 22, November 7, November 21, December 7, December 21, and January 7. We strongly encourage you to sign up for Direct Deposit to receive your paychecks. Please sign up for Direct Deposit through Axess. If you request paper checks, they can be picked up from Nikkie in Gates 187 unless other arrangements are made through Meredith (i.e., a mail code for another location is provided). 2007/08 pay rates have been set at $3510/qtr for a 25% CA position, and $7020/qtr for a 50% position. Post-candidacy Ph.D. students will be paid at a slightly higher rate of $3765 for a 25% CA position, and $7530 for a 50% CA position. Tuition Credit -------------- In addition to a salary, CAs are given a tuition benefit for each quarter they are appointed. A 25% appointment covers 5 units of tuition, and a 50% appointment covers 8-10 units of tuition. **Note that all full-time students MUST enroll in no less than 8 units fall, winter and spring quarters; summer quarter the minimum is 1 unit (for those who choose to register). Students on 50% appointments MAY TAKE NO MORE THAN 10 UNITS PER QUARTER without prior approval from their adviser, the department chair, and the dean's office (see http://www.stanford.edu/dept/DoR/GSH/Sec1C.html#Fin7 for the official policy statement). CA appointments are often input into the payroll system after the University bills have been issued. This being the case, you may well receive a bill that does not show your CA tuition credit. If this happens, first check for updates to your student bill to see if the CA tuition credit has been added recently. If it has, go ahead and pay the remainder of your bill. If it hasn't, refer to the tuition line of the CA appointment offer message I emailed you; the CS Department will be paying this amount towards your bill. Subtract the appropriate amount from your bill, and then pay the rest of it. The Student Financial Services Office will not charge you late fees on the tuition portion left unpaid since it qualifies as departmental aid and you are not responsible for it. If you find that late fees have been mistakenly applied, you can ask the Student Financial Services Office to waive them by filing a HelpSU ticket. ***Appointments above 50% are allowed only during the Summer Quarter. Summer quarter CAs who choose to register must enroll in at least 1 unit, or in the TGR course CS801 or CS802 if they are TGR.*** Health Insurance Subsidy for Students on Cardinal Care ------------------------------------------------------ Part of the compensation package for students on 25% (or higher) CA appointments is a subsidy that covers half of the quarterly Cardinal Care health insurance bill. The subsidy is directly credited to the University bill, but doesn't appear in the system until 3 weeks into any given quarter so don't be concerned if you don't see any evidence of an insurance subsidy on your bill at the beginning of the quarter. Plan to pay the remaining half of the insurance bill out of your own funds. Students with Financial Aid --------------------------- Students on federal loans such as Perkins, Stafford or Grad PLUS are *required* to notify Financial Aid if their financial support changes. A CAship can change loan eligibility, even if the funds have already been disbursed. We recommend students send an email financialaid@stanford.edu asap to let them know about your CAship. Tax Information for International Students (from the Payroll Office) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Many of your new international students are having problems with the W-4. The instructions for the W-4 do NOT apply to non-resident aliens. Only residents of Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and F-1 students from India can claim allowances on the W-4. A resident of Japan or Korea may claim 1 for him/herself and 1 for any dependent present in the US who fits the IRS criteria. A resident of Canada or Mexico may claim 1 for him/herself and 1 for any dependent meeting the IRS criteria. A student from India on an F-1 Visa may claim 1 for him/herself and 1 for a dependent spouse who had no US income. Any other non-resident alien visitor will be coded as single with zero allowances (unless from a treaty country and filing an 8233). The treaty table is on the website at http://co.stanford.edu/compliance/foreign/treaty.html When an 8233 is filed, it overrides the W-4. Additional information is available on the Bechtel International Center website at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/icenter/new/taxinfo.html Food and drinks for Grading Sessions (midterm and final exam only) ------------------------------------------------------------------ We will pay reasonable costs for food for instructors, CAs and graders when that food is brought in to feed course staff involved in lengthy midterm or final exam grading sessions that run through lunch or dinner, or when the same course staff go out for a restaurant meal after grading has been completed. ***Note that we do not cover costs for weekly grading sessions, or for more than one midterm or final per course. We also do not cover costs for food or treats brought in to feed students taking our classes.*** "Reasonable costs" translates to between $6.00-$8.00 per person per grading session which is enough to cover, for instance, pizza, Chinese take-out, or sandwiches. The maximum we are willing to pay is $10.00 per person, and note that this amount includes taxes, delivery charges and tip. Please plan accordingly! Sodas have been bulk-purchased and are stored in Claire Stager's office (Gates 182); please help yourselves as needed for midterm and final exam grading sessions. ***Note that we do not provide sodas for weekly grading sessions, or for more than one midterm or final per course.*** Remember that tips for delivery people should be in the $3.00 to $5.00 range, NOT 10-20% of the total bill. Itemized receipts for food expenses should be submitted to Nikkie Salgado in Gates 187 as soon as possible after the expense has been incurred. Be sure to include a list of the people attending the grading session with the receipt. Handout/Copy Policy (revised 9/07) ------------------- 1) Homework assignments, exams, solution sets, and the first 200 pages of handouts (per student) are free of charge. All other handouts cost 7.5 cents per page. Double-sided copies count as two pages (17 cents). 2) Estimate the charges at the beginning of the quarter, and collect checks as soon as possible. 3) Checks should be payable to "Stanford University," and please ask students to indicate the course number on the checks. 4) Checks should be given to Nikkie Salgado in Gates 187 by the instructor or CA (not the students). 5) SCPD students and auditors are also charged for course notes. Courses with large loose-leaf "readers" should have the Course Reader Department at the Bookstore make copies and sell them directly to students. Copier Accounts --------------- A copy account code will be provided to you by Nikkie Salgado in Gates 187 upon request. This code may be used for copying course handouts on any copy machine at Gates. NOTE: Please try to estimate as closely as possible the number of copies needed each time you photocopy so that waste is kept to a minimum. Recycle barrels are located near each copy machine. Borrowing Equipment ------------------- The following equipment is available for sign-out if it's needed for your class or section. To use the equipment, or to reserve it on a weekly basis, contact Nikkie in Gates 187: -One Sharp Notevision Projector. This projector is capable of displyaing 1024X768 images and works with both PCs and Macs. -One I-Mac laptop and one Dell PC laptap. -A TV/VCR combination. We have a large television and VCR on a cart that can be wheeled into classrooms for demonstrations. CA Library ---------- There is a small library of CS textbooks located in Claire Stager's office (Gates 182) which are available for borrowing by CAs. Texts are to be returned at the end of the quarter. Reserving Extra Rooms --------------------- If a room is needed for a weekly discussion section, extra review session or midterm, contact Nikkie in Gates 187 with the day, time, number of students expected, reason for the extra meeting, and any special location requests. You'll be contacted via email as soon as a room confirmation from the University's Room Scheduling Office has been received. Please allow a few days for a response, and >>do not<< contact the Room Scheduling Office directly. They prefer to have one contact person per department, and will respond to your request by asking you to submit it through the department. Final exam rooms will be arranged with each course instructor approximately mid-quarter. Handbooks on Teaching --------------------- Two helpful pamphlets containing information on teaching in general, and CAing in particular, are available from Meredith in Gates 193. Both pamphlets are provided by the Center for Teaching and Learning. The CTL also has a helpful website at http://www-ctl.stanford.edu/ Honor Code ---------- Please visit the Judicial Affairs website at: http://judicialaffairs.stanford.edu for among other things: * FAQs by Faculty - http://www.stanford.edu/dept/vpsa/judicialaffairs/faculty/faqs.htm * Instructions for Reporting an HC Complaint - http://www.stanford.edu/dept/vpsa/judicialaffairs/faculty/complaint.reporting.htm * Honor Code (policy & examples) - http://www.stanford.edu/dept/vpsa/judicialaffairs/guiding/honorcode.htm * Honor Code Interpretations - http://www.stanford.edu/dept/vpsa/judicialaffairs/guiding/honorcode.int.htm * Fundamental Standard (policy & examples) - http://www.stanford.edu/dept/vpsa/judicialaffairs/guiding/fundamental.htm Creating a Newsgroup -------------------- If you need to set up a newsgroup for your course, send an email to courses@stanford with the particulars. (Newsgroups already exist for many courses, so you might want to check first.) Course/Grade Management Tools ----------------------------- (Thanks to Nick Parlante for the following.) http://www.stanford.edu/~nick/marge/Readme.html It looks like a simple little GUI spreadsheet, except it has the capability to email grades out to students, or copy them up into leland/WWW space. Perhaps its most exciting feature is this: I'm actively supporting it (since I'm using it for my own courses). I would describe the current release as "beta" quality -- I've tested it a fair amount on my own, but the code is basically all-new, so backups are in order. And yet another grade handling tool called Izio InfoPier. For information on this one contact Jean Wang from the Center for Teaching and Learning, or send a message to support@izio.com. One final course management tool: CourseWork. See http://coursework.stanford.edu, or contact Kim Hayworth, kimhwrth@stanford. Communicating with SCPD Students -------------------------------- Following is some general information on CAing SCPD-broadcast courses: Stanford Center for Professional Development students (i.e. employees of SCPD member companies taking Stanford courses online) do not generally come on campus. If you are CAing a course broadcast by SCPD, be sure to inform your online students of your office phone number so they can reach you during office hours. Each of the CA cubicles in Gates B24 and B26 is equipped with a phone. It's also very important that handouts, graded work and exams be sent out promptly to SCPD students via the courier boxes (one box is located in Gates 169, the first floor/B wing kitchen/copy room--it's a mail slot at about eye level at the back of the room). The SCPD courier has daily pick-ups and deliveries. Do NOT expect SCPD students to come on campus to pick up handouts. -- Meredith Hutchin CS Educational Affairs 723-6077