Practical Points

This section of the website is designed to provide resources to instructors regarding common processes and procedures related to the instruction and running of a course. These points will include information related to a variety of topics including scheduling courses, to submitting grades and setting up a Courselink site for a course.

Room Bookings and Scheduling

Instructors are not required to book rooms for their courses. The Registrar’s Office schedules the ‘Meeting Information’ including what days the course is offered, times and locations. Emma Currie coordinates the College of Biological Science undergraduate course scheduling and submits all requests for rooms with the scheduling information. Included in this information are class sizes and any technology requirements.  The Registrar’s office then takes all requests from all departments and assigns courses to the lecture halls and labs or seminar rooms, if applicable.  Once the times and rooms are assigned for the courses, Emma Currie will circulate this information to the departments.

If there are any concerns about the room scheduling for a course, please contact Emma Currie,

For courses,  meetings, defences, etc. offered in one of the Science Complex meeting rooms, please contact your departmental administrator, or the Associate Dean Academic administrator, Emma Currie, ecurri03@uoguelph.ca to book the room.

Further information about how to reserve a room for a midterm, outside of class time please see the classroom bookings website. 

Meeting locations and times for undergraduate courses and labs/seminars/tutorials will be posted on WebAdvisor  two weeks prior to the opening of course selection.  Please see the Schedule of Dates if you wish to confirm specific course selection periods. 
In general, course selection periods are scheduled at the following times during the semester:

  • November, for the Winter Semester
  • March, for the Summer
  • June/July Fall Semester

A department requesting to defer a course offering, will require permission from the Coordinator of Undergraduate Curriculum. Please contact Emma Currie to discuss the information required when submitting such a request.  A department intending to add additional course offerings does not require permission from the Coordinator of Undergraduate Curriculum.

Classroom Support

Once a room has been assigned, information about various classroom attributes can be accessed through the Open Learning and Educational Support, ‘Classroom Profiles’ website.   These attributes include the presentation equipment available in the classroom, seating capacity, passwords for the AV equipment and contact information to report any problems.  All faculty should have access to ‘Classroom Profiles’ using their central ID and password.

If you are not a faculty member, but are an instructor and wish to have access to ‘Classroom Profiles’, please contact Emma Currie, ecurri03@uoguelph.ca

If the room you are using for your course does not have all the equipment you require, or you wish to borrow additional AV equipment, you can do so through Classroom Technical Support to borrow the necessary equipment :

Classroom technical support also provides instructors with classroom support, including one-on-one equipment orientation.

WebAdvisor

WebAdvisor is the on-line platform used by the University of Guelph for course registration in all diploma, undergraduate, graduate and Guelph-Humber courses. It is accessed on the UofG home page under Quick Links.

WebAdvisor has both student and faculty links on the site.
Students can access a variety of information from WebAdvisor including class schedules, exam information, unofficial transcripts, academic evaluations, financial information, tax receipts, any outstanding bills, etc. Students will also register for their courses, during the designated add periods, using WebAdvisor, as outlined in the Schedule of Dates found in the academic calendars.

Instructor access to the faculty section of WebAdvisor requires their central ID and password. This is the same login information used for the UofG e-mail. Access is granted to WebAdvisor when a faculty member joins the university. If an instructor does not have access to WebAdvisor, they should contact Ask Gryph or e-mail askgryph@registrar.uoguelph.ca , using the @uoguelph.ca e-mail account. In the e-mail, please include the following information; full-name, employee number, and department. WebAdvisor support staff will confirm that access has been granted. 

There are five options within the faculty link on WebAdvisor.  They include:

  • Advisee
  • Class Roster: Access to the class list for your course for the semester
  • Class Schedule: Access to a listing of your course(s) and the date, time, location and capacity
  • Search for Sections: Access to the entire course database, the same listing any student would search for courses
  • Student Transcripts: Useful when advising students, or confirming a student’s background if they are asking you to waive a pre-requisite. Instructors/faculty only require a student ID number to access the student’s unofficial transcript. Once the ID is entered, a list of the courses completed, the semester courses were taken, and grades achieved in each course is available. The student’s cumulative GPA is also calculated.

WebAdvisor also provides some quick links to the Undergraduate Calendar, forms and documents, and the final and deferred exam schedule.

The final exam schedule will be posted prior to the start of the semester. It is strongly suggested that an instructor confirms that their exam has been scheduled and confirms the date of the exam so that the most up-to-date and accurate information can be communicated to the students on the course outline and in class. Click here to go directly to the final exams schedules.

When a deferred exam has been granted for a course, the schedule is normally released approximately 2 weeks prior to the deferred exam period. The deferred exam schedule will be posted on WebAdvisor under ’Exams’, and then ‘Deferred Exams’. Here is the link to the deferred exam schedule.

Class Lists

Instructors have access to the class list for their course through a number of resources. This includes the Class list website or Courselink.

The Colleague Class Lists site is a website where all class lists, for all courses offered by the University of Guelph are listed, by semester.
If an instructor does not have access to ’Class Lists’, they can apply for an account. The application is available through the Office of Registrarial Services.
For instructors who have a Courselink site associated with their course, the class lists will automatically be uploaded and updated on the course website once the CourseLink site is active. 

Courselink

Most courses now include a Courselink site which aims at supporting the in-course teaching and learning components of a course.
Courselink includes a number of tools which allow instructors to post assignments, assign quizzes, post grades, ask questions, post content for upcoming lectures, post answer keys for midterms, encourage discussions between students and teaching assistants, etc. This is also the site whereby instructors will upload and submit their final grades to the Registrar’s Office.

Instructors must request a Courselink site for their course, it is not automatic. An instructor only requires their central ID and password to request a site.  Instructors can request a course site through the Courselink website. Instructors can also self-create a CourseLink site by looking under instructors tab and then going to Course Creation Tool.

Courses can be created up to the grade submission deadline for the semester, however it is highly recommended that instructors request the site prior to this deadline. There is a 48 hour turnaround, approximately, from the time of requesting the site until the site is active for the instructor. However if an instructor uses the course creation tool, the course website is generated right away. 

There is a number of instructional workshops, both in person and on-line, that instructors can access when they have questions, or need help building their course website. Instructor Courselink Support is available on the Open Learning and Educational Support website. 

Instructors for distance education courses are required to contact the Open Learning and Educational Support directly to create fully distance education courses. Please e-mail courselink@uoguelph.ca

Library and Reserve Material

The library provides many services allowing instructors to place relevant material on reserve to support their course(s). Instructors can place text books, journal articles, their own course material, course notes, assignments, etc. For more information on how to place items on reserve, please see the library website.

Instructors of distance education courses must make their requests to place materials on reserve through the Office of Open Learning.

Below are the instructions to add a new course, or to clone an existing course, on Ares. Ares is the on-line platform that houses the reserve materials and where students access the materials. 

  1. You can create your reserve list by going to the library home page
  2. Select: ‘Course Reserves’
  3. Select:  ‘Faculty ... submit requests to place course materials on reserve’
  4. Log in: using your central ID and password               
  5. Select ‘Switch to Instructor mode’: (menu on the left hand side)
  6. Under ‘Instructor Tools’: select ‘Create a course list’  OR, if cloning a previous course, then select ’Clone Course List‘.
  7. Fill in the course information and then add the items to your course. Reserve material can be IMPORTED, instead of being cloned from a previous offering, which will allow you to add material from more than one course.
  8. To e-mail yourself these links when they become available, select: E-mail these citations and links’ to your e-mail address.
  9. For D2L instructions, select:  ‘Learn how to pull these citations and links into Desire2Learn’
    Be aware that journals may provide a variety of levels of permission to use their content; for example, some citations may only be accessible to 2 users at a time.

Accessibility Supports

Library Accessibility Supports (LAS) is associated with the library and provides a number of supports to students with disabilities related to note taking, reading, writing and studying. LAS can provide modified working environments, text readers, adaptive software and technology software instruction, quiet study spaces etc. A complete listing of their services and resources can be found on the LAS website.

LAS is also the contact on campus for the AREO program. AREO stands for the Alternative Educational Resources for Ontario. Full details of the program and instructor/faculty responsibilities can be found on the following AERO information handout. LAS will work with faculty and instructors to provide alternative formats for textbooks and course material.

Bookstore

Textbook Requests: Instructors are responsible for notifying the bookstore of their textbook needs for the upcoming semester. The bookstore will order, and make the textbooks available, for the students.
Requests for textbook information will come from an internal departmental contact. Instructors will receive an e-mail outlining:  the deadline to submit the textbook request form and the contact to whom the form should be returned.

If you do not intend to use a text book for your course, please respond to your departmental contact indicating this.

The following are the approximate deadlines for submitting textbook request forms:

  • Fall semester: Requests from your department will be circulated beginning of May. Ordering information is due to the departmental contact, by the beginning of June.
  • Winter semester: Requests from your department will be  mid to late Sept. Ordering information is due to departmental contact, within approx. 2 weeks
  • Summer semester: Request from your department will be circulated mid to late February.  Ordering  information is due departmental contact, within approx. 2 weeks.

The current contacts for the departments are:

  • Human Health and Nutritional Science: Andra Williams
  • Integrative Biology: Lori Ferguson
  • Molecular and Cellular Biology: Bertilla Moroni

Custom Courseware: If an instructor has any customized courseware needs to be sold at the bookstore, e.g. course manual, course pack, course reader, etc., the contact is Nicole Asselin, nasselin@uoguelph.ca.
Nicole is associated with the bookstore and will be able to help with your needs. If the custom work is new, it is suggested that the instructor submits it at least 4 -6 weeks prior to the start of the semester. If the custom work is the instructors own work, it can be turned out and printed for the semester in less time than 4 – 6 weeks, however more time is always appreciated to ensure the material is ready for the start of the semester.

Course Information

Course outlines

Prior to the opening of the course selection period, an instructor must provide a course outline to the department to be posted on the departmental website. It is not necessary to provide the final outline, however the following information should be available for the students:

  • Description of the course content
  • General format of the course
  • Evaluation structure

By the first class day of the semester (end of the first week of classes for DE courses), the instructor must provide, in a written hardcopy or electronic soft copy on the course website (Courselink), a completed course outline to the students. The outline should indicate all topics covered, contact information for the course instructor and teaching assistants, and the timing and methods of evaluation for the course.

The College of Biological Science is using the e-course outline tool, developed here at the University of Guelph. Instructors can access the course outlines through the e-outline tool. Instructors can use their central id and login to access the outline shell. 

Schedule of Dates

The Undergraduate Calendar for the upcoming year is normally posted in February. In the Undergraduate Calendar, you will find the Schedule of Dates for the upcoming year. The schedule indicates the start and end of semester, exam dates, deferred exams dates, convocation periods, course selection periods, last day to drop courses, etc.

Exams

Scheduling Midterm exams

The instructor for the course is responsible for scheduling their midterm exam. If the midterm is to be completed outside of class time, the instructor will need to contact scheduling at orsrooms@uoguelph.ca to request a room for the midterm. With the request for a room the following information should be included with the request:

  • Date Required
  • Time Required
  • Room Capacity Required
  • Campus Location or Building Preferred
  • Contact Person: Name, Phone, E-mail Address

Scheduling Final exams

In the semester prior to a course offering, instructors will receive an e-mail from Emma Currie requesting confirmation of their exam format:  a formal 2h hour final exam, a take home exam, or an alternate format for the final assessment. Regardless of format, the information must be communicated to the Registrar’s Office, through Emma Currie. 

Once confirmed, all sit down final exams will be scheduled by the Examination Coordinator, and the schedule posted on WebAdvisor under ‘Exam Information’. Instructors cannot specify a time or date of their final exam. The Examination Coordinator works to ensure that there are minimal conflicts for students registered in the courses.

Following the start of the semester, after exams have been scheduled, instructors will receive an e-mail from Emma Currie inquiring about specific room requirements for the final exam.      

Final exams may be scheduled on the first Saturday of the final exam period during the fall and winter exam periods.

Preparing for Final Exams

Instructors are responsible for printing their exams, and bringing scantron sheets and/or exam booklets if required. Copies of the scantron sheets and exam booklets can be obtained from departmental contacts listed below. Instructor must also take attendance at the exam and must provide invigilators.

  • HHNS: Main Office, 3rd Floor Animal and Poultry Science
  • IB: Lori Ferguson, Science Complex
  • MCB: Laleh Hatefi, Science Complex

Instructor must also take attendance at the exam. If the exam is in the Main Gym of the Athletic Centre, the examination coordinator will provide the attendance cards. For all other room locations the instructor is responsible for providing their own attendance cards or may use their classlist to take attendance. Instructors are welcome to use the University of Guelph attendance card available here.

Instructors will also be notified as to the number of exams that need to be provided to the Centre for Students with Disabilities. With the exams, the instructor should include all the same documents available in other locations.

Details regarding expected arrival time of the instructor and invigilators as well the number of invigilators required for the size of the class can be found in the Final Examination section of the Undergraduate calendar.

Missed Exams

If a student misses a final exam or assignment the instructor must complete an Incomplete Coursework Form (ICF) for each student. A copy of the form must be submitted with the final grades to the Chair of the department. Copies of these forms are then sent to the Registrar’s Office along with the final grades for the course.
The ICF form is available on the Registrar's Office website. 

Instructions on how to complete the ICF form are available on the attached ICF instructions document.

Deferred Exams

Deferred exams are granted by the Academic Review Committee and scheduled by the Examination Coordinator. The instructor will be notified of the number of copies of the exam they are required to submit to their departmental secretary for the deferred exam period. Instructors are encouraged to provide a new version of the exam for deferred exams.

The deferred exam schedule is set and invigilated by the Examination Coordinator, however the instructor should be available, and is encouraged to stop by the examination room during the deferred exam, in case any questions are posed by the student.

Once the exam is completed, it will be returned to the instructor to be graded. An instructor has 7 days to mark and submit the grade to the Chair of the department that offers the course. The Chair will review the grades, sign off on them, and submit them to the Registrar’s Office. The instructor submits an ‘Undergraduate Grade OR Grade Change’ form with the revised final grade. The form is available through Colleague Class Lists website.

The Registrar’s Office will once again be responsible for posting and releasing the grades to the student.

Extenuating Circumstances During an Exam

What to do if something happens during the exam, eg. academic misconduct or student is ill - For a suspected academic misconduct during an exam, the instructor should gather as much information regarding the situation, as discreetly as possible, while trying not to disrupt all students currently writing the exam. The instructor should note the time of the incident, what specifically the student(s) was doing or type of misconduct, and if possible note how much of the exam the student(s) had completed up to that point, as well as names of TAs or other invigilators who witnessed the incident. The instructor should also confirm the identity of the student(s) by obtaining their ID card(s). Following this, the instructor should discreetly notify the student(s), change the environment for the student(s), e.g. move the students apart who are speaking to each other or copying. 

The instructor must allow the student to complete the exam.

The student(s) may also be directed to speak with their Program Counsellor regarding the next steps. See above for information on how to report allegations of academic misconduct.

If a student is ill, but has not seen the exam, they should be told to go the Student Health Services to obtain documentation. Once they have the documentation they will need to submit it to their Program Counsellor, within 5 days of the exam, and request a deferred exam. 

If a student starts the exam, but then becomes ill to the point of not being able to complete the exam, the instructor should collect the exam and note the time that the student had to leave, the severity of the circumstances and note on the exam what the student had completed up to that point. The student should go to student health services to be assessed and for documentation. Following this the student should be directed to their Program Counsellor to discuss their options with regard to academic consideration.

Submitting Grades

Instructors are required to submit their final grades, 7 days after the completion of their final exam (not business days, 7 days in total). Grade submission is completed through the course website on Courselink.

Full details on how to submit final grades through Courselink is available through their on-line help.

Course Evaluations

Course evaluations are an integral part of the teaching, learning and course development process. The University provides an on-line course evaluation option for students to complete these surveys in an easy, secure environment. Please see the course evaluation website for information regarding how to sign up for the on-line evaluation system. To login to the website you will need a central id and password.

Instructors can also conduct course evaluations in-class.

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