Course Policies for Faculty & Staff

Unless a student is intentionally exploring the idea of remix and/or appropriation, students should avoid using copyrighted material in their creative work. Students should be encouraged to create their own media assets (imagery, sound, etc.).

“Double Dipping” or submitting the same work (paper, project, etc.) for multiple classes is prohibited and is a violation of the CU Honor Code http://honorcode.colorado.edu. In extremely rare circumstances, this is allowable with consent and approval from both instructors and if the scope of the work is increased to reflect multiple courses.

You should make the syllabus available to every student on the first day of class. Your syllabus should be robust and specific, letting the students know exactly what portion of their grade will come from projects, written assignments, labs, exams, etc. CU Boulder provides a recommended text for syllabi each semester which can be found here.

Responding to student emails within 24 hours on weekdays, 48 hours on weekends, will help to alleviate concerns and improve FCQs.

Typically CTD classes require more outside class work than typical courses. Typically a CU Boulder Undergraduate student can expect to spend around 2 hours outside of class for every hour within class. We have found that for CTD courses, students should expect to spend at least 3 hours outside of class for every hour within class. We encourage faculty to include this advisement within their syllabi.

Most of the CTD courses are studio based, and as such it is expected that students have some in-class time dedicated to working on their projects. While we encourage the addition of lab/work time, faculty should limit lab/work time to no more than 10% of the overall class schedule. CTD tutors hold regular walk-in hours to provide additional support for outside work-time.

The ability to express oneself in written form is a crucial skill within digital media. We encourage faculty to include written assignments into their curriculum.

At the undergraduate level, students should be using citations and/or bibliographies within their written work. As CTD is an interdisciplinary program, we encourage faculty to accept the citation standard from the student’s primary field of study. Faculty should require that at least half of the sources for any given paper are peer-reviewed.

While we encourage students to look at and adapt existing code examples, using someone else’s code as your own is considered plagiarism. Students should provide citations when using other people’s code, and must be able to clearly explain all the code within a project.

Undergraduate students should be able to write an academic paper with minimal structural, organizational or grammatical issues. If a student turns in a paper with egregious problems, the faculty member can refuse to grade the paper until it is reworked to an acceptable level. Faculty can also recommend that the students find help at the Writing Center: http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/writingcenter.html.

All students are expected to read and write English at a college level. If a students is struggling within writing in the English language, encourage them to workshops their paper at the Writing Center: http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/writingcenter.html.

TA’s are typically only provided for class sizes over 50 students. The TA’s primary function is typically to lead labs/recitations, grade papers and exams, and assess class participation and responses (on blogs, wikis, etc. if applicable). All TA’s must attend class regularly and are encouraged to provide a guest lecture on his/her research or area of expertise.

http://www.colorado.edu/ftep/

Teaching a new class can be a daunting experience. If you are teaching a course for the first time, there are other instructors within CTD who can function as your “buddy” to offer resources, advice and guidance. Contact the BS-CTD Director to get set up with a buddy.