Teaching Policies & Resources

The UA Office of Instruction & Assessment (OIA) provides useful resources on teaching, teaching with technology, D2L, TCE, certificates in college teaching, and workshops & classes.

Academic Integrity/Cheating

Integrity and ethical behavior are expected of every student in all academic work. This Academic Integrity principle stands for honesty in all class work, and ethical conduct in all labs and clinical assignments.

See the Record of Student Faculty Conference online form.

For more information about violations, reporting, and sanctions, visit the Dean of Students.

Administrative Drop

Administrative drop is an instructor’s option, not an obligation. Instructors are not required to drop students who fail to attend class. Any student who intends to drop or withdraw from a course must do so following drop and withdrawal instructions. Students who are enrolled in a course but fail to attend class will receive an E grade in the course.

Information about Administrative Drop is available on Class Attendance, Participation, and Administrative Drop page.

Changing Final Grades

Consult the Grading Policy Manual, which explains petitions, appeals, miscalculations, etc. Within one (1) year of awarding the grade, final grades may be changed by the instructor only if there has been an error in computation. The grade change must be approved by the head of the instructor's department.

Class Attendance

Students are expected to be regular and punctual in class attendance. The University believes that students themselves are primarily responsible for attendance.

Instructors will provide students with written statements of their policies with respect to absences. Excessive or extended absence from class is sufficient reason for the instructor to recommend that the student be administratively dropped from the course.

For those courses in which enrollment is limited, missing the first class session may be interpreted as excessive absence. For more information, please visit the Class Attendance, Participation, and Administrative Drop page.

Class Rosters

Available through UAccess.

Disruptive Behavior

The university seeks to promote a teaching and learning environment free from material and substantial classroom disruptions.

Faculty members and teaching staff have the authority and responsibility to effectively manage their classroom environments. Instructors may determine the time and manner for student questions and expression of points of view in the instructional setting.

Accordingly, instructors should establish, communicate and enforce reasonable rules of classroom behavior and decorum via the syllabus and classroom discussion. This policy is not intended to discourage appropriate classroom expression, discussion or disagreement, but to promote respectful interactions.

• Policy on Disruptive Behavior in an Instructional Setting
• Disruptive and Threatening Student Guidelines

FERPA

The University of Arizona endorses and seeks to comply with all provisions of the “Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974,” as amended, and all pertinent regulations.

The purpose of this legislation was and is to afford students certain rights with regard to their respective education records. In essence, these rights are: (1) the right to inspect and review education records, (2) the opportunity to challenge the contents of education records, and (3) the right to exercise some control over the disclosure of information from education records.

For more information, visit the FERPA Tutorial.

FERPA: A View from Far and Near (PDF)

Final Exam Regulations

For more information, visit the Final Examination Regulations and Information page.

General Education Program information

The University-wide General Education Program helps every one of our graduates attain the fundamental skills and the broad base of knowledge and understanding that all college-educated adults must have, whatever their specific areas of concentration. Visit the University-Wide General Education web site for detailed information.

Grade Appeals

The basis for filing a grade appeal in an undergraduate course is limited to fundamental fairness in treatment of the student by the instructor, as specified by a syllabus conforming to the Undergraduate Course Syllabus Policy that is supplied to students at the beginning of the semester, and in light of grading of the student by the instructor relative to other students in the same course and section.

Issues that do not meet these criteria are not appropriate for an undergraduate grade appeal. Since graduate courses are not subject to a course syllabus policy, grades given in graduate courses may be appealed on the basis of fundamental fairness. For more information, visit the Class Attendance, Participation, and Administrative Drop page.

Grade Replacement Opportunity (GRO)

Grade Replacement Opportunity, GRO, offers students the ability to replace grades of C, D, and E by repeating the course. Only the grade from the repeat attempt will be used to calculate the grade point average. For details, see the GRO policy:

• GRO info and forms from the Registrar
• The Truth about the GRO

Grading Policies

For detailed information, visit the Grades and the Grading System page.

Honors College info for Faculty/Advisors

Instructors, advisors, and faculty who want to learn about the Honors College policies, contracts, requirements, etc., should visit the Honors College web site, which includes a link for Faculty and Advisors.

Honors Students in General Education Courses

Guidelines on Accommodations for Honors Students

The content of Honors academic work can include:

• Introduction to research methodologies and theories in the field; Exploration of primary sources such as major monographs, treatises, journals; Discussion of the nature and scope of current and past controversies among scholars;
• Experience using critical, analytic skills unique to the subject matter; Introduction to major contributors to the historical and current development of the field; Hands-on experience in the creative, scholarly process appropriate to the field; Practice and critique of written and oral communication skills. Information about Honors contracts may be obtained from The Honors College, 621-6901

Guidelines for Instruction of Honors Students

• The Honors component of Tier One and Tier Two courses must provide students with an enhanced learning experience, different qualitatively, rather than quantitatively, when compared to the experience of non-Honors students. Honors assignments should be different in kind, but comparable in number, to assignments given other students.
• The Honors component should involve a high level of faculty involvement. If a department is able to demonstrate that an advanced GAT can provide an enhanced experience, then the GAT may serve as the leader of an honors discussion section or an honors lab provided that there is periodic faculty involvement in meetings with the Honors students and in supervision of the GAT.
• The policy of The Honors College is that GATs cannot be the instructors of record in Honors courses at Tier One or Tier Two, nor can they sponsor Honors contracts.

Incomplete (I) Grade

The grade of I may be awarded only at the end of a term, when all but a minor portion of the course work has been satisfactorily completed.
The grade of I is not to be awarded in place of a failing grade or when the student is expected to repeat the course; in such a case, a grade other than I must be assigned. Students should make arrangements with the instructor to receive an incomplete grade before the end of the term.

For more information, visit the Incomplete (I) Grade page.

Panopto

Panopto is a presentation capture platform that allows you to capture, edit, stream, archive and share recordings. Faculty use Panopto to capture classroom interactions, lecture, presentations, student demonstrations and role-playing scenarios. It is also used to create learning modules to deliver ancillary content or pre-lecture information. Students view recordings from the Internet to review classroom content, assess their peers' work as well as their own, and create recordings for course work.

For more information, see the Panopto site from UITS and the Panopto site from OIA. For assistance with Panopto at LPL, contact Bert Orosco or Joshua Sosa.

Pass/Fail

For more information, visit the Pass/Fail Option page.

Publicly Posting Final Grades

For more information, visit the Publicly Posting Final Grades page.

Submitting Grades

Grades are submitted using UAccess. Grades are due 48 hours after the final exam.

Syllabus Policy (Graduate)

The following elements are minimally required in a syllabus for a Graduate Level class.

1. The name, title, availability and contact information of the primary instructor(s) and other members of the instructional team.
2. A description of the course content, goals and objectives.
3. A clear and precise description of the workload expectations and course requirements for the class.
4. A description of the grading scale and how student work will be evaluated.
5. A statement of any special policies for this specific class as determined by the instructor (e.g. attendance, participation, limitations on the use of electronic devices, etc.).
6. A statement that the workload and course requirements are subject to change at the discretion of the instructor with proper notice to the students.

The following elements are recommended but not required for a syllabus for a Graduate Level class:

1. A list or schedule of topics or readings, if appropriate.
2. A list of links for special resources for students (see attached template for a suggested example).
3. A list of links about University Policies and student rights, responsibilities and accommodations (see attached template for an example).

The syllabus is not limited to these required and recommended components. See Resource Links and Best Practices for Graduate Syllabi for links and additional information on instructional support and constructing effective syllabi. In classes that are co-convened with undergraduate classes (400/500-level classes), the instructor may either have a single syllabus for the jointly convened class or separate syllabi for the graduate and undergraduate offerings. If a single syllabus is used it must meet the requirements of both the Undergraduate and Graduate syllabus policies and must clearly distinguish between graduate and undergraduate requirements and workload expectations.

Syllabus Policy (General Education)

Syllabus Policy (Undergraduate)

For more information, see the Undergraduate Course Syllabus Policy.

Teacher Course Evaluations (TCEs)

Teacher Course Evaluations (TCEs) are conducted each semester. For more information about the process and forms, and to access your reports and evaluations, visit the Teacher-Course Evaluation web site

Teaching Teams

This collaborative unit works together to provide multiple levels of support both inside and outside the classroom to help students construct their own knowledge (active learning), develop fundamental skills necessary for academic and professional success, and build confidence working with the course material.

The specific activities of peer assistants on teaching teams depend wholly on the participating instructors who adapt this PAL model to their curricula. For example, an instructor with a writing-intensive course may utilize the team to offer assistance specific to writing (e.g., peer-reviews, writing workshops), while a science instructor may utilize the team to support hands-on research projects both within and outside regular class sessions.

For more information, visit the Teaching Teams web site.

Threatening Behavior by Students

For more information:

• Policy on Disruptive Behavior in an Instructional Setting
• Disruptive and Threatening Student Guidelines

TurnItIn.com

TurnItIn is a comprehensive plagiarism prevention system that lets instructors check all of your students’ work in a fraction of the time necessary to scan a few suspect papers using a search engine. Every paper submitted is returned in the form of a customized Originality Report. Results are based on exhaustive searches of billions of pages from both current and archived instances of the internet, millions of student papers previously submitted to Turnitin, and commercial databases of journal articles and periodicals.

TurnItIn.com at the UA is integrated with D2L. Students upload their assignments to the "Dropbox" on D2L and are automatically sent to TurnItIn.com. Be sure that the "Plagiarism Detection" feature ie enabled on the Dropbox folder properties when you create the Dropbox. Request a D2L course site on the D2L Help web site.

Useful links:

• TurnItIn Plagiarism Detection Software
• Resources for Identifying, Preventing and Dealing with Plagiarism

Remember to use a syllabus statement letting students know that their work will be reviewed using turnitin. Sample statement:

"The instructor reserves the right to utilize electronic means to help prevent plagiarism. Students agree that by taking this course, all assignments are subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com. Assignments submitted to Turnitin.com will be included as source documents in Turnitin.com's restricted access database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism in such documents."(source: U. of Alabama, Salmon Library).

Withdrawal from the University

For more information:

• Office of the Registrar
• Graduate Student Withdrawal
• Withdrawal Grades