4 Tutor Role and Responsibilities

Tutor role

Tutors support students online via e-mail and web-based discussion forums. Tutors are required to provide support to students in relation to module content; participate and fuel the student discussion forum; provide detailed feedback on continuous assessments; and return examination results to students and the programme administrator.

Preparation

Once appointed as a tutor to a module, prepare by doing the following:

• Read and review all of the module materials for tutors beginning with the Student Handbook and the Tutor Handbook. Particular focus is important on the Objectives, Research Questions, Review Questions, Discussion Questions and Assignments.
• Communicate with Programme Coordinator regarding the number of students enrolled in a class.

Tutor responsibilities

You will interact with students continually, from a few days before the start of the module to a few days after the completion of the module. This section summarises the key responsibilities of tutors, in terms of working with students:

Initial contact with students

A few days before the start of each module, you will be able to obtain a student roster on Blackboard. At this time, you should post an introduction of yourself and of the module in the discussion forum. Invite students to reply by introducing themselves. You may want to ask for some relevant, module-specific information from students in these initial postings – students become bored with posting straightforward introductions as the modules progress.

Tutor Expectations document

At the first online class a tutor introduces her/himself as a content expert in the subject (to build credibility) and as a person (to build community). You should post a personalised Tutor Expectations document, prior to the start of the module, in the discussion forum. This document includes your personal introduction, information about overall administration, as well as specific information regarding assignments and the discussion forum. A copy has been emailed to you, and can be found in the ‘Teaching Staff – Information and Resources’ module, under the ‘Information’ folder, and ‘Tutor Information Documents’.  Please tailor this document to suit the module you are facilitating. You can use this document to detail assignment deadlines, allocation of marks and your willingness or otherwise to accept late assignments. This is at your own discretion. You may apply a grade penalty to late submissions, usually 1% of the module for each day late, as long as this is clearly stated in the Tutor Expectations document. Also, if assignments are compulsory and the module cannot be passed without completing assignment work, this too should be clearly stated.

Grade assignments

During the module, students are required to submit assignments as detailed by you, which will be graded by you. Grades to students – It is essential that grading is returned within two weeks of the assessment deadline, and that it be accompanied by meaningful feedback to the student. This can be done on the Blackboard Grade Centre feature, this means that individual students can only see their own feedback and grades but not those of others.  Where a student fails an assignment or exam, tutors are required to correct the repeat submission, please contact Róisín for timelines around repeat assignments/exams.

In relation to Blackboard Grade Centre, it is important not to delete or rename columns, tutors may add columns but not change the final mark column, provisional mark column, or the course instance column as this effects marks extraction and return to the Exams Office.

Deal with student queries/problems

Occasionally, students may be unable to meet the deadlines which are set by you for submission of assignments, or even the final examination. If a student has ongoing problems meeting deadlines, or is considering leaving the course, please contact the Programme Coordinator to discuss the situation.

Set final examination paper

If your module includes an end of Semester exam, you will be required to set a unique final examination paper and a repeat examination paper. This needs to be accompanied by a brief marking scheme. These are reviewed by the External Examiner.

Provide preliminary grades

Throughout the module, and at the end of each module, you will provide students with grades for the various components of the final mark: assignments, discussion forum, final exam, etc. In addition, you must formally submit grades to the University at the end of each module using the spreadsheet provided by Niamh McHugh and Emma Court.

Tutor support

There are a variety of forms of support for tutors in the programme:

Programme Administration – Niamh McHugh and Emma Court.

If you have questions regarding student enrolments, textbooks, Blackboard or your payments, please contact Niamh or Emma who will work with you to answer your questions.

 Programme Coordinator – Róisín McCormack

The Programme Coordinator is available to answer questions and provide support to tutors. If you have questions regarding grading, suspected plagiarism, academic student queries, or personal issues that students may raise etc., please contact Róisín who will work with you, and others if required, to address the issues.