Department Administration

Policies and Procedures

This memo is concerned with instructional policies and procedures in the Department of English and the University as a whole. Updates AY-08-09 are noted and include new contact information as well as a new recommendation to include a statement on your syllabus regarding our class cancellation policy.

Things No Syllabus Should Be Without: i. Plagiarism Statement, ii. Absence Statement, iii. Disability Statemen); iv. Class Cancellation Policy
Enrollment and Disenrollment Policies
Student Evaluations of Teaching
Incompletes and Change of Grades
Retaining Student Papers
GEC Courses

If you have further questions about these policies, or questions about others that are not addressed here, please contact Manuel Martinez, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Martinez.202@osu.edu

Things No Syllabus Should Be Without
1. Plagiarism Statement
  The following statement needs to appear on every university syllabus, although faculty are free to add details of their own:
  "It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to investigate or establish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academic misconduct. The term "academic misconduct" includes all forms of student academic misconduct wherever committed; illustrated by, but not limited to, cases of plagiarism and dishonest practices in connection with examinations. Instructors shall report all instances of alleged academic misconduct to the committee (Faculty Rule 3335-5-487). For additional information, see the Code of Student Conduct."
  
  You might also mention, either in the syllabus directly or in your opening remarks, that plagiarism via the internet is not only dishonest, it's also liable to be caught. Paper assignments, if they are clear and course-specific, don't match well with what's available on the net, and search engines on the net make detection of plagiarism as easy as plagiarism itself. For more on university policies concerning plagiarism, including information on what to do when you suspect a case of plagiarism, see the OAA Web site or ask the Director for a copy of that information.
2. Absence Statement
  Make sure that your syllabus has a clear statement regarding excused and unexcused absences, and that you apply it in a consistent way. Your absence policy can be tailored to fit each particular course, and should be one that you are comfortable with, but it must be in the syllabus for it to carry any weight. Without a clear and consistently applied absence policy, a grade based on missed absences can be overturned. Also note that it is important to keep accurate records of when a student is late or absent from class.
3. Disability Statement
  Federal law requires that the Office for Disability Services be mentioned on all our syllabi. The following statement about disability services also needs to appear:
  "Students with disabilities that have been certified by the Office for Disability Services will be appropriately accommodated, and should inform the instructor as soon as possible of their needs. The Office for Disability Services is located in 150 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Avenue; telephone 292-3307, TDD 292-0901; OSU Office for disability Services Web Site."
4. Class Cancellation Policy
  It happens on occasion that instructors must be absent from a scheduled class. When such absences can be anticipated (such as when you are traveling on university business), it is your responsibility to arrange in advance for a colleague to meet your class, carry out a lesson plan that you have prepared, and collect or return student work. When it is more difficult to anticipate an absence (such as in the case of illness or injury), it is your responsibility to communicate effectively to students the message that class has been canceled. In these cases, please take the following steps:
Enrollment and Disenrollment Policies
It can be very frustrating to have students appear for the first time in the second week of class, saying that they’ve been added by SIS or by a College adviser. Your reaction may be to tell them that it is too late for them to be in your course, but the University policy is to allow students to add any class that has not reached its enrollment ceiling from a waiting list through the first week of the quarter, with or without the instructor’s permission. This means that a student may add your course on Friday of the first week, even though he or she will already have missed the first full week of instruction.

The policy on disenrollment (Rule 3335-7-33, reprinted in the beginning of the Course Offerings Bulletin) states that an instructor may disenroll a student from a course only after the student has registered:

… after the third instructional day of the quarter, semester, session, or term, the first Friday of the quarter, or the student’s second scheduled class session of the course, whichever occurs first, (and) the student fails to attend the scheduled course without giving prior notification to the instructor. Under this paragraph, no student may be disenrolled from a course until after the first course meeting following the student’s registration. When the department elects to use this procedure, the instructor, the chairperson, or other appropriate administrative official shall notify the student’s enrollment unit. The enrollment unit will notify the student and take appropriate action to remove the student from the course.

So if a student’s name appears on your original roster and but he/she doesn’t show up for classes, you may disenroll that student after the second class session. But if students legitimately add your class through SIS by Friday of Week 1, you may not disenroll them unless they then fail to come to the first class meeting of Week 2. The further implication of this is that instructors cannot count as absences any classes missed before the student registered for the course, nor assignments as late that were due before the student registered for the course (that is, possibly through the first full week of the quarter). Obviously this is not completely satisfactory, and you can certainly make it clear to students that they will be expected to complete all assignments for the course and meet all subsequent deadlines. But there are many legitimate reasons why students, in trying to negotiate the University’s bureaucracy and often finding themselves closed out of courses, may need to add your course late. We need to be at least minimally accommodating and cannot refuse to admit them if they have added your course within the allowable time period.
Rule 7-33 also provides for disenrollment of a student for disruptive behavior. The relevant paragraph reads:

After investigation, including consultation with the instructor and the student in question, and utilizing other university resources, as desirable, the chairperson (or other appropriate administrative official) may disenroll a student for a course if the student presents a clear and present threat of bodily harm or injury to the instructor or fellow students, or, after warning, continues to engage in disruptive conduct, either of which results in impairment of teaching or learning processes.

Any instructor who believes that such a situation exists in their classroom should see the Director of Undergraduate Studies immediately
Student Evaluations of Teaching
Discursive student evaluations are an essential part of your performance review. Every instructor should provide students with an opportunity to complete written (i.e., discursive) evaluations of every course taught. This is a guideline built into Faculty Rules (3335-3-35), obscured somewhat by being placed under the heading of "Duties of the Chair" -
To promote improvement of instruction by providing for the evaluation of each course when offered, including written evaluation by students of the course and instructors, and periodic course review by the faculty.

This rule is repeated in an extended discussion of "Evaluation of Teaching" in the OSU Instructional Guidebook as well as in the Department of English’s Pattern of Administration (again under duties of the chair). Some courses (110, for example) have their own evaluation forms; others leave it up to the instructor to develop an evaluation form. There are a couple of generic ones on the web that you can use if you would like. In general, make sure that your evaluation form has a place for the student to comment on the instructor’s performance. It is also recommended, though not required, that instructors use the University’s SEI forms. (All faculty should use them).

You should also assure students that you will not read their evaluations until after grades have been turned in for the course. To guarantee this, you should not be in the room when they write evaluations and you should not collect them yourself. Give the students twenty minutes to do the evaluations at the beginning of the class, to make sure they have an opportunity to respond fully, and ask them to write in ink, to avoid problems with photocopying. Designate a student to collect evaluations and take them from the room to the appropriate place.

All SEI's (Student Evaluation of Instruction) will be administered electronically starting AU09. The SEI Administrator will contact you with instructions. For your own or a Departmental discursive evaluation, you should provide a Campus Mailing envelope, clearly marked as course evaluations for your course (with your name and course number), that a student can return directly to 421 Denney. Writing Workshop evaluations should be addressed to Del Hall, English 110 evaluations should be addressed to Carolyn Wilkins, English 367 evaluations should be addressed to Jim Fredal, Graduate evaluations to Kathleen Griffin, and all other evaluations to Debra Lowry. These evaluations will be retained by the Department until you turn grades in (for graduate seminars you will need to hand in graduate reports), at which time you can collect them, or they will be put into your mailbox at the beginning of the subsequent quarter. In the case of evening classes, when 421 Denney is closed, simply address your campus envelope to the appropriate person in 421 Denney and have the student drop it in a Campus Mailbox. Once you retrieve your evaluations, you should keep them as part of your permanent file.
Incompletes and Change of Grades
For incompletes, consult the opening pages of the Course Offerings Bulletin or Faculty Rule 3335-7-21. In general, incompletes should be given only when the student has completed a major portion of the work for a course and the instructor feels the student has provided legitimate reasons for extending the deadline for the remainder of the course requirements. This also implies that, usually, the request for an incomplete is initiated by the student and not awarded automatically by the instructor. If an incomplete is given, you must also record an alternate grade, representing the grade the student should receive if no further work is submitted. Make-up work should be submitted in time for the instructor to submit the revised grade by the end of the sixth week of the subsequent quarter. At this time, if no make-up grade is submitted, the alternate grade will automatically be entered for the student. If, through consultation with the student, an instructor feels an extension beyond the sixth-week deadline is warranted, an extension of the incomplete must be submitted before the deadline. This form requires the instructor’s signature and the new deadline. Forms for changing and for extending incomplete deadlines are available from the receptionist in 421 Denney; they must be forwarded to Valarie Williams, Associate Dean for Curriculum, Arts & Humanities, for review and further processing.

For grade changes, see Faculty Rule 3335-7-23 ("Alteration of Marks"), also duplicated in the opening pages of the Course Offerings Bulletin. The important points here are that a grade "is subject to change only when a procedural error has been discovered in evaluation or recording of a grade," and that "action to change a grade must be initiated before the end of the second succeeding quarter." A change of grade requires the signed approval of the instructor and the Dean of the College. Changes will be denied unless it is clear that the basis is a procedural error; you cannot, for instance, file a Change of Grade form on the basis of work submitted late. The principle at work here is that uniform grading standards must be applied to all students in a course. Change-of-grade forms are available from the receptionist: they must be forwarded to Valarie Williams, Associate Dean for Curriculum, Arts & Humanities, for review, approval and further processing.
Retaining Student Papers
Papers cannot be left in boxes outside instructors’ offices for students to pick up after the end of the quarter, and grades can only be posted on or outside office doors under special circumstances. Doing otherwise is a violation of law as well as policy. Here’s what the OSU Instructional Guidebook says:

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) places legal restraints on the release of student records, including grades. Without the express consent of the student, grades may not be posted or announced in a manner that allows personal identification of the student. Thus, in most cases, posting grades by first or last names, initials, or social security numbers is not permitted under FERPA. Grades may be posted by a number or other symbol known only to the student and you. Furthermore, in an effort to maintain confidentiality, it is not advisable to leave exams, quizzes, or papers outside of your office to be picked up by students.

As to "retention or disposal of materials submitted to meet course requirements" Rule 3335-7-231 states:
1. Materials submitted by a student to satisfy course requirements shall either be returned to the student or made available for the student’s inspection, after they have been marked or otherwise evaluated, before the end of the quarter, semester, session, or term in which the work is performed or, in the case of final projects and final examinations, no later than the fourteenth day of instruction of the following quarter [...].
2. Materials of this kind which have not been returned to the student shall be retained by the academic unit or the individual instructor until the last day on which a grade change may be initiated as provided for in paragraph (A) of rule 3335-7-23 of the Administrative Code [i.e., "the end of the second succeeding quarter"].
Simply put, don’t leave papers in the hall, but keep student papers for the next two quarters; materials may be carried to the department office for disposal (shredding) at the appropriate time. Grade books should be kept indefinitely.
GEC Courses
Instructors teaching courses with GEC status need to include a brief statement on their syllabus indicating which GEC categories the course satisfies and about how the course fulfills the GEC-related goals and objectives. The statements below about GEC course goals/rationales and learning objectives are from the ASC Committee on Curriculum and Instruction.
Here are the relevant GEC categories and the English courses that fulfill them:
Category 1.A. Writing and Related Skills
1.A(1). First Course
English 110.01, 110.02, 110.03 (110)
1.A(2) Second Course
English 367.01#, 367.02#, 367.03#, 367.04, 367.05#, 367.06, 367.07
Goals/Rationale: Writing and Related skills coursework develops students’ skills in written communication and expression, reading, critical thinking, and oral expression:
1. Students apply basic skills in expository writing.
2. Students demonstrate critical thinking through written and oral expression.
3. Students retrieve and use written information analytically and effectively.
Category 2.C. Arts and Humanities
2.C(1) Literature
English 201*, 202*, 220*, 260, 261, 262, 275, 280, 281# 290, 291
2.C(2) Visual/Performing Arts
English 263, 269
2.C(3) Cultures and Ideas
English H167, 264, 270, 271, 276, 277, 364, 478
Goals/Rationale: Students evaluate significant writing and works of art. Such studies develop capacities for aesthetic and historical response and judgment; interpretation and evaluation; critical listening, reading, seeing, thinking and writing; and experiencing the arts and reflecting on that experience.
1. Students develop abilities to be informed observers or active participants in the visual spatial, performing, spoken, or literary arts.
2. Students describe and interpret creative work, and/or movements in the arts and literature.
3. Students explain how works of art and writings explore the human condition.
Category 5. Capstone: Issues of the Contemporary World
English 597
Goals/Rationale: By drawing upon multiple disciplines, Issues of the Contemporary World coursework provides a capstone experience that helps students attain and enrich their experiences of the increasingly global nature of the contemporary world.
1. Students synthesize and apply knowledge from diverse disciplines to contemporary issues.
2. Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationships between information derived from different disciplines by interacting with students from different majors.
3. Students write about or conduct research on the contemporary world.
Key to symbols:
Courses marked # also fulfill GEC category 4.1 Diversity: Social Diversity in the United States.
Goals/Rationale: Courses in Social Diversity foster students’ understanding of the pluralistic nature of institutions, society, and culture in the United States.
1. Students describe the roles of such categories as race, gender, class, ethnicity, and religion in the pluralistic institutions and cultures of the United States.
2. Students recognize the role of social diversity in shaping their own attitudes and values retarding appreciation, tolerance, and equality of others.
Courses marked with an * also fulfill GEC category 4.2 Diversity: International Issues western (non-United States).
Goals/Rationale: The purpose of courses in this category is to help students become educated, productive, and principled citizens of their nation and the world.
1. Students exhibit an understanding of political, economic, cultural, physical, and social differences among the nations of the world, including a specific examination of non-Western culture.