Teaching Resources

Pursuant to policy T20.01 section 2.2, at least two weeks before registration, instructors are responsible for providing the Department Chair with a course outline and a statement setting out the course requirements and how these will relate to course grades. Instructors with a teaching assignment in the current semester are able to post their own course outlines for the next semester (login to outlines.sfu.ca with your SFU Computing ID and password). View instructions.

Sessional Instructors can send the course outlines to edugpa@sfu.ca to post on their behalf.

Your outline should include the following:

• Course Details
• Course-level Educational Goals
  
• Grading
• Note
• Requirements
• Materials
• Materials and Supplies
• Required Reading
• Recommended Reading

Previous course outlines used for your course can be obtained from the Outlines website or from Undergraduate Programs. Older outlines are available in the archives.

If possible, when choosing your texts, check with the publisher to ensure the texts you are using are still in print. This will alleviate problems and last-minute substitutions. Please phone the SFU Bookstore (778-782-3656) to obtain the names and hone numbers of publishers or the name and phone number of a publisher's local representative.

List of publishers' contacts

Canvas (Learning Management System)

We encourage you to set up an account with Canvas for your course. You can use Canvas to provide information to your students, such as the course syllabus, class discussions, other website links and readings.

If you are not familiar with setting up the course shell on Canvas, the setup instructions and a FAQ that covers most of the essentials can be found on the guide for instructors.

For an overview of Canvas or if you have any questions, please email educ-tech@sfu.ca.

Using Zoom at SFU

Faculty and staff can use Zoom free of charge with their SFU computing ID. View set up instructions and tech support.

Many Online Learning Hub (OL) courses have master course shells that have been set up for new instructors to clone into their own instance to update according to their preferences. If you require access to the master course shell please contact Sarah Lison, Online Learning Hub administrator (slison@sfu.ca).

You will need your SFU ID and password to access your rosters. Access to the class roster will not be available until your contract begins. To activate your SFU ID go to SFU Computing Account Activation and enter your employee number and birth date. (If you were an SFU student, then your SFU number is your employee number, if not then contact our office.)

Next, log onto go.sfu.ca and enter your SFU Computing ID and password. After logging into the information system, click on the 'Self-Service' option in the left hand menu. This should open up to show more options. Find the 'Faculty Centre' hyperlink towards the bottom of the left hand menu. Click the link and the Faculty Centre should open up.

Step by step instructions for accessing your class and grade rosters can be found here. Please log in using your SFU Computing ID and password.

Access to the grade roster will not be available until the end of the semester.

Students will often email instructors to request enrolment into their course. Enrolment is by default the responsibility of the student, but in exceptional circumstances, Undergraduate Programs can manually enrol a student (all requests must be sent to educuga@sfu.ca). As the office becomes inundated with requests during enrolment, please note the enrolment policies before forwarding any requests:

1. Undergraduate Programs cannot enrol students into courses that are full. If a student wishes to enrol in a course that is full, they will need to place themselves on the waitlist. If the waitlist is full, they will need to monitor it for space on goSFU.
2. Prerequisite waivers can be granted by the instructor if the student presents a clear rational on how they have either completed coursework equivalent to the prerequisite or have significant previous practical experience in the subject area. It is at the instructor's discretion if they can grant a prerequisite waiver and they are not obligated to do so. Instructors should cc educuga@sfu.ca in an email granting a student a waiver. Once students who meet the prerequisite requirements can enrol, Undergraduate Programs will add the student to the course or the waitlist, if there is space available.
3. The waitlists will continue to run until the end of Week 1 of the semester. While waitlists are active, any available seats are filled by waitlist order automatically. Barring any extenuating circumstances that affect the student’s academic program (if the student has a valid circumstance, they should be directed to an Education advisor), the student can either join the waitlist or remain on it if they wish to enrol.
4. After Week 1, the waitlists no longer run, and students can only be enroled manually by Undergraduate Programs. Instructors have the discretion to decide if enrolment after Week 1 is permitted. Instructors who do not permit Week 2 enrolment should notify Undergraduate Programs at educuga@sfu.ca. If a late enrolment request is granted, an email should be sent to them containing the authorization with educuga@sfu.ca cc’d. These requests will be gathered and processed in order of the waitlist. It is important to communicate to the student that the granted permission does not ensure automatic enrolment. The student's attendance in the first class should be considered before responding to the request.
5. Students cannot be enroled in courses past Week 2, barring extraordinary circumstances. Week 3 enrolment requires the permission of the instructor and program director. If the request is warranted, please email the program director for consideration.

During the first week of the semester, students can swap tutorials themselves through goSFU. If a tutorial is full, they are encouraged to waitlist or check again until space is available. Starting from the second week, students will require permission from the instructor to switch tutorials or to swap tutorials with another student in the class. It is at the instructor's discretion whether to permit switching or admit a student to a course or tutorial that is already full. Other factors such as room capacity and class size will also be considered before the request is granted or rejected. Students are only permitted to attend their registered tutorial and may not sit in another section.

If you must cancel a scheduled class, please contact the Undergraduate Programs at edugpa@sfu.ca as early as possible, so that appropriate signs can be posted to advise students. A full list of program administrators is available via the staff directory. 

The following applies to all courses taught by faculty members.

Courses in the Faculty of Education participate in the Student Evaluation of Teaching and Courses (SETC) online course evaluation system. More Information regarding SETC.

Around week 6 of class, you will receive emails with support materials from the implementation team to your SFU email account. The online system will consist of institution wide questions, department (Faculty of Education) wide questions and 4 instructor context questions. You will have a choice of compiling your own instructor questions from the question bank or creating your own. Separate emails will be sent in week 10 of class for details.

Students are able to access the course evaluations in the last 2 weeks of class from the email link they receive, from Canvas, or logging onto https://sfu.bluera.com/sfu. This is all done automatically by the Blue System so there is no need for the instructor to upload or post anything to Canvas. Instructors should give time to students during class to finish the evaluations online. The instructor’s evaluation report will be available at the end of the first week of the subsequent semester. Another email will be sent with a link to access your report. Your access to the evaluation will be granted through your SFU Computing ID and password. A pdf version can be saved after you log in. Saving the report in pdf is crucial as you may not have access to the evaluation report after your contract ends.

All communications will be sent by email to your SFU email account. If you are not checking it regularly, it is strongly suggested that you forward your SFU emails to the email account that you use. View instructions.

For guidelines on grading, refer to the Guidelines for Grading in Undergraduate Courses memo that is attached to the SI and TA offer email.

All grades must be entered online through the SFU Student Information Management System (SIMS). You must have an active SFU Computing ID to access your class roster.

To activate your SFU ID:

1. Go to SFU Computing Account Activation,
   
2. Enter your employee number and birth date. (If you were an SFU student, then your SFU number is your employee number, if not then contact our office.)

To enter grades in SIMS:

1. Log onto go.sfu.ca and enter your SFU ID and password.
   
2. Click on the 'Self-Service' option in the left-hand menu. This should open to show more options.
   
3. Click the 'Faculty Centre' hyperlink towards the bottom of the left-hand menu and the Faculty Centre should open.

Remember to ‘SAVE’ your grades after inputting. Review and then set to ‘Ready for Review’ and ‘SAVE’ again.

Grades are NOT final until the director has approved them. Please remember that students will be able to access their grades once they have been approved and sent to Student Services, where they will be posted to go.sfu.ca. The Undergraduate Programs office staff is not able to give out any grade information to students.

Grade Change

Grade Changes are completed through the Grade Change e-form on go.sfu.ca.  For information and training see:  www.sfu.ca/students/source/gradechange.

Sessionals who have an expired contract will need to contact Undergraduate Programs to initiate a grade change.

To submit a grade change form:

1. Login to go.sfu.ca
2. Click on the Grade Change tab (next to Faculty Center)
3. Click on Instructor - Grade Change Form
4. Click on Grade Roster for the appropriate course
5. Click on Grade Change for the appropriate student
6. Using the drop-down menus, select the appropriate reason and revised grade
7. In the text box add reason for the grade change
8. Click submit and confirm that you want to submit the change (at which point it will go to the director of Undergraduate Programs for approval)

If you have any questions or get stuck along the way, please don't hesitate to contact Undergraduate Programs at edugpa@sfu.ca.

Deferred Grades

Deferred grades are due from the instructor at the end of the first week of classes of the following semester. A DE grade will automatically change to an N in the first week of classes of following semester if no Change of Grade notification (done by online Grade Change procedure above) is submitted.

Keeping track of students with deferred grades and submitting the final grade is the instructor’s responsibility. When granting a DE request, it is crucial to be clear about your expectations and timeline for the student to complete all outstanding requirements.

Extended Deferred Grades

These are requested in the a letter (or email) from the instructor to the director.

Final Grade Appeals

The student is advised to first contact the instructor to resolve the issue. If no successful resolution is reached, the next step is a written appeal to the Director. Additional information. 

Recruitment of off-campus resource personnel should only occur when faculty or university staff are not available to meet the occasion's needs.

In all cases, members of the faculty's instructional staff must have written approval from Undergraduate Programs before making any commitments to resource people. If the request is approved, a gift may be purchased (no alcohol). Please contact the Undergraduate Programs manager.

As per the Copyright Act, instructors at Simon Fraser University must follow specific guidelines when using copyright protected material in their class. Information regarding the use of copyright material by instructors can be found on their page.