PTL Guide

Getting Acquainted with Rutgers-Camden

A Guide for Part-Time and Full-Time Faculty in Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice

Professor Robert Wood

Getting Settled (mainly for PTLs)
Course Resources for All Faculty

Getting Settled (PTLs)

Our friendly and efficient departmental secretary, Sherry Pisacano, will probably be your most important Rutgers contact. Located in our new building at 405-7 Cooper Street (entrance however is from the campus side through the back porch seen above), she oversees the process of helping PTLs get settled. The office phone is 856-225-6470.

Office	Office space for PTLs in our new building is much better than it was in Armitage. Currently we have three offices for PTLs: 103, 104, and 206, which are shared by about ten PTLs. Please post office hours on your syllabus or have some arrangement with students about meeting you outside of class. See Sherry about the password for your PTL office computer.
Key	Keys may be picked up from the department secretary. You will receive an exterior door key, as well as an office key that also works for the department office and workroom, the (future) computer room, the (future) second floor student lounge, and the basement seminar room. If you use your key to enter the building when it is not formally open, be sure to make sure that the door remains locked.
Phone	The PTL offices do have phones, but we must ask that you keep long-distance calls to a minimum (we will bill you for excessive use). The numbers are 225-2718 for Room 103; 225-2709 for Room 104, and 225-2917 for room 206. The department Fax number is 856-225-6435.
Parking	Parking is one of the few real perks for part-timers at Rutgers-Camden: currently $18 for the year or $9.00 for the fall semester, a substantial discount from the rate full-time faculty and students pay. You will receive information about parking with your contract letter from the Associate Dean's office.
Campus ID & Library Privileges	To obtain a Rutgers ID and library privileges, pick up a form from our department secretary and fill it out and get the necessary signature from her or the department chair. Then go to the Impact Booth on the first floor of the Campus Center to get your photo id card, which will also give you library privileges. For some purposes, you will be asked to provide the number under the bar code on the back of your card. For faculty, books taken out are due at the end of the semester. At the Rutgers University Libraries website, you may use IRIS to order both books and articles online (copies of articles in periodicals not available online or on the Camden campus are free). The library website provides links to a large variety of bibliographic databases, many of which include full-text options. You must have established a "crab" username (also known as your "net id") and password on the Rutgers computer system to access most library resources; log in using your net id and password by clicking on the button towards the upper left corner of the library page.
Computer Account and Email	If you wish, you may establish a Rutgers computer account, which enables you to use the computers in smart classrooms and student labs, to send and receive email, to upload web and other materials on to the crab server, and to dial in to Rutgers for internet access from home. Once you are in the Rutgers payroll system, you may create your crab account online. Rutgers mail can also be accessed via the web from anywhere using WebMail. Ann Bilbrough in BSB 121 handles most account issues. Office computer support for the college is provided by Harold Winshel and his staff. Having a Rutgers computer account also allows you to access class rosters and to enter warning and final grades (see below). You may also access the full range of Rutgers library resources from your home. See our Library Resources Online webpage for details most relevant to our students and faculty.

Course Support Resources for All Faculty

We are a strongly teaching-oriented department and in recent years we have worked together to bring greater integration and cross-course skill-building to our curriculum. Our web-enhanced curriculum has gained national recognition in ASA Footnotes and Innovate: Journal of Online Education.

Department Website and Web-Enhanced Curriculum	Please familiarize yourself with our department website at http://sociology.camden.rutgers.edu. Our website is organized around two main pages, the department homepage, which has links to faculty descriptions, course schedule, online syllabi, etc. and a "Web-Enhanced Curriculum Homepage," which provides a variety of resources for faculty to use in their courses. These range from instructions for using MicroCase and Excel to policies and guidelines on plagiarism, proper citation, standard table format, etc. We encourage you to refer students to these resources when appropriate. An article on our web-enhanced curriculum in Innovate: Journal of Online Education, which provides an overview of what we have tried to accomplish (free registration at the site required).
Online Rosters and Grades	Rosters may be accessed from the Faculty/Staff Online Services webpage, using your net id and your password. You may also enter warning grades and final grades online this way. Sherry Pisacano is in charge of setting up permissions; contact her if you run into a problem. Consult the online Academic Calendar for details about any given semester. Grades given at Rutgers are A, B+, B, C+, D and F. Give a TZ for a student who never came to class or stopped coming. Only give an incomplete if you have made an arrangement with a student to complete it by the incomplete deadline: Feb. 1 for the fall semester; Feb. 15 for winterim; June 1 for the spring semester; and Sept. 15 for summer sessions. After those dates the grade will turn to an F unless the instructor and student have agreed in writing to an extension. Forms for deadline extensions can be printed from the following website: http://registrar.rutgers.edu/CM/incextUngrad.htm. They must be signed by the student and instructor and then given to the department chair for approval. Approved forms are then forwarded to the dean for signature, after which they are filed with the registrar's office. Thus, be sure to initiate the paperwork for the extension well in advance of the normal deadline to ensure that it is processed before the grade converts to an F automatically.
Stop Points & Special Permission Numbers	All courses have a "stop point" at which the online registration system prevents students from adding the course. The system also rejects students who lack the necessary prerequisites. At the discretion of the instructor, both of these things can be overridden via "special permission numbers" which allow students enroll in the class regardless. You may pick up a sheet of special permission numbers from Sherry to give out, or you may send students to her with a written note requesting one for the student.
Ordering Books	Because of difficulties many of us have countered with electronic submission of book orders at the Follett University District Bookstore, we recommend that you provide our secretary with the necessary information (book author and title, edition, publisher, ISBN). She will then fax the information to the bookstore. You can subsequently check on what the bookstore has ordered by following the links for students for purchasing texts.
Ordering Films and Videos	Rutgers maintains a substantial film and video collection at the Kilmer Library on the New Brunswick campus. Films may be ordered online and must be picked up at the circulation desk at the Paul Robseon Library. To search the video/film archive, go to IRIS and click on "Advanced Search," using the drop-down menu to select "visual materials" under "Format." The library also has posted video guides by subject area. Virtually all classrooms in Armitage and Fine Arts have built-in VHS/DVD players connected to ceiling projectors, but equipment may be ordered online if unavailable in your assigned classroom.
Xeroxing	You may give teaching materials to the department secretary to xerox or you may do it yourself (get the department code from our secretary). Because our budget is very limited, we ask you not to abuse the xeroxing privilege and also to think about ways of reducing costs, such as using the Electronic Reserve system at the library or putting materials online for students to print out themselves. Debbie Goldberg is the librarian responsible for Electronic Reserve. There is of course the traditional reserve shelf at the library as well. For summer school courses, be sure to use the summer school code for all xeroxing.
Online Reserve	In addition to the normal "physical" reserve at the library circulation desk, there are two ways to make copyrighted materials available online in password-protected ways. One is to have it put on the library's electronic reserve. To do this, you need to provide Debbie Goldberg in the Robeson Library with a clear xerox copy, which she will turn into a pdf file and place under your course's name in the library online reserve. Such materials are taken down after one semester, so it is a good idea to download the pdf file for possible future use. The other way to accomplish the same thing is to use a scanner to make a pdf file yourself, and then place the file on your course website in a course management system such as WebCT or Sakai (see below). Sherry may be able to make the pdf files for you, depending on how busy she is. Either way, you should allow ample time for the process.
Smart and Semi-Smart Classrooms	"Smart" classrooms have a console housing networked PC, VCR and DVD players, and a document camera, all linked to an ceiling projector. The smart classrooms currently are Armitage 121, Fine Arts 110, the Science Lecture Hall, and Penn 401. Armitage 124 is a distance learning classrooms with most smart classroom features. Almost all other classrooms are "semi-smart," meaning that they will have a VCR and laptop hookup mounted on the wall, connected to a ceiling projector. Faculty must bring their own laptop, however. Laptops may be borrowed for classroom use from the department (see Sherry). If you use your own and want internet access, you must have it configured by Harold Winshel's group. Regularly-updated information about smart and semi-smart classrooms may be accessed at http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/RUCS-Camden/smartclass/index.php. The classrooms themselves are maintained by Camden Computing Services (formerly RUCS); Nancy Rohrman is the contact person for problems.
Teaching Labs	Currently the Arts and Sciences college has only one teaching lab, room 117 in the Business and Science building, which has about 20 computers with about 40 seats. This lab may be reserved in advanced for specific days. You may make a reservation request online at http://rucs.camden.rutgers.edu/reservations/. There is also a teaching lab that can be reserved for a specific time and day in the basement of the library. Contact the library staff to make a reservation.
Instructional Support	Emily Corse provides Instructional Design and Technology support for faculty in a recently-introduced office. This includes both workshops and individualized training and assistance. Psychology Professor Bill Whitlow heads up the CCAS Teaching Matters Program, which sponsors occasional lectures and discussions about teaching. Part-time faculty are of course welcome all these events.
Exam Scanner	Camden Computing Services maintains an exam scanner in BSB 132-133. Bill Cornwell is the support person for it. Answer sheets are available from the department secretary. Reservations are advised around final exam time and may be made online.
Class Mailing Lists	The Office of Information Technology (OIT) maintains a dynamic mailing list (RAMS) system that allows faculty to create mailing lists that are updated daily from course rosters. The right to post messages to the list can be set for everyone in the class or just the professor. You must have access privileges to the relevant online rosters (see above) to be allowed to create a RAMS list. Go to the RAMS website to create your list. If you use such a list, tell your students to be sure that they have updated their email address on the Rutgers student directory, so that messages will be sent to an account that they check regularly.
Course Websites	Most full-time faculty, and some PTLs, have created course websites, something that the department encourages. Examples may be viewed at the Course Websites page at the department website. Bob Wood and various other faculty members will be happy to assist you in getting started if you wish to create such a course website using your crab account. Emily Corse at Instructional Design and Technology can also lend support and runs periodic workshops. Students appear to appreciate course websites and knowing how to create them is a skill that increasing numbers of departments expect and look for when hiring full-time faculty.
Sakai (course-management system)	In Fall 2007, Rutgers switched from WebCT to Sakai as its officially-supported course management system. Course management systems provide a variety of pedagogical tools and services such as password-projected readings, online quizzes and paper submission mechanisms, confidential grade rosters, and much more. On the Camden campus, Emily Corse at Instructional Design and Technology provides training and support for Sakai. Use your Net ID username and password to enter Sakai and set up course sites. A number of faculty members in our department have developed course websites with some pages available to all internet users and some in Sakai, limited to course registrants.
Department Equipment	The department owns a number of items that can be used for teaching and research purposes and for use at professional meetings. These include laptop computers, a lcd projector, tape recorders, digital and still cameras, and more. Click here for a list that contains the contact person for each item or simply check with Sherry.