Undergraduate Learning Assistant (ULA) Recruiting & Rules

As the Online CS Program has grown, the benefit of recruiting learning assistants from the pool of our own students has become increasingly clear. If you are teaching a lower-division course these students will be the primary source of your learning assistants, but there does not yet exist the infrastructure to fully handle the recruiting and hiring process. For that reason, this burden will fall on individual course Owners and Instructors. If you are teaching a course for the first time, please work with the previous term’s instructor and the course owner for assistance in recruiting.

The primary qualities of a successful undergraduate ULA are not just subject knowledge but also the level of engagement they provide to the students and the instructors. The purpose of this document is to outline some time- and resource-efficient methods of recruiting undergraduate learning assistants for your course, and to assist in guiding these students through the hiring process.

ULA Rules / Clarifications

The work situation of ULAs is different from graduate TAs. Firstly, ULAs are strict hourly employees rather than the quasi-salaried status of GTAs.

Requirements

ULAs…

  • …cannot be paid internationally, so any students living internationally are ineligible. International students living in the USA do qualify.
  • …cannot work in graduate courses, ever.
  • …must have taken the course and received a ‘B’ grade or better.
  • …must be enrolled in at least 6 OSU credit hours for the term they are employed.
  • …must complete FERPA training via My Oregonstate prior to engaging in FERPA-associated duties. (Resources, search FERPA and select GRA, GTA, & Student Employee FERPA Training)
  • …are not allowed to evaluate their friends’ work, so grading groups must be carefully organized around this.
  • …may work up to 20 hours a week, depending on their time availability, but should average out to 10 hours/week over the 13-week term.
  • …must clock in/out via EMPCenter.
  • …must have their timesheet approved by their supervisor via EMPCenter.
  • …will be assigned you or the course owner as their supervisor.

Additional Administrative Notes

  • It is faster to continue the employment of a ULA from a previous term than initiate a new hire.
  • In general,
  • If a ULA will not be working again the next term, their employment should be terminated by the supervisor notifying the ULA guru (Sherry Barrett).

Ed Discussions Contributors

Within Ed there is an Analytics tool which allows an instructor to analyze contributions, questions, and answers over the course of a term. Select the bar-graph icon from the top navigation pane in your class’ Ed board and explore this page to see its options. Some efficient ways of gathering names for potential ULAs…

  • Check the Top Contributors Report These are the people whose contributions have been marked as helpful by others. Filter for Students and check the Top Hearted and Top Endorsed to see which students’ posts are being appreciated by others in the class. Be aware that these posts may be notes, questions, or answers and so a student who asks a popular question may rank high in this report. Cross-reference with the Top Answerers to have a short-list of students who are engaged in the discussion board, helpful to others, and whose answers are being appreciated (a perfect candidate!).

NOTE: It is important to verify that, though active, these students were also successful in the course. A check over their grades and submitted assignments in Canvas is strongly recommended.

General Participation in Teams

Teams doesn’t seem to have user-specific analytics, but you can still pay attention to your Teams channel (and ask your TAs) to see who is being active and helpful!

NOTE: It is important to verify that, though active, these students were also successful in the course. A check over their grades and submitted assignments in Canvas is strongly recommended.

The Undergraduate Learning Assistant Hiring Process

Once you have gathered a list of potential ULAs from the above or other methods, the students must apply to the Ecampus TA job posting. This posting changes every Academic Year but can be easily found as the EECS Ecampus TA position from this jobs.oregonstate.edu query. Students applicants must apply to this posting and fill in the associated survey.

From the instructor end, you should notify the ULA Guru (Sherry Barrett) your preferred list of ULAs at your earliest opportunity to help expedite the process.