Chair L4 Project Moderators #

The responsibilities are

• to chair the yearly moderator meeting. This is where all viva issues are discussed, along with prize nominations.
• write a report on this meeting and feedback to BoS/BoE any issues arising.

Chair Laboratories Committee #

This role involves the following aspects:

Management and resources #

• The chair of the Teaching Laboratories Committee, which collectively formulates a strategy for organising and teaching Physics in Laboratories, and presents recommendations to the Education Committee
• Represents the financial needs for the teaching of Laboratory Physics to the Facilities and Education Committees
• Responsible for agreeing budgets with Level Leaders
• Makes proposals for changes to assessment criteria and marks pro formae for consideration by Education Committee
• Allocates additional departmental funding for experimental L4 projects in consultation with Lab Technician Supervisor.
• Co-ordinates provision of Christmas lecture tours.
• Co-ordinates entries for Florence Nightingale Graphical Excellence Awards, and provides list of winners to prizes committee.

Training #

• Responsible for delivering general training to all demonstrators at the beginning of each academic year. Liaise with Communications Support to arrange recording of Training Session

Committee Membership #

• Member of Health and Safety Committee (unless there is a Level Leader on the Committee)
• Member of Facilities Committee
• Member of Education Committee
• Member of Staff Student Consultative Committee

Chair Staff–Student Consultative Committee (UG) #

DDR and Diversity Representative #

The role includes:

1. Meeting with UG and PG students to provide advice on how they should best approach their studies given whatever challenges they are facing, and signposting them to the relevant University or external support. This can happen both before and after we receive a DSN.
2. BoE scrutiny panel member for main exams and resits
3. Member of the Physics EDI committee
4. Liaising with other academic staff as need be to ensure that appropriate teaching adjustments are provided in a range of academic settings
5. Dealing with pre-arrival academic queries from students with disabilities
6. Providing a departmental tour for incoming students with autistic spectrum conditions
7. Going into labs to help when the lab leader is faced with a student having a meltdown

DELTA coordinator #

Director of Student Experience (events) #

Director of Student Experience (social media) #

Director of Student Experience (student welfare) #

Induction Week Group Project Supervision #

Induction Week Talks #

This comprises several talks during the induction week, which also include a Q&A session: - SSCC Co-chair presentation

• EDI presentation
• DoSE presentation

Course directors & Natural Sciences Advisor #

This document is intended to give an overview of the duties of a course director. It is not a prescriptive list, but should be used as a guide, especially by those who are new to the job. Similarly there will also be tasks which arise which are not covered here.

General Duties of all Course Directors #

1. Attend and report to each meeting of the Education Committee.
2. Maintain a good familiarity with the Department’s teaching programme and module structures, particularly at the individual’s own Level of responsibility.
3. Review the students’ responses to the module questionnaires in April/May, particularly for modules involving tutorials or any others for which the Course Director has special academic oversight.
4. Participate in the analysis of Performance Indicator Statistics, which forms part of the Annual Review process.
5. Provide academic oversight and monitoring of each of the lecture courses. In practice, the delivery of each syllabus is left to the individual lecturers, but the Course Director needs check that changes that do occur do not have an impact on progression or other courses (particularly true for the teaching of mathematics).
6. If changes are to be made to the modules, then the course director is responsible for coordinating these changes, along with the relevant lecturing staff and the Teaching Administrator, and/or the Board of Examiners.
7. Arrange a meeting, typically once a year, for all staff teaching at that level (including tutors and lab staff). Even though it may appear that everything is running smoothly, these meetings are very useful for bringing up relatively minor issues which can usually be rectified by the Course Director. The date and location of these meetings is normally set centrally.
8. Using the results from 3. and elsewhere, be proactive in trying to continually improve all courses as well as the general organisation of teaching across all levels.
9. Attend the meetings of the Staff–Student Consultative Committee (Undergraduate) and the “satellite” meetings with the students of the corresponding level.
10. Provide input to the Teaching Administrator and/or Director of Education with regard to individual student cases such as concession requests.
11. Deal with student complaints, if necessary and appropriate, on behalf of the Director of Education.
12. Advise the BoE Chairman, if necessary, on cases of alleged plagiarism.
13. Prepare written guidance on registration and module choices, for publication to students prior to the relevant registration period each year, deliver a corresponding talk to students and be available to answer related queries.
14. Liaise with academic advisers on advising students where necessary.

The Course Directors are accountable to the Director of Education, who is normally the Chairman of the Education Committee.

Specific Duties of the Level One Course Director #

1. Deliver a talk and question and answer session outlining the structure of the first year courses, their delivery and assessment during Induction Week.
2. Be available to answer telephone queries regarding module choice and registration for two afternoons (2.45 hours per afternoon) prior to the module registration deadline and the start of term.
3. Respond to student queries by both telephone and e-mail with regard to academic aspects of module choice and registration.
4. Should be Organise the departmental aspects of induction week, including liaison with SSCC, Student Societies and relevant colleagues.
5. Liaise with the Teaching Administrator on arranging the L1 Tutorials. In practice the Teaching Administrator does most of the prescribed work, but invariably there are many small issues which need to be solved, and both need to be proactive in this.
6. Checking and confirming the content of the Level 1 Course Booklet.
7. Maintain the document on the duties of L1 Tutors (check it is up to date).
8. Vet inexperienced Level 1 Tutors to determine their suitability for the role.
9. Liaise with the L1 Lab leader to identify and help solve any problems that arise.
10. Arrange a meeting at the beginning of the year with all L1 Tutors to explain to them how the tutorial system works. Attendance at this can be optional for experienced tutors (but they still need to be made aware of any changes).
11. Oversee the setting and vetting of the Level 1 Collections Examination
12. Check marks and feedback for the Collections Examination and provide feedback to students, at cohort level, on performance.
13. Respond to queries by students and staff regarding the Collections Examination.
14. Interview students transferring to Physics at Level 1 from other Departments
15. The L1 Course Director is also the Departmental APL Coordinator (APL = Accreditation of Prior Learning). This involves analyzing cases whereby students request that courses taken prior to coming to Durham (at other Universities) can be used to avoid taking certain modules in Durham. There is a departmental policy on this with further information.
16. Look at ways of improving our provision in regards to helping students make the transition from school to university.
17. Advise the Undergraduate Admissions Team as necessary on the academic aspects of applications from students with unusual qualifications or applications for direct entry into Level 2.
18. Act as a point of contact for staff teaching at that level who are unfamiliar with, or have queries about, the procedures.
19. Liaise with the Department of Mathematical Sciences on the content of relevant Level 1 Maths Modules.

Specific Duties of the Level Two Course Director #

1. Liaise with the Teaching Administrator on arranging L2 Workshops. This includes attending and/or delivering the training sessions for L2 workshop supervisors and demonstrators.
2. Liaise with the L2 Lab leader to identify and help solve any problems that arise.

Specific Duties of the Level Three Course Director #

1. Responsible, where necessary, for assisting the Level 3 computing leader in the academic oversight of the poster sessions and for judging the posters for the poster prizes.
2. Liaise with the Teaching Administrator on arranging L3 workshops. This includes attending and/or delivering the training sessions for L3 workshop supervisors and demonstrators.
3. Liaise with the L3 Lab leader to identify and help solve any problems that arise.
4. With the help of the Exchanges Coordinator, approve study programmes of students replacing their level 3 modules by a year of study abroad.

Specific Duties of the Level Four Course Director #

1. Responsible for coordinating the Level 4 dissertations: collecting titles from lecturers, collecting choices from students, assigning titles to students, monitoring submissions, monitoring assessment, dealing with extension requests, reviewing the marks awarded and liaising with the BoE Chairman regarding possible moderation of marks before the marks are returned to students.
2. Attend a number of L4 project seminars (Epiphany Term) with the aim of ensuring equitable marking between sessions and to check the smooth running of the system.

Specific Duties of the Natural Sciences Liaison Officer #

1. Attend and report to Physics Education Committee on issues relating to the Natural Sciences degree.
2. Attend the Management Board of the Natural Sciences degree, reporting to it on significant changes to the structure of Physics modules, and passing back to Physics Education Committee relevant Natural Science matters arising.
3. Register the new cohort of Natural Science students in October, providing advice on Physics module choices.
4. Register continuing Natural Science students in June, providing advice on Physics module choices.
5. Send out an email to Natural Science students taking Physics modules at the start of each academic year, introducing oneself as Advisor and giving contact details if students experience problems.
6. Act as a point of contact in the Department for Natural Science students taking Physics modules and, if required, provide academic references for such students.
7. Attend the meetings of the Scrutiny Panel of the Board of Examiners in Physics, in June and August/September.
8. Attend the meeting of the Natural Sciences Board of Examiners in June to provide input on Serious Adverse Circumstances cases, and other details related to degree classification and progression.

Student Employability Representative #

The role involves:

• acting as a liaison between the department and the university Careers, Employability & Enterprise centre.
• informing the students on a broad range of activities - workshops, meetings with potential employers, competitions etc. - concerning career and employability.
• filtering the information from the centre to select those relevant for physics students and passing them on.
• advising the Career centre when they organise events with focus on physics students
• answering queries by current or potential students about issues concerning employability.
• attending meetings with the Career service, usually once a term. These meetings are used for sharing good examples of employability practice inside departments and news about future changes or plans in the Career centre.