Working Remotely Dec - Jan

As construction makes working in the Development offices more problematic, IDS Development staff will be allowed to work remotely until conditions improve.

You may work at any locations where you can commit full concentration to work, and have a reliable high speed internet connection. I recommend the new library, but home or other remote locations is acceptable if it does not interfere with your productivity or professionalism.

Guidelines

Staff are expected to:
1. Communicate changes in work location to all DE staff, and to any faculty you work with.

2. Have current schedule of work hours posted in Google Docs.

3. Work during the normal hours of 8am - 5pm, or as arranged with your supervisor.

4. Be "online" through instant messaging and e-mail during scheduled work hours.

5. Be available by telephone, and in an environment suitable for professional conversation.

6. Ensure that they have suitable hardware, software, and internet connections for work use. Monty will make Macbooks available for checkout, running both Windows XP and Mac OSX. Jared maintains the software library.

7. Meet collectively on-campus in the new library (room TBD) once a week, and to work several hours before or after the meeting in the same room.

If your supervisor or co-workers note significant problems arising from working remotely, these directions or guidelines may be modified.

Practice: Backing Up Last Semester's Courses

We are implementing a new maintenance procedure for all IDS Developers:

1. Access all of your maintenance courses for the previous semester


2. Make a backup of the course through it's LMS


3. Create a "_backup" folder within the first level of the specific semester/course folder on our network drive (e.g. courses\clss\2100\IN\083_haynes_mosholder\backup)


4. Download the backup to the "_backup" folder (in Bb Vista you must "Save as file" before downloading)


5. Delete all old backup files


6. Export the gradebook to the "_backup" folder

This should be done the 2nd week of each semester on the previous semester's courses

Out of the Office Policy

John e-mailed out a memo to the DE Directors this afternoon indicating that all absences should be

1. approved by your supervisor
2. reported to those who work under you

This is not much different from the existing IDS Leave Policy, but John does reiterate that team members should notify their staff of any unscheduled absence out of common courtesy.

Even if you don't have staff who report directly to you, the IDS Leave Policy asks that you inform "all team members who may be affected by your absence" if you're not going to be in as scheduled.

For my own part, I want to remind all IDS & DC team members that my weekly schedule, which does include frequent meetings and events both on- and off-campus, is nearly always up-to-date and shared with all of you in the Groupwise calendar. While it is not feasible for me to notify everyone each time I leave the office, you can discover my whereabouts by looking at my Groupwise appointments if you need me. If my Groupwise calendar is not accessible to you, or you don't know how to view my schedule in Groupwise, please let me know.

Additionally, you can count on me letting Travis and Janel know if I ever close up for the day unexpectedly.

New Course Proposal Signature & Review Process

A couple of things were clarified this morning in our weekly DE Directors' Meeting regarding new course proposals:

1. Dept Chair/Dean signature. We are going to proceed with seeking dept. chair/dean signatures at the course proposal step, not at the development compensation step. John K. has agreed that electronic signatures will be sufficient. We will need to build these into the online proposal submission and review system.



2. IDS has been charged with previewing all new course proposals in our weekly IDS meeting and making a recommendation for the IDS Director to communicate to the Senior Director. Senior Director will cover any final approval at the deans/VP level. We will need to make this process as streamlined as possible in the online system.