New Faculty Information

• Documents to be submitted to LPS
• Getting on payroll
• PennKey, ID, and Card
• How to establish a Blackboard site for your course
• Policies on photocopying
• Office hours
• Mailboxes
• Ordering books
• Ordering bulkpacks
• Courses in Touch
• Classroom location and change requests
• Blackboard
• Registration and Permit Queries

Documents to be submitted to LPS

At LPS, we maintain electronic files for each course we offer. For this reason, we ask each instructor to send us via email their course syllabus with their course description included, as well as an up-to-date copy of their CV. These materials should be sent to Joseph Hallman (halljo@sas.upenn.edu) at your earliest convenience. In the upcoming academic year, if there are any changes in your CV, please notify LPS.

Getting on payroll

Getting on payroll is the first step in your receiving a Penn Card, a PennKey, and a Penn email account. All these are required in order for you to use other teaching resources at Penn, including Blackboard.  If your home department is other than LPS, you can contact your home department’s Business Office for them to put you on payroll. If your home department is LPS, you can contact Patricia Bittner at bittnerp@sas.upenn.edu.

The documents that you will need to take to the business office are generally a copy of HR application form, copy of your appointment letter (you can get this from Joseph Hallman (halljo@sas.upenn.edu), an Employee Information Form, Form I-9, FormW-4, and application for direct deposit (if you wish). All of these forms can be found at http://www.finance.upenn.edu/comptroller/forms/.

PennKey, ID, and Card

1. Obtaining Your PennKey
   All LPS instructors are required to obtain a PennKey. A PennKey is required to authenticate, or verify, an individual's identity and to access many of Penn's networked computer systems and services. Authorized users need a PennKey and password to access such resources as Courses In Touch, Blackboard, certain library resources, and public campus computers. A PennKey is also required to obtain a Penn email account. Because much of what you do at Penn will require a PennKey password, you should select and register your PennKey as soon as possible after being put on payroll. The following web site provides more information about PennKeys: http://www.upenn.edu/computing/pennkey/.
2. Establishing your email account
   We require our instructors to have a Penn email address to communicate with Penn students, faculty, and staff. In addition, LPS and other Penn offices will use your Penn email address to send you important information. To establish an email account, you first must have a PennKey and PennKey password. If your home department is in the School of Arts and Sciences, you can create your email account through SAS Computing at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/help/Email/. If your home department is outside SAS, please contact your home department for instructions to create your email account.
3. Submitting information for the On-Line Directory
   We require our instructors to list their Penn contact information in the Penn On-Line Directory so that others can contact you as soon as you arrive on campus. The website for updating the directory is https://medley.isc-seo.upenn.edu/penn_portal/u@penn.php. You will need a PennKey to access the directory.
4. Obtaining your PennCard
   All LPS instructors are required to obtain a PennCard, the official University of Pennsylvania identification for students, faculty, and staff. The PennCard provides access to University facilities and services including the library. To obtain a PennCard, bring a valid form of photo ID (driver's license, passport, etc.) to the PennCard Center, 150 Franklin Building, 3451 Walnut Street. Only instructors currently on payroll may receive a PennCard, which should be carried at all times. The PennCard web site is http://www.upenn.edu/penncard/card/about.html.

How to establish a Blackboard site for your course

The simplest and quickest way to have a Blackboard site set up for your course is to use the online request form, located at http://www.library.upenn.edu/forms/courseware/bbrequest.html. Instructors, or those acting on behalf of instructors, may use this form. After you submit your request, your course(s) will typically be available within one to two days. Students enrolled in your course will be given access to the Blackboard site automatically, usually within 24 hours of the site's creation, as long as they have a Penn email address.

Policies on photocopying

LPS instructors should contact their home department to have copies of syllabi, studentassignments, and exams made for their courses. Most departments limit the amount ofphotocopying each instructor can do within the department. If you have course readings and other substantial documents to copy, you should arrange with Campus Copy Center or Wharton Reprographics to make a bulkpack available for your students to purchase, or you should work with Electronic Reserve in Van Pelt library to have the readings scanned in for your students to access through Blackboard. LPS will not photocopy course materials for instructors, nor will we reimburse instructors for photocopying at a copy center.

Campus Copy Center: 3907 Walnut Street Phone: 215.386.6410 Fax: 215.386.6268 http://www.campuscopycenter.com/

Wharton Reprographics: 400 Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall, 3620 Locust Walk Phone: 215.898.7600 Fax: 215.898.2400 http://reprographics.wharton.upenn.edu/

Electronic reserve http://www.library.upenn.edu/reserves/eres-submissions.html

Office hours

LPS instructors are required to schedule office hours for students who may require assistance outside the classroom. Office hours are particularly important for students in courses requiring quantitative analysis, synthesis, intensive writing, research, or project development. Most instructors poll their classes on the first day to determine the most convenient day/ time for the most people, as well as offering office hours by appointment. Instructors should check with their home department to see whether there is any available space to use for office hours. Another way to find an available space is to request space from the Registrar’s office after the first full week of classes each semester. For example, for Fall 2008, you can make a request beginning Monday, September 15th by visiting the Classroom Technology Services website at http://www.isc-cts.upenn.edu/finder/ and filling out the Academic Event request form. 

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Mailboxes

You will have your mailbox in your home department. Class evaluations, grade sheets, and other information will be delivered to your mailboxes. Please check with your home department regarding departmental hours and the location of the mailbox.

Ordering books

There are three bookstores on or near campus used by Penn faculty to order course books.

1. Penn Bookstore: The official bookstore of the University of Pennsylvania, run by Barnes and Noble. Phone: 215.898.7595, Email: coursebk@pobox.upenn.edu, http://upenn.bkstore.com/
2. Penn Book Center: An independent academic bookstore serving the university community. Phone: 215.222.7600, Email: info@pennbookcenter.com, http://www.pennbookcenter.com
3. House of Our Own: An independent academic bookstore serving the university community. Phone: 215.222.1576, Email: hooo@bellatlantic.net

Reserve readings Van Pelt Library will help you make standard (hard copy) and electronic reserve materials available to your students.

1. Materials for standard reserve are placed in the Rosengarten Reserve Room in the basement of Van Pelt Library. You can find more information at http://www.library.upenn.edu/reserves/contacts.html.
2. Materials for electronic reserve will be uploaded to your course’s Blackboard site. You can also provide links to licensed information and data bases, e-journals, and library image collections. You can submit your electronic reserve request at http://www.library.upenn.edu/reserves/eres-submissions.html. If you submit the materials no later than approximately one week before date when the term begins, they will be ready in time for your course.

Ordering bulkpacks

If you need to order a bulkpack to make class materials available to your students, you can contact the following places:

• Campus Copy Center: 3907 Walnut Street Phone: 215.386.6410 Fax: 215.386.6268

Courses In Touch/ IRQDB

Courses In Touch: Class Lists, Course Problem Notices and Online Grading Instructors who would like to view their class list should use a new web-based system, Courses In Touch (CIT). You may access CIT in one of two ways:

• via the U@Penn Portal: http://medley.iscseo.upenn.edu/penn_portal/u@penn.php in the section labeled “Student Advising & Administrative Resources”
• via the following url: http://www.upenn.edu/isc/apps/CoursesInTouch. Please note that you will need to have a PennKey user name and password to access your classlist.

CIT also houses the Course Problem Notice function. CPN will provide instructors with an easy mechanism to alert students to potential problems in a course, in time for the student to take steps to correct the problem and obtain the appropriate support. Based on each school’s configuration, the system can also inform the student’s academic advisor(s) to ensure proper follow-up as needed. This new online system replaces the paper forms formerly used in some schools. The greatest use of this system is expected to be at the undergraduate level, although the system is available to any instructor and any school at Penn. A pre-requisite for effective use of this process is a valid Email address for every student. CIT is also used for submission of all final course grades and for change of grades.

Classroom location and change requests

After LPS has contacted instructors to notify them that their class will be rostered in an upcoming semester, LPS will request information regarding AV and classroom needs. Since demand for seminar rooms and room equipped with A/V equipment is strong, instructors should submit their room requests early. Classroom assignments appear on the Course and Room Roster, which is listed on the registrar’s website at http://www.upenn.edu/registrar/roster/LPS.html. Usually, it’s available about 4 weeks before the first day of the term. If it becomes necessary to change a classroom because of inadequate seating or because some feature of the classroom makes it undesirable for a particular course, please go to http://www.isccts.upenn.edu/finder/ and click on the link to Course Classroom Change. All changes in roomassignments are processed through this link, and only the instructor or the department may execute the change. If you make a room change within 1-2 weeks of the beginning of the term, you must post a notice of the room change on the door of the original classroom.

Blackboard

Blackboard is a course management system designed to help you generate web-based content for your courses. You can request your course blackboard at http://www.library.upenn.edu/forms/courseware/bbrequest.html.

Once you have received a notice that your Blackboard site is ready, you can find your course(s) by directing your browser to http://courseweb.library.upenn.edu. You can find out how to have reserve readings scanned and uploaded into your course at http://www.library.upenn.edu/reserves/blackboard.html.

Blackboard sites are not "renewed" each semester. You will need to request a new site, even if you're teaching the same course in consecutive terms. Course materials can be copied from previous sites, however, so you won't have to rebuild an earlier site from scratch. Your Blackboard course site will be accessible to you and your students for 14 months from the time of its creation, after which time it is moved offline and copied to CD-ROM. Archived courses will be kept for five years, and instructors may request access to their old courses at any time. If you still have a problem with Blackboard site, you can fill out the form at http://www.library.upenn.edu/forms/bb-gethelp.html and ask questions on your course.

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Registration and Permit Queries

Information and registration can be found here: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/permits_queries

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Questions?

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Joseph Hallman, at halljo@sas.upenn.edu.