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Administrative Support

Scheduling & Staffing

At the beginning of each semester the MET Dean's Office will ask all departments offering MET courses to turn in a list of courses to be offered the following semester (in August for Spring courses, in January for Fall). Course offerings are submitted to the Academic Services Office in the form of a Detail Sheet, or by entering them directly into MIS. Scheduling Detail Sheets are used to create both the Printed Schedule and the Online Schedule found on the Link.

The Staff Cooridnators ask that all MET departments that have access to it, use the MIS Database Scheduling capability, but all CAS based departments should use the Scheduling Detail Sheet excel spreadsheet.

The link to the MIS Database that allows you to input Scheduling Detail Sheet information is on the K Drive. Once you open MIS you can click on the “Scheduling” button to access the scheduling form. If you have any questions regarding MIS, please contact Dalia Yassa at 617-358-4805 or yassa@bu.edu. If you need more training on how to use MIS, please let a Staff Coordinator know.

The Scheduling Detail Sheet must be completed by the deadlines that are emailed to you several weeks in advance. Once the deadline for the Dean's Office passes, the Staff Coordinator's access to UIS to submit and change course offerings is cut off and all changes will have to be submitted by the Dean's Office to the Schedules Department via an online form. Therefore, providing as much information by the deadline as possible is appreciated by both offices. Also all information that is submitted late will not get priority for rooms due to the UIS cut-off dates. As many of you probably know, it is much easier to input all information directly into your Scheduling Detail Sheet rather than adding additional info later, so please do your best to adhere to the deadline with as much detail as possible.

You will also be responsible for completing a Staffing Detail Sheet. The purpose of this sheet is to collect the other details about staff for payroll purposes. Although it is due later, this is not a way to postpone staffing your classes. All departments need to coordinate a schedule that offers a balance of classes on the various days of the week, and that is staffed appropriately when course offerings are submitted so as to avoid day and times changes closer to the start of the new semester. These changes affect enrollments, room requests, and our relationship with the Scheduling Department at BU. Once a semester's schedule becomes available to students, the Dean will not allow any changes to a course's meeting days or times.

Completing Your Scheduling Detail Sheet

Here are a few important points to keep in mind when completing your Scheduling Detail Sheet.

1. Section/Day Agreement : Metropolitan College assigns section numbers to classes based on the day which the class meets for almost all of its Charles River classes (A1 for Monday, B1 for Tuesday etc.) Please make sure that your days and sections match accordingly.

2. WebReg Restrict (Permission Required): WebReg restricted indicates that students may not register online and must get a signature on their registration form from the department or the instructor. Indicate if you prefer these registration options by putting a “Y” in one of these columns. If only students in your program can register for a class please indicate that in the course comments field and the reserved seating field and we will update this using hegis codes.

3. Reserved Seating: If only students in your program can register for the course please mark the program and include the hegis code. If only MET students can register, please mark “MET”. Otherwise regular policies will be used to update the reserved seating (for example all undergraduate classes have a certain percentage reserved for MET and non-MET students as calculated by our offices).

4. Print Suppress: If you would prefer that a course is not listed on the student link please mark this column.

5. Course Comments: Course comments are used on both the Printed Schedule and the Online Schedule and are located above the course listing. Use this field if you wish to include a course comment. These are the comments that have a blue push-pin by them on the Link.

An example of a course comment:

Students registering for MET BI211 must register for two sections: a Lecture section, and a Laboratory section.

MET BI211 A1 Human Physiology Patt 4

6. Line Comments: Like a course comment, line comments are used in both the Printed and Online Schedules but are found to the right of the course listing under the "Notes" section in both schedules. Line comments are especially useful for communicating special information to the student. It is mandatory to include a Line Comment if you are offering classes that:

(a) Meet off campus
(b) Have irregular meeting dates and/or times
(c) Are Stamped Approval
(d) Are only for certain students (i.e. MET students, or Arts Admin Students)

An example of a line comment:

Charles River Wed 6:00pm 9:00pm	Permission Required for non-Arts Admin students.
	See Arts Admin Dept., 808 Commonwealth Ave.

7. Room Requests: If an instructor requires specific technology or other functions for their course, please enter a specific building and room in this column. The room assignment process is by no means flawless but you significantly increase your chances of a favorable room assignment if you request a here. Here is a list of rooms that are available for MET courses.

8. Type: You will notice that the Scheduling Detail Sheet requires you to fill in what type of class you are offering. For those of you unfamiliar with the different types please see below. Most of you will be offering mostly IND classes, but please be sure you are certain of the class type before filling it in on the Scheduling Detail Sheet.

APP=Applied Art
LAB= Laboratory
DIS= Discussion Section
LEC= Lecture
DRS= Directed Study
OTH= Other
EXP= Clinical Experience
PLB= Pre Lab Section
IND= Independent Course (no additional components)

Completing Your Staffing Sheets

A few weeks after the MET Academic Services Office requests the Scheduling Detail Sheets, we will request a completed Staffing Sheet.

To complete the Staffing Sheet, please enter all courses your department is offering through MET, the full name of the instructor, and their BUID number (which can be found in MIS or in function ID04 in UIS- instructors cannot be added to the schedule without a BU ID number). Please also be sure to indicate whether the course is a Day Load or Over Load course (for full-time instructors), the base school, their base salary, and whether they are a student (for part-time instructors).

For MET departments you can enter the staffing information directly into the MIS database using the Scheduling button. Please make sure to enter the BUID number if it is not in the database, and check the boxes at the bottom to indicate if the instructor is new to MET, overload, etc. Please also remember to make sure that you are entering information into the correct semester screen, so that you do not overwrite information from a previous semester. If you have any questions about the database please contact Dalia Yassa at 617-358-4805. If you are using the database, the information still needs to be updated by the deadline set by the MET Dean's Office.

In addition to the Staffing Sheet some faculty require additional paperwork. New faculty require two forms, among other items: the Recommendation for MET Part-Time Appointment and the MET Personnel Data Form, a current CV, and three letters of recommendation. Please return all paperwork to our office as soon as possible.

The following are the appointment/staffing procedures and guidelines:

Initial appointment: appointment forms (Recommendation for MET Part-Time Appointment), current C.V., three letters of recommendation, MET Personnel Data Form, W4, I-9, (passport, SSN).

Reappointment: updated C.V. (every two years), updated demographics

Full time administrators (903 status): require Provost approval for initial appointment (memo from the Dean must confirm that teaching duties do not interfere with administrative duties, and if compensation is proposed, memo should confirm that the compensated hours do not overlap).

Emeritus faculty: require reappointment using the Extension of Service Form; form submitted to the Faculty Analyst with cover memo for the Dean and a current C.V. The staffing information sheet is required to be accurately filled out each semester.

Please note that full-time BU employees also require permission from their supervisor in order to teach a MET course.

New Course Development/Course Revisions

Any new courses, changes in course titles, course descriptions, or program requirements must be first approved by the Academic Policy Committee (APC) and then sent to Academic Analyst in the MET Dean’s Office. These changes should not be sent to MET Marketing directly. Please use this New Course Proposal form in submitting items to the APC.

To ensure uniformity and accuracy, please continue to check the course descriptions and titles located on the Student Link, MET website and your department’s webpage and let either the Academic Analyst or the Staff Coordinator in the Dean’s Office know so that they can correct any discrepancies through the appropriate university channels.

Purchasing Card Procedures

P-Card Website for online editing: http://gesamservice.corpcard.com

For P-card deadlines, please refer to the Finance calendar.

Paperwork to be submitted to Scott should be compiled in this order:

Expense Log Report
Billing Statement
Receipts in posting date order

Helpful Editing Hints:

Items that need to be coded as "Unallowable" include:
Alcohol
Sympathy flowers
All gifts to anyone
Office water
Cards
Items for birthday celebrations or employee farewell celebrations

If any "allowable" item was purchased at the same time as an "unallowable" item, the lines must be split in the editing process to show the totals for each group of items.

P-card entries for gifts, sympathy flowers, and birthday/employee farewell celebration items must also indicate for whom these items were purchased.

The p-card may not be used for a conference registration that involves overnight travel. You must use an alternative form of payment, such as a check generated with a Disbursement Request form.

The spending limit per transaction is $1,000.00 and charges may not be split to avoid exceeding individual transaction limits.

When purchasing books on the p-card, include the title of the book and the reason it was purchased in the SAM edits.

For meeting expenses, include the reason for the meeting and who was present.

Taxes should nearly always be $0.00, with prepared meals an exception. Please present a tax-exemption certificate to the vendor should tax be applied to the purchase. Tax-exemption certificates are available at the Purchasing website.

Gift cards may be purchased for a farewell, sympathy, get-well wishes, or congratulations occasions where no work is involved, but they should not exceed $100.

Gift cards cannot be given to a student or employee for doing anything related to work. This includes “volunteers” who you want to thank for helping with orientation, setting up for a meeting, working on commencement, having their picture taken for a MET brochure, etc. However you can buy them small valued gifts such as a BU Sweatshirt or mug to thank them provided there was no expectation of being paid and no understanding by the worker or volunteer that they are receiving the small valued gift in place of compensation.

If you want a student or employee to be compensated for their efforts in special situations like those above, you should make arrangements for a one-time payment to be processed through Payroll for them.

Resources for assistance:
GE Capital Financial Customer Service 1-800-274-7378
Purchasing Help Line x8-3234 or pcard@bu.edu
Purchasing website: http://www.bu.edu/purchasing/pcard
MET Finance Office x3-4137

Honoraria

Guidelines for Honorarium Requests

The purpose is for class enrichment through the expertise of a distinguished guest speaker. All requests should be submitted to the Department Chair, who should then submit the paperwork to the Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Programs. A syllabus with the need for a guest lecturer as well as the qualifications of the speaker should be included in a memo to the Associate Dean.

The number of speakers is limited to three guests per course unless the structure of the course requires more. In the latter case the syllabus should be submitted for approval prior to the start of class.

It is not a replacement of the instructor of record, and therefore the instructor of record should be present as well.

Processing Honoraria Payments

The Dean's Office needs a W-9 from each individual guest lecturer/speaker before the University will issue the first payment to them. This is required of not only guest lecturers but for all people or companies to be paid through the Accounts Payable System (instead of Payroll.) Once we have a W-9 for an individual on file, we do not need to collect another.
Please make sure the wording for the description does not indicate “teaching” or “taught” for guest speakers. Anyone who performs teaching duties for Boston University must be paid through University Payroll. An acceptable description may include: "Honorarium payments are for guest speakers who are invited to address a class/participate in a presentation/provide a lecture on a one-time basis." These individuals should have no responsibility for grading or taking class attendance. On the Honorarium Request form, please be sure to fill in the name of the instructor of record.
Please return all paperwork to the Academic Programs Analyst at 755 Commonwealth, Room 103. Paperwork will then be approved by the Associate Dean for Academic Programs.

Graduate Online Application Support

The online graduate application allows prospective graduate students to apply to all the graduate degree and certificate programs offered at Metropolitan College. Since the application is always growing and changing our offices provide support to all the departments that use the application on the faculty/staff link. Below are some training materials for help using this multifaceted tool.

Graduate Online Application Manual — coming soon!

Graduate Online Application FAQS

Contact:
Kimberly Kuborn
Academic Programs Analyst
617-353-2978
kimma729@bu.edu

Withdrawal/Leave of Absence

Any student who wants to drop down to zero credits needs to submit a Leave of Absence/Withdrawal form in order to drop his/her classes. Dropping to zero credits cannot be done online through the Student Link.

A student who is registered for a semester and decides not to attend must officially take a leave of absence or withdraw. A leave of absence should be taken when the student intends to return in a future semester; a withdrawal indicates a decision to permanently leave the University. Charges are canceled in accordance with the published refund schedule, based on the effective date of the withdrawal or leave of absence.

All Leave of Absence/Withdrawal forms must be submitted to the MET Dean's Office to be approved by the Assistant Dean of Student Academic Affairs.

Student Compliance

Boston University policy requires all students to submit before registration:

An emergency alert phone number
Proof of having completed a series of immunizations

Students not in compliance will be unable to register for future semesters. Students can check the Student Link to ensure they have met these requirements.

Course Evaluations

Course evaluations are an extremely important tool for student feedback, and an invaluable help in identifying and addressing academic and administrative problems, as well as outstanding teaching achievements. As such we hope that faculty and administrative coordinators carefully follow the instructions below.

For Faculty:

Evaluations are sent to faculty home addresses three weeks before the end of classes. Please assign a student to administer the evaluations.
Evaluations must be completed during the final week of class and returned to the Metropolitan College Dean's Office within 48 hours of the final class. They should take about ten minutes of classtime to complete.
Instructors should not be present during evaluations, nor handle the completed forms.

For Students:

The administering student should wait until the instructor leaves the room to distribute evaluations.

Instructions for Main Campus Students:

Distribute the course evaluations to each member of the class. Either pens or #2 pencils may be used to complete the forms.
Tell the students to carefully read the questions on the evaluation form and respond by filling in the appropriate circles. Students should be encouraged to supply written comments on the back of the form.
Return the completed evaluations to the Dean's Office, 755 Commonwealth Avenue Room 103 in the envelope provided. The office is open 9am-6:30pm Monday through Thursday, and 9-5pm on Friday. During non-office hours, please drop the envelope in the mail slot of Room 102 (across the hall from the Dean's Office).

Instructions for Off-Campus Students:

Distribute and explain the evaluations as in the first two steps for Main Campus students.
Contact your department coordinator to verify the procedure for returning the evaluations

Inclement Weather Procedures

The University may close occasionally due to inclement weather. Professors are not allowed under any circumstances to cancel class before a University announcement is made to do so.

In the event that weather conditions could cause an all-day closing, the University will make announcements between 6am-9am on only the following local television and radio stations:

Radio

WBUR 90.9 FM
WRKO 680 AM
WBZ 1030 AM

Television

If you are out of range of these stations, please call 617-353-SNOW (617-353-7669) or the University Switchboard at 617-353-2000. Do not call the MET Dean's Office, BU Police, or the media stations listed above.

Information will also be listed on the BU homepage and the WBUR website.

For partial cancellations, the University will usually make announcements by 3pm. On such occasions, the Office of Human Resources will notify all Vice Presidents, Deans, and Directors so that they may inform their employees.

For more detailed information regarding emergency weather, please visit the Emergency Management's weather site.

BU Link Content Descriptions

The Faculty/Staff Link

The Link provides access to class schedules, class lists, final exam schedules, advisee lists, class photographs, textbook information, links to course websites, and an electronic Faculty Annual Report template. Access to these useful resources requires a BU login name and valid Kerberos password, obtained through the Office of Information Technology, 111 Cummington Street, or online.

Below is a list of definitions for each function you will find on the Faculty/Staff Link.

University Tools

University Class Schedule

Access current and future university class schedules by selecting the desired semester and college. By entering the departmental acronym, i.e., CS for computer Science, course number, and section number, the following detailed information about that particular course appears:

Class number (includes hyperlink for course description)
TelReg number (number used by students to register for courses by telephone)
Course title
Instructor (may include hyperlink to an instructor’s own web page if instructor creates one)
Number of credit hours
Number of students currently enrolled
Building and Room number (includes hyperlink for building location information)
Time that the class meets

University Class Schedule Download

Provides a user with the option to download the class schedule.

University Course Descriptions

Provides descriptions of courses offered by the university. The listing can be searched by semester, college, department acronym, and course number.

University Course Description Search

Gives list of course descriptions by semester year, department, and course number.

University Final Exam Schedule

Displays the final exam schedule for the entire university for the current semester.

University Final Exam Schedule Download

Provides a user with the option to download the Final Exam Schedule.

Faculty Annual Report (Charles River Campus)

Provides an interactive version of the university form that faculty may complete and submit electronically during the annual review process, usually September and October. Reports completed on-line during previous cycles can be viewed or downloaded through the links provided.

Faculty Annual Report (Medical Campus)

Provides an interactive version of the Medical Campus form that faculty may complete and submit electronically during the annual review process. Access is limited to Medical Campus faculty.

Faculty External Activity Report

Each year all full-time faculty members are required to complete an external activity report for the previous calendar year to ensure that the external activities of faculty members are consistent with the policy set forth in the Faculty Handbook.

What's on the Link

Provides descriptive information about the features of The Faculty/Staff Link.

Calendars

Displays the University's main calendar page which lists special events, the academic calendar, housing schedules, athletic schedules, and holidays.

Instructor's Tools

Class Lists

Presents the current courses the instructor is teaching. By selecting a course, the instructor can view and download the class list, send email to individual students, or send email to the entire class at once. The instructor has the option to download a photo gallery of the class for use in creating seating charts and/or screen-savers. By clicking on a student’s name, the faculty member may access the entire academic record of that student. That information is only available for the duration of the class.

Grading

Allows an instructor to enter students' final grades online and publish them for viewing in the Student and Faculty/Staff Links.

Advisee List

Provides the same access features as the Class List function, but for advisees. Advisors may obtain a complete list of advisees. Students may elect to give a faculty member permission to view records for advising purposes, even though the student may not be an assigned advisee.

Link Your Homepage

Provides the tools to couple a faculty member’s webpage address or URL with his/her name anytime the professor’s name appears on the Link. Information about creating personal webpages is available at the following URL: http://people.bu.edu.

Instructor Classes

Allows access to the current or past teaching schedule of any faculty member.

Final Exam Matrix

Allows an instructor to display all students names enrolled in his/her course in a matrix that plots students exam times and availability. Instructors are able to identify common free time to accommodate scheduling a study group or an alternate exam time.

Class List Matrix

Displays for an instructor the schedules of all students enrolled in a particular class in a matrix format, for the purpose of identifying mutual free time for the purpose of scheduling office hours, study groups, or make-up exam times.

Administrator's Tools

Past University Class Schedule

Allows administrators to look at past class schedules and click on courses to look at class lists. The list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or the students' photo can be displayed.

Student List by Class

Allows administrators to look at students by class and click on courses to look at class lists. In addition to these reports, the list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or other populations can be retrieved.

Student List by Graduation

The administrator can choose a population of students by semester, college, program hegis, degree, graduation status or graduation honors and provide a name for it. In addition to these reports, the list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or other populations can be retrieved.

Student List by Advisor

Allows the administrator to view a student list by their advisor. The list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or the students' photo can be displayed.

Instructor's Schedule

Allows the administrator to view an instructor's class schedule. The class list can be displayed by clicking on the courses. The list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or the students' photo can be displayed.

Graduate Admissions Selections

The administrator can choose a population of students by semester, college, program hegis, admission status, application status, student's response and provide a name for it. In addition to these reports, the list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or other populations can be retrieved.

Select Student List by College

The administrator can choose a population of students by semester, college, program hegis, registration status, class year, continuation code and provide a name for it. In addition to these reports, the list can be downloaded or an email can be composed and sent to the class or other populations can be retrieved.

Population Review

Allows administrators to review the student populations that were previously selected (for a two week period) or import a file from their desktop.

Select Student

Grants the administrator access to a student's personal and academic information. This is limited to a student within his/her college of affiliation. Past and future ungraded classes can be edited to perform "what if" scenarios.

Student List by Combined Class List

Provides the same information as a class list, but is applied to classes that are grouped, or have many sections.

Instructor's Final Exam Matrix

Allows the administrator to view any instructor's final exam matrix, within their college of affiliation.

Instructor's Class Matrix

Allows the administrator to view any instructor's class list matrix, within their college of affiliation.

*New Graduate Admissions

Provides graduate admissions staff with the ability to add new, robust Graduate applications, and modify a wide range of data. Preview the tool (limited distribution).

Other Resources

Faculty Salary Review Comments

Allows departments the ability to paste the dean’s or chairman’s salary increase comments into the recommendation form.

Faculty Assembly/Faculty Council

Provides a link to the web pages of the Faculty Assembly and the Faculty Council, which represent the faculty in important University matters.

Faculty Handbook

Provides a link to the handbook maintained by the Office of the Provost.

My Grants and Contracts

Offers principal investigators grant-to-date accounting and journal entry tracking reports. Investigators may also delegate viewing access to colleagues and assistants.

Business Link

Provides access to the Business Link.

Employee Link

Allows an employee to view and change personal information, apply for a parking permit or an MBTA pass, change their Kerberos password, and view job listings.

Courseware Information

Provides information about the course management software, CourseInfo and WebCT, in use at Boston University.

BU Libraries

Provides a direct link to the web pages of the Boston University Libraries.

BU Today

BU Today is a news site for the BU community, serving news, calendars, and other items of interest.

Academic Calendar

Displays the University's Academic Calendar.

UIS Mainframe File Services

Allows faculty to manage mainframe files including downloading, copying, viewing, renaming and deleting.

Contact

Questions and Info

This link provides general information topics from which to select. Some of these topics include: academic calendars from previous years, student account information, information about the Student Link, registrar information, information about the logon process, and a list of FAQs (frequently asked questions).

Report a Problem

Provides the user with the Link Support telephone number and an email link to the system developers. A HELP option also appears here, provides a list of answers to common problems and a list of on-campus locations for computing resources needed to access the Link.

Suggestion Box

Provides the user with the Link Support telephone number and an email link to the system developers. Faculty are encouraged to submit suggestions for improvements or enhancements via the Suggestion Box.

MET Finance

For any reimbursement, payroll, P-card, or other financial questions please call 617-353-4137.

GSU Reservations

Contact University Reservations Office at 617-353-2932 to reserve any room on campus for non course-affiliated events (such as department receptions, meetings, and events). For any class-related reservations, you must contact the Metropolitan College Dean's Office at 617-353-3000.

Personal Gift Policy

The Boston University policy on accepting personal gifts is outlined in the following three documents and links, along with other BU policies on ethics and conflicts of interest. If you have any questions about the policy on accepting gift please contact your direct supervisor or the academic head that you report to.

BU Personal Gift and Vendor Policy
BU Conflict of Interest Policy
BU Code of Ethical Conduct

For Faculty & Staff