Preface

Centralized: The course coordinator looks after everything except teaching the other sections. She/he maintains the webpage, supervises the TAs, plans the homework, prepares the tests/exam, supervises the marking, processes and submits the course grades, and deals with student complaints/appeals, as well as teaching her/his own section.

Fully decentralized: Each section is run as a separate course, with separate webpages, homework, lecture schedules, tests, and exam. At the end, to make the grading fair, the marks are processed so that the histograms of all the sections are the same.

Partially decentralized: The course coordinator somehow divides the work among the instructors.

Conclusions

1. Coordinating a multi-section course can be a very complex task, much more complex than delivering a single-section course. A written set of guidelines would help those about to become coordinators for the first time.

2. The increase in load to the coordinator is partly, and sometimes mainly, caused by there being so many more students to complain about a mark, ask to change lab section, ask for exemption from a quiz, etc. Consequently, the coordinator needs to offload administrative duties of the course, presumably (since there's no one else) to a senior TA. This person should be the first person-of-contact for students.

3. There's a widely-held belief among instructors that course coordinators carry significant additional workload. The department should consider the feasibility of accounting for this extra load in the interest of fairness. If extra pay or load credit are not feasible, at least fair rotation of load should be.

4. A multi-section course can possibly run smoothly without undue overload on the coordinator if the course instructors work well together as a team. This sometimes is difficult to arrange.

5. There is no compelling reason to have common tests and exams across all sections of a course. After all, there's no enforced uniformity in a course from year to year, nor, within one year, across the courses. Furthermore, a course may now be given in both terms of one year with different instructors and necessarily with different tests and exams. For this reason, the fully decentralized model should be permitted if desired by the instructors.

Comments by Faculty Members in ECE

The new tools we have, such as CCNET, and the fact that the students today expect a course web site to be up and running throughout the semester add to the work load. For your information: I accumulated about 1400 emails related to ECExxx in one term. At the beginning of the semester, 30-40 emails per day was the norm. A lot of this had to do with student section assignments which are not finalized until well into term. The fact that ROSI and CCNET are not linked is a big issue here. Furthermore, today's students expect a person to be there for them 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The CCNET website accumulated about 400 Bulletin Board items that included my replies to questions from students. The total number of announcements from all instructors posted on CCNET exceeded 100 in this course. The two writing assignments remained the coordinator's responsibility with help from Dr. Irish. Each instructor handled the assigments and quizzes for their sections according to the timetable and list of topics/problems provided by the coordinator.

Re fair distribution of work load: The course coordinator's load is about double if the job is to be done right. I firmly believe this to be true.

I believe that the most efficient model is the centralized one (with only minor decentralization of some of the responsibilities related to assignments and quizzes). The semester is so short that one cannot afford to waste time with meetings and discussions that lead nowhere. It would help if course coordinators had some say in who they are teaching the course with.

A document outlining the responsibilities of course coordinators is badly needed in this department.

1.  Students cannot "shop around" for the instructor with the most generous
exam hints, because different exams are set for each section.
2.  Instructors are free to choose the textbook that they are most
comfortable with.
3.  The problems involved with setting common exams, such as everyone
agreeing on a common set of questions, passing 250 exam scripts from one
person to another, etc. are eliminated.
4.  There is no co-ordinator, hence everyone does the same amount of work
and no one is seen to have been "chosen" over the others, with the
implication that the co-ordinator is somehow better than the other
instructors.
5.  The lecture pace across sections do not have to be synchronized.

I think it might be beneficial if the department addresses the issue of fair distribution of work in some manner. If not, too much teaching load is transferred onto those who attach high importance to teaching.

Centralized in my opinion doesn't work well:

a) it's too much load on the coordinator
b) it can excessively constrain profs who are not coordinating - which 
leads to a degradation in teaching quality
c) certain students try and play the instructors off against each
other to get extra marks, special consideration etc.
d) it encourages movement between sections - either entire migration
or students picking lectures from various sections to simplify their
schedules.

I've had very good experience with a partially centralized course. It does, however, require the highest degree of co-operation. Its success therefore depends highly on the personalities of the teaching staff. Consequently, such an approach could not possibly be imposed on instructors, but in special cases it can lead to the best course delivery.

A fully decentralized course I've never tried, but I would very much like to. I see the decentralized system as working the best given all the structural constraints of our system.

I like the shared workload model, but administering the sharing can become a big task unto itself.

My plan this year is to allocate one TA position to look after "administrative" issues. One has to be careful to get a really good TA to do this. Perhaps another possible solution is allocation of TA resources to do administrative tasks.

I prefer fully decentralized, including separate grading schemes and final exams, as in US schools. Students are not allowed to change sections (because another professor is deemed easier). Complaints are quelled by the argument that over four years, students face roughly the same difficulty level. Note that coordination arises automatically if a professor teaches two sections of the same course.

The difficulty with partial decentralization is that many instructors are not faculty members. Hence they do not have the same sense of responsibility and therefore the scheme will practically degenerate to model #1.

Model #2 seems appealing but there are problems such as making sure that the same material is taught, the same labs are taught, the same marking averages are imposed etc., etc. I am afraid this will not work either since some coordination is intrinsically necessary.

Model #1 still seems to be the best; however it is certainly unfair for the coordinator. This has to be addressed.

My preference is model #1 with a coordinator who teaches a section. This however should count as teaching two courses (i.e. coordinating a large course while teaching a section of it should fulfill the undergrad. course requirement for the year).

I will add that it is also imperative that the instructors discuss matters among themselves. This is best done via email. It has not been my experience that coordinating a large multi-section course requires regular meetings. On the other hand, it is very useful to have a mechanism in place where common problems, updates, etc. can be shared.

I believe that the option that I noted above alleviates the unequal workload to a large extent. I have also found that many of the remaining tasks can be distributed, making the overall burden reasonable.

I will pass on one comment from a student concerning the option of running course sections independently. As you are aware, we approximated this situation this year with four courses which were split over two terms. The problem arises, on the one hand, because students do take a common set of courses, considering both terms. For the purpose of awarding scholarships, they are judged as a group. On the other hand, the courses themselves are run independently in each of the two terms, sometimes with very different standards. This seems to have been the case in at least one course this past year. Thus, academic decisions are being made relative to criteria that are not common. The situation will not be critical in years where each student has an individual program (4th year, or in the new curriculum). However, at the moment, EE and CE students have largely common programs over the first three years. I think that we have to ensure that common standards are applied. Your suggestion to normalize relative to a common distribution is thus mandatory.

I believe that the fully decentralized model is the best. The exams and tests should be tuned to the lectures in order to encourage students to attend the lectures. There is too much energy spent in coordinating the different sections and then the students are constantly comparing the different sections and asking what is going to be in the exam. Also this would stop the problem of students converging into one section which may happen for various reasons. One year Professor X gets many students in comparison to the other sections, and this varies from year to year. When you learn a subject, especially in the higher years, you are learning it from the point of view of a professor. There are differences ... different professors may emphasize and go into detail on different things and this does not need to be discouraged.

In any course in which I have been involved, the fair distribution of load has been achieved without any problem. It has basically consisted in having each instructor preparing questions (and solutions) for the midterms and final examinations and supervising/participating to the marking sessions.

I would like to go for fully decentralized. The current scheme is awkward and unsatisfying as

-instructors teach at different rates
-some students are taught more material but aren't evaluated on it as the
other group didn't cover it
-students taught less material spend more time on it and so have an
advantage against those taught more
-coordinators often don't coordinate finely enough

I prefer the partly decentralized model. It is important that just one person take the final responsibility for administration, but others can do their share without much risk for important things not getting done because everyone thinks that they will get done by someone else.

Generally, the coordinator wants to leave his/her mark on the course and is willing to do the extra work for that reason.

Centralized is best. Decentralized is difficult because of the requirement that all sections have the same exam. If the different teachers have different views as to what is important and what should be taught, then it becomes very difficult to come up with exams, because you have to go down to the lowest common denominator.

A hybrid model can work well, in my experience; i.e. have one of the instructors be responsible for a portion of the term, and then have another be responsible for another portion. That also distributes the load evenly. [BF: This is the way all multi-section courses in the Physics Department are given. Each module is 6 weeks long, ended by an exam.]

From what I've seen in courses with a lab every week, there will be 20-30 TAs. Organizing them can be like teaching a small course! Besides getting lectures ready, you have to get material ready for them to use (labs, quizzes, etc.). Usually the trick is to get a "super" TA who helps a lot with this; how much that TA can do will impact how much additional load there is. That TA is going to spend a LOT of time on the course.

Concerning the fairness issue, there's always the issue of effort put out versus the rewards. Why do more work, if there is no gain? That's just the way people are, on average.

Full decentralized seems really bad. Either of the other two will probably work. Much depends on whether a really good/responsible super TA is available and how well the collection of instructors can interact.

My preference is Option 2. Option 1, without the coordinator teaching a section, could work, but I'd hate to be the coordinator then (class time makes teaching fun). Option 1 might work if the profs involved are agreed that one doesn't want to do the teaching, but the admin duties.

Some of my colleagues who co-teach courses mention to me some problems with a partially centralized structure in which there is a common exam. There are situations when one instructor gives exam hints to his/her section leaving the other sections at a disadvantage (even though a joint- instructor decision has been made not to provide such info to students).

I think we should consider an additional model, "complete decentralization," which is that often implemented in the US: Each section becomes a separate course, where everything (including final exam) is kept separate.

I think fair distribution of responsibilities is always important in any undertaking.

Partially decentralized seems best. In an ideal world any of these schemes should work. However, given the constraints and realities of the situation I think the last option is the most viable. I would prefer to rely on good will and professional attitudes of my colleagues than have one size fit all policies being handed down or, on the other extreme, be subjected to incoherent and random efforts, not to mention the impracticality of running four different labs and tutorial sections.

Fully centralized coordination is a big load, and if given, should be recognized as such. For these large courses, the quantity of TAs is large enough that you have to treat them statistically - some may not be able to perform their duties, for whatever reason, and you have to have backup. Simply managing that quantity of TAs is a large burden.

I prefer decentralized, with one coordinator organizing the other lecturers. All lecturers should contribute to the creation and marking of tests and assignments. All lectures should be off the same base set of lectures.

The writing of exams, homework, TA supervision, etc., is best handled in a partially decentralized manner, with central coordination. Ultimately the course coordinator should be responsible for "fairness" across the different sections of the course. Under this partially decentralized model, here are my answers to your questions: Not much more work is required if the work is distributed, particularly tasks like grading, setting of tests, typesetting, entry of grades, etc. Unfortunately, student complaints tend to end up with the course coordinator.

A "senior" prof should be given the coordinator's role when possible.

Partially decentralized seems best.

A system which redistributes the work more fairly should be put in place, so that the decision on who among the faculty teaching the course should be the coordinator should not be so onerous or contentious. The people who feel the centralized model works best should volunteer to be coordinators.

In my experience, the partially decentralized model would be preferable. Specifically, planning the homework, preparation of the tests/exam, marking,etc. can and should be shared; submitting the marks and handling questions, complaints and appeals should be done by each professor for the students in his/her section. This not only distributes the workload evenly, but is better for the teaching process as well: the students would not feel that their lecturer is disconnected from what are, in the real world, some of their main concerns. The job of the coordinator should be mostly one of dividing up the work, and making sure students get roughly uniform treatment independent of the section they are in.

In cases where the other instructors willingly and effectively relieve the coordinator of some of the (unpaid) burden, it is very helpful. (Partially decentralized). The coordinator still does a bit more but it is not unreasonable. It is hard to delegate the total load .

I know that the partially centralized works well with the right instructors. I have seen decentralized go bad as students flocked away from a VERY bad instructor. This tide can be stemmed in a centralized system by ensuring the students see no concrete benifit from moving (i.e. a simpler curriculum/exam/petition matrix). I suspect that the centralized design would not attract a good prof to be the administrator.

Why not just give the academic coordinator in the partially centralised system an administrative assistant? That and a bit of help from the other instructors would make coordinating much simpler. I suspect a good admin assistant could handle 3-5 courses.

i. Coordination of resources (not course material).  It takes a lot of
time to find TAs for large courses, to worry about signatures,
distributing books, lab material, etc.
ii. Dealing with ugrad students that need to discuss something. Most
of the load is on the course coordinator.
iii. Effort to prep students inside and outside class when they don't
do well in any aspect of the course.
iv. Dealing with special cases (that are always many in large courses)
in exams, midterms, assignments, labs, etc.

"Partially decentralized" seems to provide the best compromise between fairness to the students and reasonable distribution of workload.

There should be some flexibility so that different courses can use different organization structures. For example, when the section instructors are experienced professors, a decentralized approach might be appropriate; when student/stipend instructors are used, the centralized model might be better.

I think partially decentralized organization would be the best. It makes the whole course uniform in terms of the course contents and workload. Fully centralized format puts a lot of pressure on the course coordinator and, remembering that multi-sectional courses are usually run for a large enrollment, it will require a substantial amount of work. Fully decentralized organization also falls flat in creating a uniform course format. Each instructor might choose to present the course in a unique way and it will raise the problem of competition between the instructors.

It is difficult to assess how much extra effort is required of the coordinator. It seems to be significant but probably much less than a full teaching load.

I think the centralized model probably works best although I personally would prefer the fully decentralized model. There are certain control issues such as labs and coordinating assignments with course material that are difficult to be on top of with the centralized model. I felt less effective as an instructor in this model.

The idea is kind of like Eng. Sci. here, but it's often done on a course-by-course basis. This would allow a creative professor to put a little extra into a course, make it be fun, and really push the limits with some keen and interested students.