About staff

Usually only one staff member teaches and assesses a unit. Other staff are only involved for monitoring and moderation purposes. However, if the unit uses more than one staff member, one person should be the person in charge. Several other possible scenarios are:

• A coordinator, who does not teach, arranges a series of instructors to teach and assess various parts of the unit. Guest speakers may supplement them.
• Teachers and assessors are different people
• A lecturer is responsible for the unit. He/she gives the lectures and conducts assessment, and supervises the tutor, who runs tutorials. In reality, however, the tutor's job may range from little more than discussion group leader to the main teaching load of the unit.

This creates lots of opportunities to fudge:

• The lecturer may dip out completely and leave everything to the tutor.
• The college may ride on the credentials of the lecturer but use the tutor to teach.
• The college may ride on guest speakers for credibility and teaching.
• The coordinator may inadvertently let things fall between the gaps.

Guest speakers need not be inducted teaching staff members with qualifications, as they are not accountable for the unit. Coordinators are responsible for the unit so they should be at least inducted administration staff, but preferably inducted teaching staff members with qualifications.

Payment

Part-time teaching staff may be paid:

• On an hourly rate for each class contact hour. The rate must be high enough to recognise any work that must be done outside class.
• Per semester hour. This rate makes skills-based units more affordable to teach.
• On a percentage of tuition, which is appropriate for highly individualized subjects.