Users and structure at Cambridge

From Harriet Truscott, Cambridge University...

Just FYI, 'Faculty' in the UK means the institution, not the person.
 
So this is just for Cambridge and Oxford. You'd need to talk to Hull and UHI to get more of a fleshed out idea of the UK in general.
 
1. Lecturer - gives lectures (usually weekly) to a group which might consist of between 1 and 500 people. Lectures may be optional or compulsory. No concept of sections.
We don't know what 'cross-listed' means - does it mean that students from other courses can come to it? If so, all our classes are notionally cross-listed, as anyone can (in theory) go to any lecture - although people obviously tend to go to lectures with a clear relationship to their own studies.
Note that people giving a lecture may or many not be tenured. Some people giving a lecture (i.e. standing up in the room and talking) may be employed on a short-term research contract.
 
1a. Affiliated lecturers - usually in the professional / vocational Faculties. These are people who have a main job doing whatever profession it is that they teach (e.g. engineering, architecture), but who also come and give lectures during term time.
 
1b. Teacher mentors - this is specific for the Faculty of Education, on the teacher training course. Qualified teachers act as mentors to trainee teachers - and at Cambridge they are expected to use sakai quite a lot, in order to keep track of what they should be doing as a mentor, whether their trainee teachers are up to speed, etc.
 
2. Supervisor (Tutor at Oxford) - will run weekly hour-long small group teaching sessions (a 'supervision' at Cambridge or a 'tutorial' at Oxford), mainly essay / problem and discussion based, for between 1 and 4 students (i.e. the students either write an essay or work through a number of problems, and then they discuss these in the supervision). We have a number of worksites for supervisors to exchange teaching materials.
 
3. Demonstrator (science subjects only) - run practical classes, i.e. lab sessions. This might well be using a Sakai worksite, e.g. to put the audio-visual materials online. For any given practical class, there will be a number of demonstrators in order to give more one-to-one help to students.
 
3. University Teaching Officer (much more arts subjects) & College Teaching Officer - will teach weekly classes of about 15 people. We believe that UTOs do have tenure, and the CTOs don't, but we aren't sure!
 
3a. Language teachers - All students can attend optional language courses in the University's language centre. Some Faculties may also run their own language courses for students within their Faculty, e.g. Russian for literature students, Chinese for engineers. Language teachers will teach a class once a week, but (for the central language centre at least) the students are supposed to do quite a lot of work online in between classes, doing grammar practice, writing exercises, watching videos, etc.
 
4. Student - undergrad. Attend lecturers, supervisions, practical classes, language classes, Faculty-based classes etc, depending on what their degree is!
 
5. Student - graduates, i.e. usually MPhils - 1 year taught courses, but with a very high research component. May include lectures, practicals, small classes, and definitely 1 to 1 supervisions. 
 
6  Student - PhD (PhDs at Cambridge and Oxford aren't taught, so they wouldn't be using Sakai to learn with. BUT they might well be supervising undergraduates. Also, they might well be using Sakai for their research project worksite)
 
7 Students - online courses. Cambridge doesn't currently run actual degree courses online. We are running quite a lot of courses on Sakai which (we think) are Government-sponsored. These include inter-faith dialogue between community leaders, and courses on animal handling / welfare. We also have a Institute of Continuing Education who run online courses for members of the public - these are more general courses, e.g. Roman History, History of Gardens. They use Moodle at the moment. Oxford does run some online courses (but not many) that will get you a Diploma (if not a degree) online.
 
8. Teachers of online courses. i.e. these are the people who teach the courses described above.
 
9. Administrative staff -  these are often administering the sakai worksites for the big teaching courses. For really big teaching courses, the administrators will probably rn the worksite rather than the lecturers. Admin staff will often upload resources, add and remove students, send out announcements.
 
10. Research staff. Do research. Also often involved in teaching!
 
Hope this helps!
 
Harriet