Instructional Assistants (IAs) to Canvas

Adding Instructional Assistants to a class section

If you are using an Instructional Assistant (IA) in a course, you will need to have that person added as an instructor with 0% workload to the class section in Banner, through the standard methods provided by Academic Class Scheduling. This will enable the IA to access the class lists in myUVU and the course in Canvas.

Parts of this change became effective beginning Summer 2017, and was made by the Academic Affairs Council in response to the following few issues:

1. The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state reporting require institutions accurately account for the work that “TAs” perform in courses. USHE policy only refers to graduate students as teaching assistants, so we are changing our designation of TA to IA to make sure we don’t create confusion.
2. IA’s must be paid appropriately.  There is no option to have a student perform IA duties without being paid.
3. The IA position or its duties must NOT be used as a means for a student to fulfill coursework for another course.
   1. For example, a student must not make an agreement with a faculty member, department, or college to perform the functions of an Instructional Assistant as part of a senior project, capstone course, internship, etc.
4. The Academic Affairs Council has determined that IA assignments must be visible in our institutional system of record, where the deans and department chairs can accurately and fairly approve the use of IA’s when discussing workload with faculty members.
5. Improving the clarity of roles: TA/IA has become a catch-all term for students who work with faculty members in assisting in classes, including tutors, graders, and mentors, among others. Different student roles require different forms of access.

Therefore, all faculty who intend to submit forms for IA additions to Canvas beginning Fall 2017 will need to work with their departments to get the IA added through Banner. Once the IA is added to Banner, they will automatically be granted access to the course in Canvas. 

If Department Chairs and Schedulers have questions about the process, they can work with Academic IT and Academic Scheduling by contacting [email protected].

We also encourage Department Chairs to speak with their Deans so any unconventional IA/Faculty Instructor Workload related issues can be discussed.

There are still a few items we are working out with HR and other departments (i.e., eSAF implications) and we’ll keep you posted on those processes and how they are affected by this change.