The work is licensed under
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2023-12-20
The work is licensed under
a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
License.
The departmental policies, processes, and procedures (PPP) cannot conflict with LRCFT contract or any applicable laws and regulations that are applicable.
LRCFT contract section 8.4.1.15 states, as a part of performance review criteria, “Works cooperatively and effectively with others.” As a department, there are times when decisions need to be made collectively and democratically. Yet, other times, there are institutional obligations that need to be fulfilled on-time. In order for the department and institution to operate effectively, communication timeliness is an essential factor.
Generally speaking, 48 hours as a turn-around time is considered the average for student-professor interaction. The same response time-frame is applicable to interdepartmental communication.
The PPP affects all constituents of the CIS department. As a result, it is important to include all constituents in the determination of the PPP.
LRCFT contract 4.1.3 and 4.7.2 states that full-time faculty have an obligation of 5 hours of college service per week. The list of activities that count toward college service includes activities that relate to the PPP. As a result, full-time faculty are expected to participate in the determination of the PPP. Part-time faculty are not paid for college service.
All instructors, full-time or part-time are stake-holders of the PPP. As such, all instructors have a voice in the determination of the PPP. However, because part-time instructors are not paid for college service, their participation is optional but welcomed.
Robert’s Rules of Order is created for in-person meetings. An online process is needed to support assemblies where constituents may participate in a democratic process asynchronously.
Transitions (labeled arrows) that have percentages mean that they require a certain percentage constraint to make the transition. Technically, transitions with a percentage have their built-in states. The percentages are relative to the number of votes of “yes” and “no”, votes of “abstain” is not included in the calculation.
Other than the transition “amend”, all other transitions are “meta-motions” in the sense that they require voting.
A major obstacle to online and asynchronous processes is participation and the definition of quorum. One method to overcome this difficulty is to time out a meta motion, and count the lack of participation as agreement. The downside of this method is that some participants may need more time.
There are time-sensitive motions that cannot wait. On such matters, a hard end time is imposed with a justification. On other issues, a soft end time is suggested. One week of real-time, or five business days, seems to be a reasonable amount of time to cast a vote on a motion. Two business seems reasonable for meta-motions that do not transition a main motion to a final state.
If any constituent needs more time to consider, said constituent can request more time. Given this mechanism, it is reasonable to assume that a lack of response and a lack of request of more time to be considered as a vote of “abstain.”
Unlike in a synchronous meeting, there is no concept of being “present.” This means a lack of casting a ballot of “yes” or “no” can be counted as abstention or absence. Because abstentions do not count in tallying the vote, an abstention has the same result as an absence. As a result, there is no need to differentiate.
The following is the state diagram of a ballot. If the matter being voted has a hard time limit, then “extend time” is not a valid transition.
All ballots must be in a final state (boldfaced) in order for a voted transition to occur. A failed voted transition automatically returns to the origin state of the transition.
Ballots are collected in a document where changes are automatically logged and visible to all stakeholders. In a Google Sheets, only an editor can view the edit history of a document.
For transparency and convenience, voting can be performed using a Google Form that is connected to a Google Sheets where all stakeholders are editors. The Google Form should be configured to require authenticated ID. The Google Sheets should be configured to send a notification to all stakeholders when a new ballot is registered. In the event that a constituent cannot vote electronically, the department chair can manually enter the vote with a reference to the communication that authorized such an entry.
If a program is in catalog, a student has a right to timely completion. This means that the scheduling process must take into consideration what programs are listed in the college catalog, and whether sufficient sections are offered.
In addition, in order for a student to be able to complete a program, sections of a course should minimize conflict with sections of other courses that are in the program. Sections of courses that have a linear prerequisite dependency can be offered at conflicting time slots.
In the event of contested requests of a specific class (course offering), the priority is determined as follows:
An instructor who does not meet the minimum requirement of a discipline cannot claim responsibility of a course or program in said discipline.
In the event of contested claim of responsibility, the priority is determined as follows: