Prior to the semester

In the semester(s) preceding the semester when your course runs

Suggest changes in the course description
Calls for new course descriptions and changes are made by the Study Board secretaries.
At the Faculty of Business and Social Science, the calls are sent in June (for the coming spring semester) & December (for the coming fall semester). At the Faculty of Humanities, the call for course descriptions is sent once per year in November and the new descriptions take effect from September of the following year.

• Please contact the course responsible to suggest changes to the course description. The course responsible is in charge of keeping the course description updated, preferably in collaboration with the lecturer. It is the course responsible who sends the request for changes in the course description to the study administration.

Make requests for the scheduling of you teaching
Primo February/September, the study administration makes a call for “timetable requests” for the coming semester.

• Once called upon, please send your timetable availabilities to the study administration for the courses you have been allocated to. Professional obligations will be taken into consideration.

Order textbooks for the course
The lecturer is responsible for ordering the course-required textbooks for the students, the instructors (if any) and themselves. Most publishers provide lecturers with ‘inspection copies’ upon request prior to larger orders.

• The orders should be placed well in advance so students can buy the books before the start of the semester.
• Books can be ordered via Academic Books or Saxo by informing our EAN no. Our student helpers can help with ordering books. 

Familiarize yourself with the course description
The course description is the formal set of guidelines for a course and includes among others a description of lecture content & format, learning goals, the course timetable and the formal exam requirements. It serves as the official tool to align expectations of the course between lecturers, students and the administration.

• Please familiarize yourself with the course description prior to the semester.
• The course descriptions can be found on the mitsdu.dk 

Gather inspiration from materials/experiences by prior lecturers & the course responsible
Prior lecturers of the course are often willing to share their materials and experiences from teaching the course in prior years. Please do not hesitate to ask them or the course responsible for obtaining existing materials. The course responsible or the Head of your unit can help you locate prior lecturers.

• Please consult the course responsible for information about curriculum, course materials and expected format of lecturing.
• You can request access to the prior year’s course on the e-learning platform. This is carried out by the study administration with approval from the lecturer of that year.
• While previous years’ materials can serve as inspiration, it is often easier for you to adjust this material to your teaching or to develop new material

Familiarize yourself with the norm hours for your teaching activities
To ensure a fair distribution of tasks at the department and protect your research time, your workload is calculated using so-called “norm hours”. We therefore recommend that you:

• Familiarize yourself with the norm hours for teaching at DBM. These can be found on DBM’s staff page on SDUnet.

Familiarize yourself with the teaching & communication platforms
The main channel of communication with students and online dissemination used at SDU is the university’s e-learning platform, please familiarize yourself with the platform itslearning. 

Prepare student instructors and exercise sessions
Some courses include exercise sessions taught by student instructors. If one or more instructors are involved in the course, the lecturer must:

• Prepare and publish an exercise/practical assignment programme to the students on itslearning.

Upload lecture plan and syllabus
As a minimum requirement, a lecture plan must be available before the lectures start in order to allow the students to adequately prepare for the course.

• Please upload a lecture plan to the course site on the e-learning platform prior to the semester start (preferably 2 weeks before the first lecture at the latest).
• The lecture plan should include
  • An overview of the literature and other reading/viewing materials for the course.
  • An overview of themes and literature covered at each lecture.
  • If relevant, an overview of learning activities for each lecture.
• As lecturer, you often have the possibility of adjusting the specific readings, but please check whether in doing so, you still uphold the course description. Major changes to the themes and literature for the course should be discussed with the course responsible before uploading information for the students.
• If one or more instructors are involved in the course, an exercise/practical assignment programme must also be available.

Familiarize yourself with your lecture room
To prepare yourself for teaching, find out what is available in the lecture room, you have been assigned.

• Find lecture rooms using the campus map – an online version can be found here.
• Understand the technical facilities available and if needed seek help in how to use them.