A Reader assists a course instructor by grading homework, papers, or exams and may also hold office hours to answer students’ questions about such assignments.

No prior approval is required for use of this title.

Students appointed to this job code must meet the graduate student academic eligibility criteria listed in Chapter 1.

Concurrent Appointments

If the student is already set up as a Teaching Assistant or other monthly appointment and you are adding a concurrent readership, you MUST add the reader at a monthly rate.

IA System

The Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor has developed an online system that helps academic departments and programs to facilitate the assignment and hiring process for students applying for TA, Reader, Tutor, Undergraduate Instructional Apprentice, and Associates-In positions.

The Instructional Assistant Data Management System (IA System) allows departmental staff to create custom questionnaires for Academic Student Employee (ASE) positions they want to fill, and provides a way for students to apply for those positions online.  Departments and programs that already know who will fill these positions can simply assign the students and send them offers through the system.

The IA System provides additional data from various campus resources on each applicant, to help facilitate the decision-making process and to provide a single repository for relevant data.  The system also provides the opportunity for instructors to select and rank applicants, if the department/program wishes to include instructor input in the decision-making process.  The IA System also streamlines the approval process for graduate students being hired outside their home departments.

Once a final hiring decision is made, departmental staff assign the student to a class and make an offer through the IA System.  The student is sent an e-mail notification, which includes instructions and a link back to the system, where he/she can accept or decline the offer.  For paid assignments, the system generates a PDF appointment letter, which the student is required to open before he/she can accept the offer.

The ASE assignments also make it easy for an academic department or program to participate in the online Evaluations system.  This system, which launched in Spring 2012, allows students to evaluate their ASEs and graduate courses, and instructors to evaluate their ASEs.

To obtain access, please contact ATS at ats@ucsd.edu.  To start the recruiting process for your department, go to http://academicaffairs.ucsd.edu/Modules/ASES .

Pay Rate

Graduate student Readers should be paid using the graduate rate listed on the Student Academic Title Rates sheet.

Pay Schedule

Readers are always set up on sub-2 and subject to positive time reporting using EcoTime.

Position Begin and End Dates

Reader begin and end dates can vary. Some Reader appointments are set up for the actual quarter dates and others are set up for the Fall quarter begin date through 12/31, Winter from 1/1 - 3/31 and Spring from 4/1 – 6/30. When using a 10/01 start date for a new hire reader, the oath must be signed on or before the first day of the quarter (not the pay period). For example, if fall quarter begins on 9/22, the oath must be signed by that date, not on 10/1 which is the pay period start date.

First time IAs are automatically sent a notice and signed up for a required IA training in Canvas. The course is composed of four modules:

• Professionalism and Leadership as an Instructional Assistant

• Promoting Learning through Diversity: The Inclusive Classroom

• Teaching Students with Disabilities

• Fostering Academic Integrity

Each module will take approximately 30 minutes to complete. The hourly students should be compensated for this training as it's required. If training is listed in the student's description of duties, the students should deduct those hours from their total expected hours. For example, a proctor has been employed for a maximum of 110 hours and in their description of duties it lists training as an expectation. The students would deduct two hours from their total hours and they have 108 hours remaining.

If training is not listed in the description of duties, provide the additional compensation for those two hours. The two hours of training can be tacked onto the student's 1st paycheck when their employment begins.