GENERAL STAFF RULES

Firstly, congratulations on your promotion to one of our staff positions here at HP Hogwarts. We are delighted to have you and excited to work with you. As a member of the staff team, you are held to a higher standard than that of our members and students. The following rules are to be followed by all staff members, in addition to the Forum-Wide Rules set for all members.

• You are to remain professional at all times when posting to the forums and sending Owls to members, students, or other staff members.
• You are the example for our members and students. So, be the example.
• As a member of any staff team, you must login to the forum on a daily basis.
• As a member of any staff team, you must actively participate in the forum.
• You should help come up with ideas for contests and help promote them.
• You should help promote our forum on other sites via your signature, or a URL in your profile linking back to us. This is not required, but would help us out a great deal.
• If you have ideas for the forum, share them. The worst that can happen is your idea is turned down. That being said, there is no such thing as a trivial idea. We want to hear your opinions.
• Your account password should be complex. It should contain lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols. You should write down your password and keep it somewhere safe if you have a hard time memorizing complex passwords.
• Passwords should be changed every 45-60 days to ensure your account remains secure.
• You are NOT permitted to share any staff discussions with anyone other than staff members. Staff members include Headmasters, Professors, TA(s), Prefects, Moderators, Game Keepers, and anyone else in a group that has access to our staff forum, "Ministry of Magic."

DISPLAY NAMES

When you are accepted and promoted to a Professor here at HP Hogwarts, you will need to change your display name indicating the promotion. All you have to do is add Professor in front of your display name with a space between the title and the name you go by. You are required to do this as a means of being "professional."

To change your display name, simply go to your profile and click on the "Edit Profile" button. Then, proceed to the "Personal" tab. The very first option on the "Personal" tab is your display name. It should read the following:

Professor Username

This should be the second thing you do after making sure that you have created a complex password for your account.

ABSENCES & RESIGNATIONS

We understand that real life has a tendency to get in the way of our online projects, duties, and responsibilities. That being said, Professors and their TA(s) have the most important job here at HP Hogwarts.

If you are going to be absent from the forum for any reason, you must reply to the Absense Thread in the Professor's Lounge. Be sure to announce a reason for your absence, even if the reason is trivial. If the reason is too personal, simply just let us know you are away for personal reasons.

Once you've responded to the thread, you will need to edit the very first post of the thread. In the first post of the thread, you need to find your name on the list. You will change your "Status" from "present" to "absent." You must include a date of return. Here is what it should look like if you are going to be absent:

Professor Bean Status: Absent DOR: April 30th, 2015

If you are going to be Absent, you must have a TA (teaching assistant) that will take care of your classes while you are away. If there isn't a TA available for your class, you will need to contact another professor to take on your classes while you are away. For information about TA(s), see the Hiring TA(s) part of this guide.

Should you be absent for two weeks or longer, you will be demoted until you have enough time to do your duties. Someone may or may not be promoted and given your position. If your position has been filled and another position opens, you can apply for the new position provided you are in good standing on our forum.

Again, we understand that life can get in the way of online projects, duties, and responsibilities. However, should the need arise that you have to (or want to) resign or step-down from your position, you are required to do the following:

• You must give and work a two week notice. This will give us enough time to find a replacement for you.
• You must formally submit a letter of resignation to Professor Bean.

In your formal letter of resignation to Professor Bean, you must explain the reason for your resignation. The reason we want you to explain why you are leaving us is so that we can get insight into how to make a better experience for our staff. Ultimately we'd like to keep you and the staff that we have, but if you choose to leave, giving us your reasons may help us provide a better environment for staff members in the future.

Your letter of resignation should be sent by Owl.

Should you fail to do any of the above, you will NOT be allowed to teach at HP Hogwarts in the future. Your profile "Staff-Notes" will be edited to ensure this.

*NOTE: Should you resign; any lessons, assignments, exams, and or quizzes that you created for your class will remain as a part of the curriculum unless the new professor decides to change them.

HIRING TA(S)

As a professor, your job can get overwhelming. We recognize this. So, we give you the option to appoint Teaching Assitants, or TA(s), to help you with your classes. While you, the professor, are responsible for creating the lessons, homework assignments, quizzes, and exams; your TA(s) can help you grade assignments, award points, and help when you are away.

If you wish to appoint a TA to help you with your classes, they must meet the following requirements:

• Must be an active member of the forum.
• Cannot have any infractions related to breaking forum or site rules.
• Cannot hold another staff position on the forum or site.

Additionally, a TA can only be appointed for a class, in a year, if they've completed that year and moved into the next year. For example, if a student is a first year student, they cannot be a TA. If a student is a Second year student they can be a TA for first year classes. A third year student can be a TA for second year classes. This plays true for each class year. They must be a year ahead of the year in which you are requesting their help.

When you are ready to appoint a TA, you will need to first create a topic in the Great Hall notifiying the students that you are looking for a TA. Your post should include the Class you wish to appoint a TA to. You should also include the class year (1 - 7), and you must include the rules about TA(s) being appointed as discussed in the previous paragraph. Your topic should be stickied and open to replies. Include an application in the thread and have the students submit the applications to the thread.

When you have decided on a member, or members, to appoint as your TA(s), you can close the thread and unsticky it. Make sure to leave a reply letting the students know you have gone over the applications and will be appointing a TA(s) shortly. Then, send an Owl to Professor Bean letting her know that you have found a TA(s) and include the application(s) and details about which class and class year you want these students to be appointed for.

Once you have moved through the proper channels, you can send an Owl to the TA(s) letting them know that you've selected them to be your TA(s). You can advise them that they will be promoted when the admin(s) approve their application as Professor Bean is also an admin.

I know this information is kind of confusing. So, if you have any questions feel free to Owl Professor Bean and she will get back to you as soon as she can.

2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR

HP Hogwarts is designed to act like a school. Therefore, each year, classes will begin in August and end in the middle of June. The following schedule is in place for the 2015-2016 Academic Calendar Year:

NOTE* Each lesson will run for about two weeks. The only exception is the lesson just before Christmas Break.

PROFESSORS & CLASSES

The following table shows a list of all of our classes that HP Hogwarts offers to students. The ID is what will be used on a student's schedule and it will be explained to them in the Student Handbook. The Year Represents the years the class is available. The rest should be self explanatory.

LESSON STRUCTURE

The lesson structure for your classes is pretty simple. In the Professor's Lounge, there should be a visible sub-board called Professor's Classes. Inside that sub-board are 28 individual sub-boards with the name of each class. Navigate to your Class' board. Create a thread titled "Textbook." This is important as I'm working on a flip-book library with a WP install to have each text book open as an actual book that can be navigated like a book in our book library.

All of your lessons should be written in RP form. Basically, you should act as if you are actually teaching a class and conversing with your students. To see an example, please view the textbook for History of Magic.

Now, for the formalities. The first post in your textbook should be an introduction of yourself to your students. You should also include a directory for your Syllabus & Class Rules as well as each individual lesson. Again, the History of Magic class is an example of how it should be set up.

Your second post will include your class syllabus. The syllubus should name each individual lesson with a due date of the homework for that lesson. To view all dates, see the 2015-2016 School Year section of this guide.

After your intitial two posts, you are free to begin your actual lessons. You need to make sure you include two quizzes, preferably in Lesson 6 and lesson 17; a midterm exam is required for Lesson 11 and the final exam is required for lesson 20.

Aside from the text in your textbook lessons, you should include images and/or pictures in your lessons where warranted. It will help keep the students engaged and give them an idea of what's being discussed.

Once the library is set up, either the Headmistress, or Professor Bean will grab the text from your textbook and turn it into a book for the libary. This means that your textbook will be edited. When its finished and added to the library, you will be notified.

ASSIGNMENT STRUCTURE

Each assignment is worth 10 Homework Points (HW Points). That being said, you need to structure your assignment so that the total points available are equal to 10. You must have a minimum of 4 questions per assignment. You will assign points to each question. Additionally, you must make sure you use a mixture of True/False, Fill in the Blank, and Short Answer questions.

Below, you can see an example of an assignment with four questions:

• Q1: (True/False) Classes will begin on August 10th, 2015. (1 point)
• Q2: (Short Answer) What is the role of a Headmaster/Headmistress on HP Hogwarts? (2 points)
• Q3: (Fill in the Blank) Each _____ is worth _____ points. That being said, you need to _____ your _____ so that the total points available are equal to _____. (5 Points)
• Q4: (Short Answer) All of your lessons should be written in what? (2 Points)

*NOTE: Please take notice about the Fill in the Blank question. Because there are five blanks that must be filled in, the question is worth five points. As long as you have a minimum of one of each type of question, you can use additional ones however you want to.

Each assignment should have, at the least, one extra credit question. You can include a maximum of two extra credit questions on an assignment. The extra credit question points may vary depending on the type of extra credit question. Your first extra credit question should be an opinion essay, and it should be worth no more than 3 points. The second one can be any of the previously discussed types of questions. Generally, short answer will be worth 2 points, T/F will be worth 1, and Fill ins will vary.

MIDTERMS & FINALS

Midterms and Final exam dates have been posted to the 2015-2016 School Year part of this guide. Midterms are worth 20 Homework (HW) points. They should include questions from lessons 1-10. Your midterm exam must include a minimum of 1 question from each of the first ten lessons of your textbook. The question structure for midterms is the same as the structure for homework assignments. The only difference is that you should include the Lesson # before the start of each question as shown below:

• (L1) Q1: (True/False) Classes will begin on August 10th, 2015. (1 point)

The reason to include the Lesson Number is because students take these exams (and complete assignments) with their textbooks. Everything is open book.

The Final exam is to be done just like the midterm exam. The difference is that it will be worth 40 points and covers lessons 1-19.

Both the Midterm and the Final can include extra credit questions. The same rules apply for midterms and finals as in the Assignment Structure part of this guide where extra credit is explained.

SOURCES FOR LESSONS

When you write lessons for each year, you can use any source or resource that you wish to compose the information. There is a site-wide copyright stating that any Harry Potter content and images are credited to their respectful owners. You can choose to completely make up each individual lesson if you so desire, but I'd recommend trying to make the lessons seem like they would have been taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In most cases, if you google search a subject, you will be able to find some Harry Potter resources (be sure to include "Hogwarts," or "Harry Potter" with your topic search to ensure this).

CLASS PREPARATION

As stated in the 2015-2016 School Year part of this guide, classes are to begin on August 10th, 2015. That being said, each professor must have their classes prepared and ready to go. This is especially true if a professor is teaching a core class that begins in the first year.

All lessons should be submited no later than Friday, July 24th, 2015 by 11:59PM EST. Having them completed and submitted by this date and time will give us the opportunity to have the actual books created and added to our book library.

If you have any questions regarding the preparation of your classes, please contact Professor Bean directly via Owl.

RELEASING LESSONS

Releasing lessons for students may get a bit tricky. I'm currently working on retrieving a plugin for the forum that will automatically display a homework assignment on a specific date at a specific time. However, until I accomplish that, you will have to release your lessons on your own.

Each lesson has a start date which can be found in the 2015-2016 School Year part of this guide. When a lesson is scheduled to be released on a specific Moday, that lesson must be moved to the appropriate class sub-board for your class. So, if you are teaching first year Astronomy, you will move your first lesson to the ASTR101 forum no later than 11:59PM EST on Monday, August 10th, 2015.

Additionally, each of your lessons and your "Textbook" thread must be stickied and locked in their new forum. The reason for this is because each of the individual class sub-forums are private boards. This means that only the Professor and their TA can see every single post within the board. The user will only be able to see their created posts. That being said, having a thread stickied and locked means that the thread can be seen by everyone.

Furthermore, all lessons must be released by 11:59PM EST on the Monday they are suppose to be available. Again, take a look at the 2015-2016 School Year Part of this guide to find the specific dates.

GRADING

Grading assignments can be time consuming and, honestly, a bit annoying. However, as a professor, you still have to do it. Your TA(s) can help you with grading assignments as well.

Simply put, you should create a cheatsheet for your homework assignments, quizzes, midterm, and final. Have it somewhere that is easily accessible. You can create a cheatsheet thread and in a single post contain all the answers to each of your lesson's questions. That would be the easiest way to access the answers when it's time to grade homework assignments.

Every day, you should be logging into the forum and checking your classes to see if students have submitted any assignments. This means you should be grading assignments on a daily basis.

To grade an assignment, tag the user by using the @ symbol follwed by their username. A username is not the same as a display name. To see the user's username, hover over their displayname and it will show you a tooltip of their username with the @ symbol. For example Professor Bean's tag would be @beans and Headmistress' tag would be @admin.

The reason for the tag, is so that when you submit your response to the student, they will receive a notification that their assignment thread has had activity and they will be able to go and check their grade.

When you have inserted the tag, check the student's answers against your answer cheetsheet. If the student got all of the answers correct, you can simply post that the user received a 10/10 and tell them they did a good job (great job, excellent, etc.). If a student misses a question, or gets a question wrong, be sure to provide the correct answers to the questions they missed in your response.

Even if they got their extra credit questions correct, they still need to know the correct answers to the other questions. If a student's extra credit questions are correct and have enough points to make up for the questions they missed, they can still receive a 10/10 points. However, if they also missed the extra credit questions, or didn't complete them at all, then you must deduct the appropriate amount of points from the users grade.

For example: Say a student misses a Fill in the Blank question that is worth 4 points. They got 2/4 of the blanks correct, but missed the other two and did not complete their extra credit questions and/or got them wrong. Their grade received would be an 8/10.

You must always make sure to tag the student, give feedback, and provide the correct answers for any question the student got wrong.

LATE WORK POLICY

We have implemented a late work policy for all students, regardless if they register late, or simply turn in assignments late. Please take a look at the following information about late work.

For every week that a homework assignment, quiz, midterm, or exam is late, 0.5points will need to be deducted from the assignments total score after grading. So, basically, if a student completed an assignment and received a 10/10 on the assignment, but the assignment was 3 weeks late, you would be deducting 1.5 points off of the assignment grade. They would receive 8.5/10 points for that assignment.

Unless a student just blatantly does not submit an assignment, the minimum number of points that a student can receive on an assignment, quiz, midterm, or exam is 5 points. Once they have reached the 5 point mark, you cannot deduct any more points from their assignment. The ONLY EXCEPTION to this rule is if the student missed questions on the assignment.

So, if a student turned in an assignment 8 weeks late, they would automatically lose 4 points off of their grade. That being said, if they missed 2 questions on their assignment, prior to removing the four points, then their grade for that assignment would be 4/10.

When grading a late assignment, be sure to tell them that they lost points, how many were deducted, and why in addition to your required response to their assignment.

Extra Credit on late work will serve as it normally would. However if an assignment can only receive a maximum number of points because the assignment was late, the extra credit cannot be applied to boost their score. It can still be used to replace a wrong answer and can still be used for house points (explained in the Awarding House Points part of this guide).

So, if a student completes an assignment and scores a 6/10 on it, the extra credit can be applied to the wrong answers. So, say that student got a maximum of 2 extra credit points, their assignment is now worth 8/10 instead of 6/10. However, that same student was 6 weeks late turning in the assignment, then the maximum number of points that the student can receive is 5.

Additionally, if the student receives a 10/10 on the assignment and has completed the extra credit questions, they are still eligible for the bonus points for the bonus questions. Even if they recieve a 7/10 for being six weeks late.

AWARDING HOMEWORK POINTS

After you have graded a student's assignment, you will have to award them the appropriate amount of points. To award them Homework Points, you need to navigate to their profile and click on the "Edit Profile" button. From there, navigate to the Personal Tab. Scroll down until you see the section that says: HW Points. You will add the total amount of points that they received on their assignment to the already calculated total show.

So, if the student has 0 HW Points and they got all of the questions correct on the assignment, you would simply input the number 10 in the HW Points section. If the user has 53 points, and they got a 10/10 on their assignment, you would add the 10 points to the 53 making it a total of 63 points.

After you've added the points, simply save the information by clicking on the button at the bottom that says "Save Personal Settings." Then you must send a Private Message to Professor Bean announcing the points awarded. However, before doing so, you will also need to add House Points when warranted. Please see the Awarding House Points part of this guide for more information.

AWARDING HOUSE POINTS

The only time it is necessary to award house points to a student is if they received a 10/10 on their assignment, 20/20 on their midterm, and/or 40/40 on their final exam with out having to use the points from their extra credit questions. If a student meets the requirement, as I just outlined, and they answered the extra credit questions correctly, they will qualify for additional "bonus" house points.

The opinion essay is always worth three points on an assignment. So, that being said, if the student receives the total points worth for that essay, they would receive 10 House Points (HP) for each point the essay is worth. So if they obtained all three points the essay was worth they would receive 30 HP. If you thought the essay was only worth 2 points, then they would receive 20 HP.

The same plays true for any other type of extra credit question. T/F questions are typically worth 1 point, so they would receive 10 points if they answered the question correctly and didn't have to use that point towards their assignment.

To award the house points, you would follow the same steps as you would for awarding HW points. Navigate to the student's profile by clicking on their name. Click on the "Edit Profile" button. Navigate to the Personal Tab. Once their, add the number of house points they are receive to the total number already listed there.

HP and HW Points must also be announced to Professor Bean in the form of an Owl so that the House Points table can be adjusted for the points earned. EVERY time you grade an assignment, you will have to PM Professor Bean, no exceptions to this rule. It's the only way to ensure that the House Points table stays up to date and current.

When you send your Points Awarded announcement you should include the following:

• The Subject of Your Owl should be "Student's Name Award Points Class Name."
• In the body:
  • Student's Name:
  • Class Name:
  • Professor's Name:
  • HW Points Awarded:
  • House Points Awarded:

Additionally, you should only send ONE Owl to Professor Bean. You do not have to send separate Owls for Homework Points and House Points. That is highly discouraged.