Institute of Technology working conditions and holidays ?

teachinggal123

I know there are a few IoT lecturers working here so thought it would be a good place to ask a question.

What are the typical working conditions of an AL these days? I suspect teaching is 18-21 hours a week? Would this usually be spread randomly over 5 days or possible to squeeze into 4 days?

Also, are the Summer months off or are AL posts expected to do research and supervision over these months?

Apologies if these are stupid questions and thanks in advance for any replies

bduffy

Long time ago for me, but the hours can be arranged into 4 days, but it rarely works out like that from experience. Research during the summer would be good career wise and keeps the mind active. Realistically, most staff finish June 23rd and are back on Sept 1st. If the staff had a really good project student working on something for a 2 month final year project, they could continue it and get something out of it (paper/poster/blog/case study). Essentially getting a research result over a 2 month window is difficult, but not impossible.

dahamster

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I know there are a few IoT lecturers working here so thought it would be a good place to ask a question.

What are the typical working conditions of an AL these days? I suspect teaching is 18-21 hours a week? Would this usually be spread randomly over 5 days or possible to squeeze into 4 days?

Also, are the Summer months off or are AL posts expected to do research and supervision over these months?

Apologies if these are stupid questions and thanks in advance for any replies

18 hrs for an AL. Thats class contact.
finish 20th june back in sept.

mr potato head

Contracts are for 18hrs teaching as an AL, this is sometimes averaged across the two semesters. I've had semesters where I've had all my teaching compressed into 3 days, but generally over 4 days for me.

If you are trying to be an active researcher, or if you came from industry with an MSc and want to complete a PhD, it can be difficult to get any of your hours reallocated due to rigid and antiquated HR and Finance practices. This generally needs a "buy out" of hours from funding to replace your lost teaching hours, this can also be a challenge as not all funding sources allow funding to be used for that.

As bduffy mentioned, if you have PhD/MSc students researching over the summer or you want to research yourself you are free to do so, but there is no contractual expectation to do this.
The biggest expectation at the moment is for the IoT/TU staff to be more research-active, more innovative in teaching and more engaged with industry, while getting little or no time allowance from teaching. If you try to do all of these the risk of burnout is real (I've been there).

That being said, I love my work despite the long hours. If, like me, you have a supportive manager/Head of School you can have a lot of freedom to develop.

Geuze

One big advantage of IoT over uni is that AL automatically progress to L scale, after time spent moving up the AL scale.

In uni, you have to apply for progression, produce a CV, be interviewed, etc.

Progression is not guaranteed, although if you've been doing your job well, you should get it.

I know people 20 years in uni, earning much less than IoT, as IoT staff have moved onto L scale in that time.

mr potato head

If you have prior industry or teaching experience you can apply for "incremental credits" to get that recognised, this can move you up the AL scale a bit and speed up progression to L scale.

No guarantee you will get it, but better to apply.