Getting Started

• Do any tasks that you've been assigned during the ISA orientation (goals setting, setting up WorkDay, WHIMIS training, etc.).
• Read over A00 and provide feedback for A00 to the instructor in charge. Please see (ProofreadingAssignments) for tips on how to provide assignment feedback. If you do not have access to A00, please contact your ISC or the instructors for the pdf file. All ISAs should be proofreading.
  • Set up A00 on MarkUs and in the course account as you're providing feedback
• Setup Piazza by adding in students to the course account. Check with your ISC first on if Piazza is ready for students to be added. For more details, see PiazzaManagement.
  • If there are tutorials for the term, then announce on Piazza information about the first tutorial
• Setup MarkUs by making sure all of the course personnel are admins in MarkUs. Ensure that each ISA has a -student and -grader account so that ISAs can emulate being a student/grader.
  • Add in TAs as graders (ask your ISC for the list of graders)
  • Add students into MarkUs using the .classlist. Make sure there is an ISA adding students every day for the next few weeks in the beginning of the term
• If Clickers will be used this term, then the clickers will need to be setup for the term. Please see (https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/ISG/Clickers - Possibly outdated) for details.
• Proofread the course website for any broken links as well as any outdated information. All ISAs should be proofreading the website. If it is an ISA's responsibility for maintaining the website, then you might need to edit the website yourself to fix the broken links/outdated information. If that's the case, then please see HugoForCourseWebsites.
  • Update the personnel page with Instructor, IA, and ISA profile pictures, as well as any relevant information for each course staff member (lecture/tutorial location and times, office hour times, etc.)
• Figure out a schedule for course email maintenance. There should be 1 or 2 ISAs monitoring, organizing, and replying to course emails everyday. For more information, please see EmailManagement
• Figure out a schedule for office hours. Each ISA should be responsible for about 5 hours of office hours a week. More ISAs should be assigned to office hours closer to the due date due to the higher volume of students. Otherwise try not to overlap personnel in office hour slots. Try to have office hours covering from at least 10am - 5pm.
• If it's been a while since you've taken CS135, then familiarize yourself with the course material before the beginning of classes. You do not need to know everything in the course, but make sure that you are at least 1 week ahead of students so that you can complete the assignments when doing assignment feedback.
• Figure out the list of tasks that you and your colleagues will be responsible for. Once you know what you'll be responsible for, please see the table of contents at the top of this page and read up on the relevant pages for your task.
• If there is a returning ISA, feel free to harass them if you ever need help with anything (harass does not mean that you give them all of your work).