CoPIL Guidelines

As you more than likely read when you landed upon CoPIL’s homepage. this platform exists to allow UTT faculty the opportunity to learn from each other. This is achieved as faculty share their experiences in varios ‘Domains of Interest’. More specifically, as faculty dive into various ‘Interest Areas’ in CoPIL, opportunities are seeded into various faculty interactions which can germinate into meaningful collaborations and so much more

CoPIL’s Lexicon

At CoPIL a ‘Domain of Interest’ presents a broad category within which discussion forums will be associated. In other words, it represents a community of peers engaging each other under a broad theme. CoPIL has five Domains of Interest which are aligned to the role of faculty, as well ad the educational ethos of UTT. These Domains of Interest are:

  1. Teaching and Learning
  2. Research and Scholarship
  3. policies & Guidelines
  4. Commercial Interests
  5. Service & Philanthropy

When you visit any of the ‘Domains of Interest’ on the platform, you will see various ‘Interest Areas’.

Hi there. We’re so happy you ‘popped-in’ to have a better understanding of the term ‘Interest Area’. This term, specific to CoPIL, represents a broad forum theme/topic which faculty can choose to engage with based upon their interests (hence branding it ‘Interest Area’). Consequently, you can enter into any ‘Interest Area’ (a.k.a forum) and:

  • Ask a question
  • Start a new discussion
  • Contribute to an existing discussion/ conversation
  • Share relevant information
  • Poll your colleagues
  • Seek out a project/ research team
  • Any other relevant activity that falls within CoPIL’s guidelines

To ensure that activities run smoothly within each ‘Interest Area’, CoPIL is supported by faculty who volunteer their time to help manage a forum of their choosing. Such volunteers are termed ‘Interest Leaders’. You can expect to see the ‘Interest Leader’ for an ‘Interest Area’ posting general information relevant to the forum, sharing information on upcoming activities or events, and even triggering relevant conversations and discussions within an ‘Interest Area’.

The initial launch of CoPIL and its evolution over time, is the result of key people (who form CoPIL’s Planning and Management Team) who volunteer their time, to help guide the overall direction and development of this community of practice. These individuals oversee CoPIL and contribute to the development of guidelines, information, development and so much more of the CoPIL experience.

Interaction Guidelines

  • Share your contributions respectfully.
  • Respect your peers’ ideas, perspectives and overall contributions.
  • Engage meaningfully.
  • No spamming or sharing of irrelevant content in any of the Interest Area. This includes unsolicited business or product promotion not aligned with UTT’s interests.
  • For security purposes, do not share sensitive UTT information such as policy documents and other critical files directly within forums or on the CoPIL platform. Alternatively, you can share a hyperlink to these documents, which may be stored on UTT’s intranet, MS Teams group or SharePoint site which is more secure.
The success of CoPIL is literally based upon the active participation of faculty, within the various communities. Daily participation is certainly not required. However, routine presence and contribution in the Domain(s) of Interest and Interest Area(s) you joined, is strongly encouraged. Therefore, please remember:
  • If you posted a comment, return frequently enough to see if someone commented, so that the conversation can continue and not ‘fizzle out’
  • If a peer asks a question, be liberal with your knowledge and experience in your feedback, so that meaningful outcomes can be derived whenever queries are lodged in the various forums.
  • Don’t be afraid to share relevant information in your ‘Interest Area’ based upon your participation in other professional communities (external to UTT) and/ or your perusal of various sources of information.
Overall, this community is meant to be a mutually beneficial experience for all UTT faculty. Thus, everyone is encouraged to participate as often as one can, and as meaningful as one can.

Quick FAQs

Recall, that a ‘Domain of Interest’ represents a broad category within which discussion forums will be associated. In other words, it represents a community of peers engaging each other under a broad theme. You can join any number of ‘Domains of Interest’ as you desire. While no ‘Domain of Interest’ is compulsory, at least three of the domains represent different elements of engagement expected of faculty at UTT: Teaching & Learning, Research & Scholarship, and Service & Philanthropy. Nonetheless, you can join any domain that most captures your interest and participate in the various ‘Interest Areas’ that are aligned to your professional interests.
CoPIL has five Domains of Interest which are specifically aligned to the role of faculty:
  1. Teaching and Learning
  2. Research and Scholarship
  3. Policies & Guidelines
  4. Commercial Interests
  5. Service & Philanthropy
These are broad themes within which a vast multiplicity of forum topics (Interest Areas) can be generated.
Similar to the ‘Domain of Interest’, faculty can join any number of ‘Interest Areas’ as is desired. Recall, each ‘Interest Area’ represents a broad forum theme/topic enveloping a plethora of forum discussions related to the theme. For instance, the ‘Domain of Interest’ with respect to Teaching and Learning may have the following ‘Interest Areas’, otherwise known as discussion themes:
  • Blended Learning
  • Active Learning
  • Asynchronous Instruction
  • Artificial Intelligence re Teaching and Learning
A faculty who has subscribed to the ‘Blended Learning’ Interest Area (a.k.a. forum) may start a discussion titled ‘Strategies to keep students engaged in the online component of a blended class.’ Persons may enter this forum discussion and submit their feedback. Alternatively, within the same ‘Interest Area’ (i.e. Blended Learning), another faculty member may create a discussion topic titled ‘What are the best methods to mitigate the challenges arising out of a blended delivery mode’. Likewise, the other ‘Interest Areas’ (Active Learning; Asynchronous Instruction; Artificial Intelligence re Teaching and Learning) will have a variety of faculty-initiated discussions within each of them.

Overall, every ‘Interest Area’ (discussion theme) as described above, represents a virtual space (i.e. a discussion forum) where faculty can enter and start a discussion to share information, or ask questions on any topic of interest related to that ‘Interest Area’.
Members of this team will be responsible for guiding the selection process, confirming and supporting ‘CoPIL Interest Leaders’ and establishing and maintaining any guiding frameworks and procedures for CoPIL. The CoPIL planning & management team will meet no less than once per semester to monitor and evaluate the evolution of CoPIL to ensure that it is active, germane topics are being generated (aligned to contemporary trends and experiences in Higher Education), and that CoPIL Interest Leaders have access to all relevant resources to support their respective ‘Interest Areas’.
CoPIL’s Planning and Management team is a subset of the Board of Undergraduate Studies (BUS). As such, only members of BUS are eligible to serve on CoPIL’s Members Planning and Management team. At an appropriate time, a designate from BUS will inform members of BUS of the opportunity to serve on CoPIL’s Planning and Management team for a period of 1 year. This team consist of three to five persons.
Any faculty member at UTT can volunteer to be an Interest Leader. A designate from the CoPIL Planning Management Team, will inform the general faculty population at UTT, of both the time and requirements (if any) to be met, for one to volunteer and be chosen to lead a CoPIL ‘Interest Area’. Recall, serving in this volunteer position is for a period of one year.
Interest leaders will help support, coordinate and encourage participation within the various ‘Interest Areas’ within each ‘Domain of Interest’. There will be no less than two people functioning as Interest Leaders in any given ‘Interest Area’. This reduces the burden of ideating, motivating, coordinating and keeping activity alive in an Interest Area, from one individual. ‘Interest Leaders also have a term of one academic year. Overall, an Interest Leader can be expected to:
  • share useful and organic posts/discussions in their Interest Area no less than once per fortnight (twice per month).
  • encourage discussion on a given post/discussion.
  • remind participants within an Interest Area, of question-based discussions that are yet to receive feedback.
  • encourage as well as help co-ordinate community-based events related to their Interest Area.
  • routinely share relevant information and generate discussions on a weekly, fortnightly or no less than a monthly basis.
  • encourage lunchtime ‘talk yuh talk’ (open-forum) sessions on relevant topics areas
  • encourage various Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in their Interest Area members to share their expertise in the form of webinars or for those who are adventurous and have the time, they can develop and deliver a ½ hour to 1 hour workshop.
  • facilitate or encourage gamification activities within their Interest Area (e.g. Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire-based academic trivia activities)
If any technical challenges are experienced with the platform, please send an email with your concerns to support.tlis@utt.edu.tt, including the phrase “CoPIL technical support request” within the subject of the email.