A Topup "Scholarhip" is an amount, normally $8,000 per year, offered to many PhD Scholarship holders, in return for which they agree to work for 180 hours per year. Technically it is known as a Supplementary Engineering Award.
Topups normally run for 3 years, and work can be carried forward from one year to the next, so that if you do, say, 195 hours in the first year, then you then can carry forward the 15 hours in excess of the 180 hour requirement to the second year. Similarly, if you only manage to complete 150 hours in your first year, then you carry forward the 30 hour deficit to your second year. You may wish to be proactive in seeking out topup work, in order to avoid having to complete a large amount of work late in your PhD course. The ultimate requirement is that you complete 540 = 180 × 3 hours of work (for a 3-year topup), which means that, for example, if after 3 sessions you have completed 300 hours, then you only have 240 hours to go in the remaining 3 sessions (or vice versa).
Normally the work is teaching work of some type - conducting tutorials, laboratory demonstrations, consultations, answering student e-mails, assignment marking, and examination marking. Occasionally, course administration, or exam and/or quiz supervision is performed by topups, too. The hourly rate, $8,000/180 = $44.44, is substantially more than the rate paid to casual tutors, which is around $28-30 per hour.
Timetabled work done by topups, like tutorials, labs, and supervision is counted by the timetabled hours worked, except that, in line with UNSW policy for casual tutors, topups count a one hour tutorial as 3 hours of work, assuming that the topup is taking the tutorial just once in a particular week, or 2 hours for repeat tutorials. This covers up to an hour of preparation, which might include a tutors' meeting, an hour of contact, and up to an hour of marking. [Casual tutors are limited to 20 minutes marking: remember that they get paid less.] The marking may be clumped - so that you do no marking in 10 teaching weeks of a session, and then do a total of 13 hours of marking in the 3 remaining weeks, when assignments and/or quizzes need marking. The marking may occur after the end of session, for example if an assignment is due after the end of session, or if you are not asked to do much marking during session, in which case you might be asked to apply your 13 hours of marking per tutorial group to exam marking.
For untimetabled work, like marking in excess of one hour per tutorial, e-mail answering, or course administration, you must keep records of the amount of time you spend on the task, including date, times worked, and nature of work, e.g.
| Date | Start | Finish | Time | Running Total | Nature of Work |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Apr 2007 | 9am | 9.40am | 0:40 | whatever | Setting up SMS database |
You then claim for actual hours worked.
Casual tutors are required to complete paperwork in relation to application for the job, and payment, and correspondingly, topups are required to provide information on their expertise and qualifications, and to complete web forms that keep track of the amount of work that they have completed.
In particular, they are required to submit progress information on their completed hours around week 10 of each semester, to enable the School to work out which topups will have hours to spare to assist with examination marking.
The topup work reporting form is
here
but you should not use it until you are asked to do so by an
e-mail to the topup mail alias, cse-pg-topup.
You are entitled to mail to this list, but should avoid doing so
unless you really have something every topup needs to know.
Whether timetabled or untimetabled work is involved, your claim will be sent to the academic for whom you are working, for confirmation.
If you start your PhD (or your topup) later than about 1 week before
the start of a teaching session, you should e-mail hpaik
(Helen Paik) to find about about registering for topup work.
Otherwise you will be automatically mailed to tell you when to register.
| Name | Role | Login |
|---|---|---|
| Colin Taylor | CSE Scholarships Officer |
colint
|
| Helen Paik | Topup work allocator |
hpaik
|
| Jingling Xue | Exam marking allocator (and Associate Head of School) |
jingling
|
To contact one of these, append @cse.unsw.edu.au to the person's login.
UNSW's CRICOS Provider No. is 00098G
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