Workload

PhD candidates with an UvA appoinment are expected to serve as Teaching Assistant (TA) for two MSc/BSc courses per year, except during the first and the last six months of their appointment. The TA workload for a 6/8 EC course is at most 128 hrs in total (16 hrs/week for an 8-week course). Besides teaching, PhD candidates can use the supervision of Bachelor or Master theses as TA assignments. The regulations are as follows: the supervision of four Bachelor or three Master theses counts for 1 TA assignment. The PhD candidate should be the daily supervisor of the Bachelor/Master student. For more information, please see the ILLC wiki or send an email to phd-illc at uva.nl. 

Transitional arrangement

In the past, PhD candidates received a number of credits per course in which they assisted. Four credits in the old system count for one standardised course in the new system.

TA agreement forms

Before the start of each course the lecturer and the TA discuss what is expected from the TA. This is laid down in a TA agreement form and signed by both parties. If during the course the TA feels that the actual workload diverges significantly from what has been agreed, they should discuss this with the lecturer. If needed the TA can ask their supervisor to mediate. If their supervisor is the lecturer, they can ask the director of the PhD Programme to mediate. To find the forms go to the TA allocation tool (https://phdcouncil.illc.uva.nl/TA-Allocation) and open your course(s). You will find the form at the bottom of the page.

Allocation of TAs

The allocation of teaching assistants to courses is coordinated by the ILLC PhD Council. The council makes an inventory of the need for TA’s in all relevant BSc and MSc programmes, asks the PhD candidates to sign up for the available TA tasks according to their interests and expertise, and submits an allocation proposal to the ILLC Management Team.

Keeping track of completed teaching activities

The ILLC Office keeps track of the teaching activities each PhD candidate is involved in to ensure a fair distribution of workload. If you are assigned as a TA to a course you end up swapping with another course, please inform the PhD team of this (phd-illc at uva.nl).

Information for ILLC PhD candidates at the Faculty of Humanities

ILLC PhD candidates who are appointed at the Faculty of Humanities are subject to the policies of the ILLC PhD programme, but also to general PhD regulations of the Faculty of Humanities. Both specify the same overall teaching workload for PhD candidates. However, the Faculty regulations assume that all teaching activities of a PhD candidate are concentrated in year 2 and 3 of their appointment. In order to ensure a uniform trajectory for all PhD candidates within the ILLC, we ask all PhD candidates, also those appointed at the Faculty of Humanities, to spread their teaching activities more evenly over their project. Only during the first and the last six months of the project no teaching activities should be planned. Supervisors of PhD candidates at the Faculty of Humanities must coordinate this with the head of the department at which the candidate is appointed.

Other non-research activities

ILLC PhD candidates are expected to spend up to 0.2 fte on non-research activities during their 4-year appointment. Such non-research activities include teaching, but also, for instance:

• Supervising MSc/BSc thesis projects (in Logic, AI, Philosophy, Linguistics, Mathematics)
• Offering research projects in the Master of Logic
• Organising reading groups, seminars, colloquia, workshops, conferences, career lunches
• Membership in the ILLC PhD council, Faculty PhD council, Diversity committee, selection committees, ILLC Magazine committee
• Helping with TA allocation tasks, mentoring tasks
• Societal outreach activities, establishing contacts with industry, UvA/Faculty’s open days