Microsoft Teams use case: Academic staff

Applicable to

Applies to faculty managers and/or HODs (or their delegates) needing to set up a Microsoft Team to collaborate remotely with faculty/department staff or to facilitate working towards a common goal related to the academic project.
May apply to faculty/department/units staff wanting to know how best to use Microsoft Teams to collaborate within their group.

When to use

Use when you need a collaboration space for your faculty or academic department/unit.

Description

Academic staff within the same faculty or department using Microsoft Teams to facilitate communication and collaboration, online meetings and working remotely, effectively and efficiently towards a common goal.

Recommended tools and tabs

Recommended tools

Tool	Used for:
OneNote	Taking informal/formal notes during or after meetings
Wiki	Documenting proceedings during or after meetings
Whiteboard	Brainstorming during discussions or workshops
OneDrive for Business	Managing standard meeting recordings Note: Permissions to meeting recordings should be managed to ensure that they are only made available to those authorised to access them.
SharePoint	Managing channel meeting recordings Note: Permissions to meeting recordings should be managed to ensure that they are only made available to those authorised to access them.
Planner	Planning and coordinating tasks within the Academic department/unit/group
To do	For individual task management which integrates with Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Outlook Note: This is available from the Microsoft Store (not from within Teams) but works well with Planner and Outlook for managing tasks.
Glossary	Providing a standard set of terms/acronyms and definitions for use within the committee/group to ensure shared understanding
Website	See Tabs recommended section below Note: Only secure links (i.e. HTTPS) may be added.

Recommended tabs

Examples of tabs that might be useful or applicable to different departments or areas:

Note: Only secure links (i.e. HTTPS) may be added.

Department	Title	Used for:
All academic departments	Vula	Learning management
All academic departments	Amathuba	Learning management
All academic departments	UCT Libraries	Quick access to PRIMO for searching for academic resources
All academic departments	eRA online	Research administration
All academic departments	PeopleSoft	Student administration
All academic departments	ServiceNow self-service portal	Requesting IT assistance, logging a request, incident, problem etc.
All academic departments	ICTS website	Referring to UCT IT support information and policies
All academic departments	Finance website	Referring to UCT Finance information and policies
All academic departments	HR website	Referring to UCT HR information and policies
All academic departments	SAP ESS	SAP Employee self service
Other	<other links to websites>	Providing resources/information to support the activities of the academic staff outside of those provided by Microsoft Teams

Recommended channels

Examples of channels for academic staff

Channels should be created based on the academic staff group’s specific needs (such as topic, discipline, or subject). However, examples of types of channels that could be created are:

General channel for general discussions, operations, miscellaneous items

Administration channel
Departmental meetings channel
Channel per programme/module/stream/course
Private channel for private collaboration or discussions between selected members of department
Channel/s for each smaller grouping/team within the faculty, department or unit, if applicable

Good practices for using channels

Selected good practices are listed below, but for a full list, please see the Channels section in the Good practices guide for Microsoft Teams.

Area	Practice/s
Naming of channels	Use a reliable and agreed naming convention for channels that will be sustainable in the long run within the team.
Permissions in channels	Meeting permissions can be set in channels to limit and manage access to meeting recordings to ensure that only those permitted to access recordings can do so.
Private channels	Private channels may be used in committees for private discussions between two or more members of the team.