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Instructor Pool Operations

Status: Pre-formation operational draft. The Education & Certification Committee will own this once seated. Until then, the Administrator runs the instructor pool per this document.

This is the operator-side companion to programs/learning/README.md (the publishing handbook) and programs/certification/instructor-and-assessor-standards.md (the qualifications standard). Where the standards doc says who can be an instructor, this runbook says how the pool is operated — recruitment cadence, slate assembly, instructor-of-record assignment, honoraria flow, and the instructor pulse.

Scope

This runbook covers the operational side of the Guild's instructor pool: how candidates enter the pool, how courses get matched to instructors, how the instructor-of-record relationship works for a specific course delivery, and how honoraria are processed. It does not redefine instructor qualifications (those live in the standards doc and any successor counsel-drafted policy), and it does not define grievance, dismissal, or sanction procedures (those live with the Ethics Committee and counsel).

The pool

The instructor pool is the curated list of approved Guild instructors, maintained by the Education & Certification Committee. A person in the pool has:

The pool is sized to 1.5× the rolling 12-month course-delivery demand. Smaller than that and we strain the same handful of people; larger and instructors don't get enough deliveries to stay sharp.

Recruitment cadence

Cadence Activity Owner
Quarterly Open application window: 30 days, advertised in the Communications Committee newsletter and the Practitioners Lounge Education & Certification Committee chair
Quarterly Application review batch: applications received in the window are reviewed together against the published rubric Committee subcommittee of three (chair + 2 standing members)
Quarterly Pool roster refresh: additions, status changes (active / on-pause / archived), publication of the updated public roster Committee chair + Administrator
Annually Pool-size sanity check against rolling 12-month course demand; recruitment intensity adjusted up or down for the next year Committee chair
As-needed Targeted recruitment for an under-represented practice area or region surfaced in the slate-assembly step (below) Committee chair

The application form is rendered through the standard guildcommerce-core-plugin form pipeline (lives in forms/ once instrumented; pre-formation it's a Google Form mirrored to Drive). Inputs include practice area, region, format preferences (live / pre-recorded / written / hybrid), language, time-zone, sample artifact, and references.

Slate assembly

Before each course delivery cycle, the committee assembles a slate of candidate instructors for upcoming courses. The slate is the matchmaking layer between the publishing calendar (./course-publishing-calendar.md) and the pool.

Step Owner Output
1. Pull the upcoming 90-day course list from the publishing calendar Coordinator Course list with delivery format, target dates, and any practice-area or accessibility constraints
2. Filter the pool to instructors whose status is active and whose practice area matches Coordinator Filtered shortlist per course
3. Apply load-balancing — no instructor on more than 2 courses in a 90-day window unless they explicitly opt in Coordinator Adjusted shortlist
4. Apply diversity check — across any 90-day window, the slate should reflect the practice-area + regional + format diversity of the pool itself Coordinator Adjusted shortlist (note any gaps for targeted recruitment)
5. Committee approves the slate; gaps go to as-needed recruitment Committee Approved slate
6. Coordinator extends offers to the slate's first-choice instructors with a 7-day accept/pass window Coordinator Confirmed instructor-of-record per course

Steps 1–4 are an exercise the Coordinator runs in a spreadsheet that mirrors the BuddyBoss member-type data; step 5 is a 30-minute committee meeting; step 6 is asynchronous email + form.

Instructor-of-record (IoR)

For each course delivery, exactly one person is the Instructor-of-Record. The IoR is the on-the-ground operational owner for that delivery. The IoR is not a legal designation in the bylaws sense — that role (if any is needed) will be defined by counsel.

The IoR's operational responsibilities:

  • Attend the kickoff sync with the Course Author and Education chair (60 min)
  • Final-pass the lesson content and quiz before the course goes live in Moodle
  • Respond to learner questions in the course's BuddyBoss group within 48 hours during the cohort window
  • Run the live sessions (or guest-host them, if the IoR is supervising a delegated session)
  • Sign off on completion data flowing to the CE ledger
  • Submit the post-cohort instructor reflection (3 questions, ~10 min)

Course Author and IoR can be the same person; for cohort-based courses they often are. For evergreen courses they are typically different — the Course Author writes once and the IoR rotates per cohort.

Honoraria flow

The Guild pays instructors honoraria for course deliveries. Operational mechanics only here; the rate sheet is set by the Education & Certification Committee and adopted by the board, and any tax/contractor classification questions are routed to counsel and the 1099 process.

Stage Owner Artifact
1. IoR confirms accept; honorarium amount stated in the offer Coordinator Offer email + IoR confirmation
2. Pre-delivery: IoR submits W-9 (or non-US equivalent) if not on file IoR → Finance Lead W-9 stored per document retention policy — never in this repo
3. Delivery happens IoR n/a
4. Post-delivery within 7 days: IoR submits invoice through the standard form pipeline IoR Invoice (Form M-style; honorarium-specific instrumentation TBD)
5. Coordinator confirms delivery completed (cohort closed, completion data in ledger) Coordinator Confirmation note
6. Finance Lead pays per the reimbursement & payment policy; standard payment is ACH, 14-day target Finance Lead Payment + receipt
7. Payment recorded against the course P&L for course-level cost tracking Finance Lead P&L row
8. End-of-year 1099 produced where applicable Bookkeeper Per finance/1099-process.md

The 14-day payment target is a service level the Guild commits to instructors. Misses get logged in the Coordinator's quarterly health metrics; chronic misses prompt a Finance + Education committee conversation.

What does NOT happen in the honoraria flow:

  • Cash payments
  • Payments before delivery (exception: travel pre-pay for in-person events, handled per reimbursement policy, not as honoraria)
  • Off-cycle bonuses or tips
  • Equity, in-kind grants, or non-cash compensation outside the Guild's standard recognition

Instructor pulse

After each course delivery the IoR fills out a 3-question reflection:

  1. What worked well in this delivery?
  2. What didn't work and what would you change?
  3. On a 1–5 scale, was this delivery sustainable for you (workload, support, comp)?

The Coordinator aggregates the pulse quarterly. A 1–5 average ≤3 from any part of the pool, or a recurring "didn't work" theme across instructors, is an operational signal — the committee revisits course design, IoR support, or honoraria.

Pool health metrics

The Coordinator reports these to the Education & Certification Committee quarterly:

  • Pool size (active / on-pause / archived)
  • Pool-to-demand ratio vs the 1.5× target
  • Practice-area coverage vs the publishing calendar's next 90 days
  • Regional + format diversity snapshot
  • Course assignments per instructor in the quarter (load distribution)
  • Pulse rollup — average sustainability score, common themes (anonymized)
  • Honoraria-payment SLA — % of payments meeting the 14-day target
  • Instructor turnover — how many instructors moved to on-pause or archived this quarter, and a one-word reason category (capacity / fit / life-event / no-contact / qualification-lapse / other)

A pool-to-demand ratio under 1.2× or over 2.0×, or a sustainability average ≤3, escalates to the committee at the next monthly meeting.

Status changes

From To Trigger Owner
applicant active Application approved by committee Committee
active on-pause IoR self-requests pause (any reason, no explanation required); or 90 days inactive in BuddyBoss; or qualification document expires (Form S, references, etc.) Coordinator
on-pause active IoR self-reactivates and refreshes any expired documents Coordinator
active or on-pause archived IoR steps down; or 12 months continuously on-pause; or qualification standard not met after a refresh review Coordinator + Committee

Anything beyond an operational status change — including any conduct concerns or revocation — leaves this runbook and goes through the counsel-drafted policy via the Communications Committee or Ethics Committee liaison.

Roles

Role Source Responsibility
Education & Certification Committee chair Committee Owns the standards, the recruitment cadence, the slate, the rate sheet
Instructor Pool Coordinator Volunteer or staff Day-to-day pool operations, slate assembly, status changes, pulse aggregation
Course Author Per course Writes the curriculum (may also serve as IoR)
Instructor-of-Record (IoR) Per delivery Operational owner of one delivery
Finance Lead Standing Honoraria processing, W-9 collection, payment SLA
Administrator Staff Form S renewals, BuddyBoss member-type assignment

Coordinator hours count toward the volunteer-hour ledger and certification per hours-certification.md. IoR hours are paid (not volunteer hours).

Cross-references