INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETING FACULTY ACTIVITY REPORTS

 

Department Chairs and Directors

 

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

 

Please complete the bottom portion of each faculty member’s activity report, assigning a percent of effort to each of the functions for the account shown at the top of the form.  A description of each function is given in the instructions to faculty and graduate assistants.  The data collected from the faculty member on the top portion is intended for your use as a guideline only.  The information supplied by you is considered to be the official assignment of the faculty member, and as such is used for State and Federal reporting requirements.  Most notable of these are the Cost Study, Load Study, and Program Major Cost Study.

 

If a faculty member is paid from more than one account, a separate form must be completed for each fund source.  Preprinted courses can be reassigned to another account in the case of a split appointment.  The FTE assignment to the account has been preprinted at the top of the page next to FS_Acct.

 

As a suggestion, a general guideline for assigning percentages is to first think in terms of a “full-time instructional load”; i.e., the course load of a full-time faculty member who has no responsibilities other than classroom instruction.  For your department, a full-time instructional load might be a 12 or 15 hour teaching assignment, depending on level of instruction, course content, number of preparations, etc.  However, it is clear most faculty are not assigned a full-time instructional load because of departmental and university expectations and standards regarding scholarly research, graduate level instruction, on-load extension instruction, committee responsibilities, and other professional obligations.  For example, the full-time instructional load for your department may be 12 hours, but a particular faculty member is given a nine-hour teaching assignment because they are expected to conduct (non-funded) research and serve on committees.  If this were the case, then the assignment to direct instruction would be approximately 75 percent, and the remaining 25 percent would be split between departmental research and departmental overhead.

 

ORGANIZED RESEARCH AND PUBLIC SERVICE

 

Two categories merit special attention:  Organized Research and Public Service.  See the Faculty and Graduate Assistant Instructions for definitions and descriptions of these two functions.  It is important to note that faculty time and salary dollars allocated to Organized Research and Public Service are not included as part of Instructional Costs in the Statewide Cost Study.  If faculty members fail to report valid Organized Research and Public Service activities on their faculty activity report, departmental credit hour costs will be biased upwards which will have a negative effect on the University’s cost performance relative to other public institutions.

 

Under no circumstances should an assignment be made in these two categories if the faculty member has not supplied the following required information.  For Organized Research, the NIU account number of the project must be filled in, or in the case of an internal award, the award date and a brief project description must be given.  It is important that not only the project director, but also all faculty and graduate assistants working on a particular project, record the grant information on their respective activity reports.  For Public Service, some description of the type of professionally related service must be stated.  The reason for requiring such information is to provide an audit trail for reports sent to the IBHE.

 

 

 

 

SPECIFIC ASSIGNMENTS

 

The following table is meant as a mapping aid  when assigning percentages to the various activities.  Please note:  Direct Instructions—Off-Load is not included in the table.  Costs and FTE for Off-Load courses will be charged directly to Direct Instruction according to IBHE and BOT guidelines and have been preprinted simple for your information.

 

Faculty                                                                                                   Department Chair/Director

 

Direct Instruction—On-Campus                                       ]               Direct Instruction Percent

Direct Instruction—On-Load                                             ]

 

 

Indirect Instruction—Course Related                              ]               Indirect Instruction Percent

Indirect Instruction—To Department                               ]

 

 

Administration                                                                     ]              

Committees                                                                           ]               Department Overhead Percent

Departmental Service                                                          ]

 

 

Departmental Research                                                       ]               Departmental Research Percent

 

 

Library                                                                                   ]               Library Percent

 

 

Counseling                                                                            ]               Counseling Percent

 

 

Athletics                                                                                                ]               Athletics Percent

 

 

Organized Research                                                             ]               Organized Research Percent

 

 

Public Service                                                                       ]               Public Service Percent

 

 

Finally, you must complete a form for all faculty on sabbatical leave in your department.  Under IBHE regulations, sabbatical leaves must be reported as “Department Overhead.”