Developing Campus Data for Use in Delaware Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity

1. Developing Campus Data for Use in Delaware Study of Instructional Costsand Productivity Michael F. Middaugh Assistant Vice President for Institutional Research and Planning University of Delaware

2. This presentation is intended to give participants a framework and an analytical methodology for thinking about issues of: • Who is teaching what to whom? That is, who is actually in the classroom teaching lower division students? Upper division students? Graduate students? • What is the overall instructional productivity of a department, and what are the associated direct costs? • What do we know about the non-instructional components of faculty activity and their associated costs? • What comparative contexts exist for looking at cost and productivity data? • How are comparative data best used in creating academic policy?

3. Seminal Question: Who is teaching what to whom? And at what cost? Building Your Database

4. Analytical Time Frames • Detailed analysis of faculty teaching loads is best done using end-of-term data for the Fall and Spring terms of the academic year immediately preceding the analysis (e.g., Fall 2001 and Spring 2002 would be analyzed during Fall 2002). • Instructional cost and productivity data should reflect the full academic and fiscal year immediately preceding the data collection (e.g. FY 2001-02 would be analyzed in Fall 2002, following audit closes).

5. The unit of analysis is the academic department or program • The taxonomy used to identify academic departments or programs is the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP), developed by the National Center for Education Statistics • Minimally, departments or programs should reflect a four-digit CIP code. For example, social science departments/programs should be analyzed as 45.07 (Geography), 45.10 (Political Science) and so on… • Many institutions prefer to classify departments and programs at the six-digit CIP level for greater specificity

6. What if a department or program spans two CIP codes? Suppose there was a Department of Political Science and International Relations. This embraces two CIP codes, i.e., 45.10 for Political Science and 45.09 for International Relations. The accounting system at the institution does not permit easy disaggregation of faculty salaries and other costs between the two disciplines. Suppose further that 75% to 80% of the courses taught are Political Science. Because the discipline are related – both are social sciences – it is perfectly reasonable to call all of the student credit hours “Political Science” for analytical purposes. OperatingPrinciple: Use common sense and make judgment calls.

7. Essential Data Elements:Who is teaching……….? • Tenured/Tenure Eligible Faculty • Other Regular Faculty on Appointment • Supplemental Faculty • Graduate Teaching Assistants

8. Faculty Categories • Tenured/Tenure Eligible: Those individuals who either hold tenure from the home institution, or for whom tenure is an expected outcome. At most institutions, these are full, associate, or assistant professors. • Non-Tenure Track Faculty: Those individuals who teach on a recurring contractual basis, but whose academic title and/or budget line render them ineligible for tenure. At most institutions, these titles include instructors, lecturers, visiting faculty, etc.

9. Faculty Categories (Continued) • Supplemental Faculty: Supplemental faculty are characteristically paid out of a pool of temporary funds. Their appointment is non-recurring, although the same individual might receive a temporary appointment for several successive terms. The key point is that funding is, by nature, temporary and there is no guarantee of continuing appointment. This category includes adjuncts, administrators or professional personnel at the institution who teach but whose primary job responsibility is non-faculty, contributed service personnel, etc.

10. Faculty Categories (Continued) • Graduate Teaching Assistants: Students at the institution who receive stipends strictly for instructional activity. Includes teaching assistants who are instructors of record, but also includes TA’s who function as discussion or recitation leaders, laboratory section leaders, and other types of organized class sections in which instruction takes place, but which may not carry credit and for which there is no formal instructor of record. Also includes TA’s who serve as graders, or in other instructional functions. For purposes of this analysis, graduate research assistants are not included.

11. Calculating Full Time Equivalency: Regular Faculty • Start with the FTE for each individual as it is reported in the Personnel Data Base. Note: the FTE for any individual cannot exceed 1.0. • If the salary of an individual faculty member is supported in whole or in part by any separately budgeted account other than the departmental instructional budget, take the proportion of the salary supported by that separately budgeted account, and subtract it from 1.0 FTE. • The remainder is the Instructional FTE for that individual.

12. What about reduced teaching loads? Sabbatical leaves? Leaves without pay? • A faculty member who is receiving a full salary from the departmental budget, but who has received a reduced load to do research or publish, is still 1.0 FTE. This is a discretionary decision on the part of the departmental chair. • The same is true of sabbatical leave. Sabbaticals are institutional choices to allow faculty professional development opportunities with pay. The conventional FTE for sabbatical leave is 0.5. • Leave without pay is just that – no expense to the institution, therefore there is no FTE.

13. Calculating Full Time Equivalency: Supplemental Faculty • Full time equivalency for supplemental faculty can be arrived at by taking the total number of teaching credit hours (generally equivalent to the credit value of the course(s) taught) for each supplemental faculty, and divide by 12. Twelve hours is a broadly accepted standard for a full time semester teaching load. • If your institution assigns one course unit instead of three or four teaching credit hours to a course being taught, divide the total number of course units for each supplemental faculty by 4.

14. Calculating Full Time Equivalency: Graduate Teaching Assistants • Graduate teaching assistants generally have an FTE assigned to them (commonly 0.5 FTE) in the Personnel Data Base. The total FTE for a TA cannot exceed the value reported in the Personnel Data Base. The FTE can be apportioned between credit bearing and non-credit bearing activity. • Use the same convention as with Supplemental Faculty to calculate the FTE for courses where the TA is instructor of record; this is credit bearing activity. If appropriate, subtract the credit bearing FTE from the total FTE in the Personnel Data Base. The difference is the FTE for non-credit bearing activity.

15. Who is teaching what to whom…..? • A course is an instructional activity, identified by its academic discipline and number, in which students enroll, typically to earn academic credit applicable to a degree objective. Excludes “non-credit courses,” but includes “zero credit” course sections, which are requirements or prerequisites to degree programs, and which are scheduled and consume institutional or departmental resources in the same manner as credit courses. Zero-credit courses are typically listed as laboratory, discussion, or recitation sections in conjunction with the credit bearing lecture portion of a course.

16. Types of Courses • OrganizedClassCourse: A course which is provided principally by means of regularly scheduled classes which meet in classrooms or other instructional facilities at stated times. • IndividualizedInstructionCourse: A course in which instruction is not conducted in regularly scheduled class meetings. Includes “readings” or “special topics” courses, “problems” or “research” courses, including dissertation/thesis research, and “individual lesson” courses, typically in music and fine arts.

17. Course Sections • Organized classes meet in course sections. A course section is a unique, consistently constituted group of students that meets with one or more instructors over the course of a scheduled time frame. • In reporting the number of sections taught, care must be taken not to double count dual-listed courses (undergraduate and graduate sections of a single course, meeting concurrently) and/or cross-listed courses (a single course in which students from two or more disciplines may register under their respective departmental call letters).

18. Student Credit Hours and Organized Class Sections Should be Aggregated and Reported by: • Lower Division Instruction: Courses typically associated with the first and second year of college study • Upper Division Instruction: Courses typically associated with the third and fourth year of college study. • Graduate Level Instruction: Courses typically associated with post-baccalaureate study. Note: Student credit hours and organized class sections are reported on the basis of course level of instruction and faculty type. Do not report on basis of student level.

19. Origin of Instructor Analysis • Student credit hours and organized class sections should be reported for all courses taught by a faculty member who is budgeted to a given department, regardless of whether the courses are taught in that department or elsewhere • For example, a faculty member whose entire salary is budgeted to the History Department, and whose teaching load consists of two History courses and one course in Political Science, would have all of the student credit hours generated from the three courses credited to the History Department.

20. What if a course is dual listed? • Dual-listed courses – a single course for which undergraduates register at the 400 level and graduate students register at the 500 or 600 level – would count as a single organized class section. Student credit hours registered for at the 400 level would be reported as upper division, while those registered for at the 500 or 600 level would be reported as graduate.

21. What if a course is cross listed? • Suppose Mary Smith, whose salary is budgeted to the English Department, teaches a course in feminist literature, ENG 512. Students can also register for the course through Women’s Studies, WMST 512, and through the Honors Program, HNRS 512. • The course is reported as a single class section, with all student credit hours credited to English, the department paying the instructor’s salary.

22. What if a course is team taught? • Suppose Dr. Smith, a full professor in Biology, team teaches BIO 101 with Dr. Jones, an assistant professor in the same department. The teaching load is equally divided between the two. • The course is reported as a single section, with all student credit hours accruing to Biology.

23. Suppose Dr. Smith was a Chemist…. • If Dr. Smith is a full professor whose salary is budgeted to Chemistry, and he is team teaching BIO 101 with Dr. Jones, whose salary is budgeted to Biology, the course would be prorated, 0.5 sections to Chemistry and 0.5 sections to Biology. The student credit hours would also be equally distributed between the two departments. The pro-ration is based upon the proportional contribution of each faculty member teaching the course.

24. Useful Instructional Workload Ratios • Percent of Lower Division SCRH/Organized Class Sections Taught, by Faculty Type • Percent of Undergraduate SCRH/ Organized Class Sections Taught, by Faculty Type • SCRH and Organized Class Sections per FTE Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty

25. Data Verification Strategies • Local data verification should take place at least twice during any given academic semester or quarter – typically on the 10th day of classes (i.e., census date) and again at the end-of-term. • The objective is to make certain that all data – faculty and student – associated with a course are correct.

26. Let’s look at a workload verification form…. Go to Excel

27. Important Considerations in Data Verification • Verification – or lack thereof – must have consequences. It should be clear that institutional decisions, particularly resource allocation decisions, will be based on data. • Affected constituencies, particularly deans and department chairs, need to be involved in identifying relevant data elements, and in verifying them, once identified. “Buy-in” is absolutely essential.

28. Important Considerations in Data Verification • The verification form just examined was extracted from the Course Registration File using Natural, a fourth generation programming language, and is a standard production report defined by the Office of Institutional Research and Planning. • However, prototypes for the verification form were developed using SAS, a commonly found statistical software package.

29. Who is teaching what to whom…atwhatcost??? • Instructional cost and productivity ratios marry information on teaching activity in terms supported by the basic departmental instructional budget during the academic year with expenditure data for the concurrent fiscal year. • Instructional activity is typically analyzed for Fall and Spring at semester-based campuses, and Fall, Winter, and Spring terms at quarter-based campuses. • Do not consider summer or winter terms, or continuing education courses, unless they are supported by the departmental instructional budget.

30. Instructional Productivity • The semester teaching load analysis described earlier provides comprehensive and detailed answers to the question, “Who is teaching what to whom?” for that particular term. • Instructional productivity here refers to credit hour generation by all faculty types, reported as aggregate undergraduate and graduate totals. • The sole reporting restriction is that student credit hour generation must be underwritten and supported by the department’s or program’s basic instructional budget.

31. Instructional Productivity - Continued • Student credit hours are then converted to “FTE Students Taught” for subsequent use in productivity ratios. • The underlying assumptions in the calculation are that full time undergraduates carry an annual course load of 30 credit hours (45 at quarter calendar institutions); full time graduate students carry an annual course load of 18 credit hours (27 at quarter calendar institutions). • Student credit hours are converted to FTE Students Taught by dividing total undergraduate student credit hours and total graduate student credit hours by the appropriate respective divisor noted above.

32. Important Instructional Productivity Ratios • Student credit hours taught per FTE faculty • FTE students taught per FTE faculty

33. Linking Productivity Data with Fiscal Data – Some Cautions • Credibility is very much an issue when discussing costs and productivity. • Experience over the last decade has underscored the importance of describing costs in terms of consistent, uniform, stable definitions for expenditure information. • Information on direct expenditures provides such consistency and stability, as they are firmly rooted in NACUBO data conventions. Indirect cost calculations have no comparable uniformity or consistency. • This model of costs and productivity is not, and was never intended to be a full cost model.

34. Expenditure Data • This analysis examines DIRECT expenditure data only, by function, for a given fiscal year. The functional areas under examination are instruction, research, and service. • Direct expenditure data reflect costs incurred for personnel compensation, supplies, and services used in the conduct of each of these functional areas. They include acquisition costs of capital assets such as equipment and library books, to the extent that funds are budgeted for and used by operating departments for instruction, research, and public service. • Exclude centrally allocated computing costs and centrally supported computer labs, and graduate student tuition and fee waivers.

35. Direct Instructional Expenditures • The instruction function includes general academic instruction, occupational and vocational education, community education, preparatory and adult basic education, and remedial and tutorial instruction conducted by the teaching faculty for the institution’s students. • Departmental research and service which are not separately budgeted are included under instruction. In other words, externally funded research should be excluded from instructional expenditures, as should any departmental funds expended for the purpose of matching external funds as part of a contractual or grant obligation.

36. Direct Instructional Expenditures- Continued • Exclude expenditures for academic administration where the primary function is administration. In other words, deans would be excluded from instructional expenditures. On the other hand, departmental chairs- although they are quasi-administrators – function primarily in support and coordination of instructional activity, and would be included.

37. Instructional Expenditure Categories • Salaries: Report all salaries paid to support the instructional function within a given department or program. These obviously include faculty, but also include clerical (e.g. secretaries), professional staff (e.g., lab technicians), graduate teaching assistant stipends (but not tuition waivers), and any other personnel who support the teaching function and whose salaries and wages are paid from the department’s instructional budget.

38. Instructional Expenditure Categories - Continued • Benefits: Report expenditures for benefits associated with salaries and wages expended for instructional purposes. If a given institution books benefits centrally and cannot distribute them back to the department, “benefits as a % of salary,” as reported in the most recent salary issue of Academe may be used. If all else fails, 28% is a reasonable default rate. • Other Than Personnel Costs: Includes non-personnel items such as travel, supplies and expense, non-capital equipment purchases, etc., that are part of the department’s/program’s cost of doing business. Exclude centrally allocated computer labs, graduate student tuition remission, fee waivers, etc.

39. Travel (in-state, out-of-state, international) Advertising Computer maintenance Equipment rental/lease Professional dues Postage Telephone equipment installation, maintenance, and usage fees Faculty grants Utilities charges Supplies Professional services Licensing fees Depreciation Official functions and entertainment Capital outlays and acquisitions Major repairs Other Than Personnel Expense Check List(Representative but not Exhaustive)

40. Important Instructional Cost Ratios • Direct instructional expense per student credit hour taught • Direct instructional expense per FTE student taught • Personnel costs as a percentage of total direct instructional expense

41. Direct Research Expenditures • This category includes all funds expended for activities specifically organized to produce research outcomes, and commissioned by an agency external to the institution, or separatelybudgeted by an organizational unit within the institution, e.g., a research center. • While embracing the same component categories as direct instructional expenditures, it is not necessary to disaggregate research expenditures into those component categories.

42. Direct Public Service Expenditures • Similar to direct research expenditures, this category embraces all funds expended through contracts or grants, or institutional funds separatelybudgeted specifically for public service and expended for activities established primarily to provide non-instructional services beneficial to groups external to the institution. Common examples of public service include cooperative extension and community outreach projects. • Public service expenditure data are reported in aggregate; it is not necessary to disaggregate into component categories.

43. Direct Research and Service Expenditure Ratios • Data on direct expenditures for research and public service activity provide a useful context for assessing the relative position of instructional productivity ratios. • Important Direct Research and Service Expense Ratios Include: - Sponsored research per FTE tenured/tenure track faculty - Sponsored service per FTE tenured/tenure track faculty - Total sponsored activity per FTE tenured/tenure track faculty

44. Ensuring Data Accuracy and Integrity • Make certain that teaching load data has been shared with academic units, and that they have had ample opportunity(ies) to verify the information. • Work closely with the Budget Office in creating files that provide thorough back-up data for fiscal information in the departmental profile. Consider the following example of backup data. • Any given year can be idiosyncratic; data should be examined in trend format, with a minimum of three years. • Data are best used, not to reward or punish a department, but rather to frame policy questions about how resources are deployed.

45. Benchmarking Cost and Productivity Data:The Delaware Study • The data definitions and calculation conventions used in the Delaware Study essentially mirror those we have just discussed. • The Delaware Study has made use of an Advisory Committee over the past decade to refine and enhance the definitions and methodology. • The result is a “state of the art” data-sharing consortium that ensures consistency and reliability in making comparisons across disciplines and across institutions.

46. Delaware Study Data Collection Form Go to Excel

47. Basic Understandings Surrounding Use of Delaware Study Data • Departments will not be rewarded or penalized based upon a single year of data. The data are to be viewed longitudinally as a tool of inquiry for framing questions as to why UD indicators are similar to or different from the national benchmark data. • Prior to 2002-03 the Delaware Study was a purely quantitative analysis and does not presume to describe the qualitative dimensions of a program. Input from across the country was sought to identify and define measurable qualitative variables for which benchmarking data can be collected as part of the total Delaware Study data set.

48. As useful and comprehensive as quantitative instructional ratios and benchmarks are….. • They do not address the non-classroom dimensions of faculty activity in an institution and its academic programs. • It is possible that quantitative productivity and cost indicators for a given program/discipline may differ significantly from other institutional, peer, and national benchmarks for wholly justifiable reasons of quality that can be reflected in what faculty do outside of the classroom. • However, this cannot be determined unless measurable indicators of quality are collected.

49. The University of Delaware has received a second FIPSE award to underwrite the Delaware Study… • An Advisory Committee has been assembled to develop instrumentation and methodology for assessing non-classroom faculty activity at the academic discipline level of analysis • The Committee is comprised of faculty, academic administrators, and institutional researchers, all with expertise in measuring faculty activity • A draft instrument has been developed and has been pilot tested and refined for formal administration in the 2002-03 academic year

50. Data Collection Form for Non-Classroom Dimensions of Faculty Activity Go to Excel