Faculty Load System

Overview

The Faculty Load System provides the ability to analyze and report faculty loads against contract requirements. Faculty loads are defined in terms of Equated Load Units (ELUs) which are the "units" faculty earn for teaching courses and for performing non-instructional activities such as department chair and research.

Faculty loads can consist of instructional assignments, non-instructional assignments or a combination of both. Instructional assignments are entered by department schedulers using the Department Class Schedule System.  Non-instructional assignments and other faculty load-related data, such as permanent load overrides, are entered by the office of Curricular Management using data provided by the departments.

The key report, the Faculty Load Analysis Report, is comprised of a set of complementary reports, any combination of which can be selected and produced for an academic year at the university, college, department or individual level. 

This document has three major sections:

  • How Loading is Determined
  • Faculty Load Data Maintenance
  • Running Faculty Load Reports and Processes

How Loading is Determined

Courses are loaded at the assigned credits except lab and studio courses which are loaded at 2/3 the assigned credits. Default course loads may be permanently overridden in unusual situations, such as lab/lecture combinations and habitually large enrollments. Permanent overrides should be at the minimum value that will ever be used. Minimum enrollments may also be increased when permanently overriding loads.

Loading is recalculated nightly for current term assignments at 1/6*enrollments*course load up to 6 enrollments. Loading for courses for which students may enroll for different credit amounts are recalculated nightly at 1 ELU per 6 SCH up to a maximum of 3 ELUs. The nightly process loads future term assignments with the default loads.  The adjusted loads are stored in the Override Workload field on each instructional assignment record.

For term-to-term adjustments for course prep, large enrollments, and the like, non-instructional assignments are used.

Faculty Load Data Maintenance

The following four maintenance activities are performed by the office of Curricular Management using data supplied by academic departments. 

Faculty Contract Information

All faculty members on Professorial and Professional contracts should have a contract record maintained on their Faculty/Advisor Information form (SIAINST - Page 2) as follows:

  • Default contract
    • Contract Type: PF-Professorial or Professional
    • Rule: 36FWS for PF and 45FWS for PR unless otherwise indicated by the department.*
    • Default Indicator: Checked.

An optional second contract must be entered if summer assignments will be marked as "Overloads" as follows:

  • Overload contract
    • Code: OV-Overload
    • Rule: Leave blank
    • Default Indicator: Unchecked.

*NOTE: If a faculty member's contract year will consist of a combination terms other than Fall-Winter Spring check the Contract Rules Validation form (STVCNTR) to see if a corresponding rule has been created, e.g., 36WSSU for Winter-Spring-Summer.  If it has not, see the Contract and Term Workload Rules section below.

ELU Overrides

ELUs generally default to the course credit hours except for labs and studios which default to 2/3 the course credit hours. When they differ, or a course may be offered to students as a range of credit hours, departments must provide an ELU override value. This value is entered in the Workload field in the Basic Course Information Form (SCACRSE) Schedule Type window . 

Note: the 2/3 calculation is performed automatically by the system for labs and studios without overrides.  If an override is entered for a lab or studio, the system will accept the override "as-is," that is, it will not perform the 2/3 calculation on the override value.

The minimum enrollment default (6) may be overridden too by entering a value in the Enrollment Overload field. For example, a 4 credit course given a 5 ELU override could be give a new minimum enrollment of 10.  A 1/10th rule would apply instead of a the 1/6th rule when calculating loads based on actual enrollments.

Unless otherwise noted, the value(s) should be entered for all schedule types for the most recent effective term.

Departments must provide the following information for each override:

  • Subject Code*
  • Course Number*
  • ELU override value*
  • Catalog Effective Term (defaults to most recent)
  • Schedule Type Code (defaults to all)

*Required from department

Non-Instructional Assignments

Most non-instructional Assignments are entered at the beginning of each academic year for known assignments such as department chair, sabbatical, research and the like. An ELU value is assigned to each assignment as well as a code designating the type of assignment and the term(s) for which the assignment is effective. Term-to-term assignments may occasionally be entered with ELU credit for one-time activities such as course preparation. These assignments are entered on the Faculty Information form (SIAINST - Page 2). Valid codes are listed on the Non-Instructional Assignment Validation form (STVNIST).

For each assignment, departments must provide:

  • Faculty member name and ID*
  • Term code*
  • Non-instructional assignment code*
  • ELU value*
  • Contract type (defaults to faculty members default contract type)

*Required from department

Departments may provide a comment as well. Comments may be entered by pressing the light bulb icon on the menu bar after the assignment as been entered and saved. The cursor must be on the assignment to which the comment is to be attached. The first 30 characters of the comment will appear on the Faculty Load Detail Report in place of the standard code description and should be composed accordingly. Comments should be rare.  Comments are removed by launching the comment, erasing the comment text and saving the record.

Instructional Assignment Inloads and Overloads

Departments may wish to designate non-contract-term assignments (generally summer) as "Inloads" or “Overloads.” An "inload" is an assignment to be included in the contract load total, and an "overload" is an assignment that is being paid for by funds other than regular pay and is not to be included in the contract load total.  By default, assignments occurring in contract terms are included in the contract total, whereas assignments occurring outside the contract terms are not. "Inloads" and "Overloads" are identified by entering the instructor's default contract type code of "PF" or "PR" for inloads or "OV" for overloads in the contract type field on the Faculty Assignment form (SIAASGN).  (To be able to enter an "OV," the faculty member must have an "OV" contract code defined on their Faculty Information form.  See Faculty Contract Information above).

For each inload or overload, departments must provide:

  • Instructor Name and ID*
  • Term Code*
  • CRN*
  • Contract Type Code (PF, PR or OV)*
  • Comment (defaults to none)
    *Required from department

Out-of-term assignments may not be "split" between inload and overload.  If this is necessary, it's best to code the assignment with the inload code ("PF" or "PR") and create a comment indicating how the balance should be treated, generally as "Overload" or "Bank."  Bank means the excess will be applied to the contract load in the subsequent contract year.

Comments may be entered by pressing the light bulb icon on the menu bar after the assignment record has been updated and saved. The cursor must be on the assignment to which the comment is to be attached.  The first 30 characters of the comment will appear under the corresponding course title on the Faculty Load Detail Report and should be composed accordingly.  Comments should be rare.  Comments are removed by launching the comment, erasing the comment text and saving the record.

Contract and Term Workload Rules

Maintenance to these rules is rare, and only users with Faculty Load Management security privileges may update these forms. Maintenance is only required if the annual contract load totals change for a contract type, or a new contract term combination is required, e.g., a faculty member will be working a Winter-Spring-Summer contract year, and the rule for this contract term combination has not been created.

You can produce a report of the current contract and term workload rules by selecting the R-Rules report option when running the Faculty Load Analysis Reports.  

Workload Contract Rules

Workload contract rules are defined on the Faculty Workload Contract Rules form (SIAFLRC). Workload contract rules define the total load requirements for a contract type for a contract year.  They are defined with an effective term, and, as long as they don't change, no new records are necessary.

NOTE: The credit hours and contact hours fields are not used.

Contract Term Rules

Contract term rules are defined on the Faculty Contract Term Rules form (SIAFCT). The system considers all term rules with the same rule code and same first 4 characters of term to be a "set" for a contract year.  For example, the 36FWS rule for Professorial contracts has rules establish for 3 terms: 2xxx01, 2xxx02 and 2xxx03.  If a 36FWSSU rule is created, it would need term rules created for 2xxx02, 2xxx03 and 2xxx04.  These sets of term records are how the system determines which terms make up an individual faculty member's contract year.  Assignments within these term codes are considered part of the contract load by default.  Assignments in the out-lying term are not considered part of the contract by default. 

A program that is part of the nightly faculty data maintenance job automatically copies contract term rules records forward from the current contract year to the next contract year.  It will not override contract term rules records created manually or any updates.

NOTE: The credit hours and contact hours fields are not used.

 Running Faculty Load Reports and Processes

The SOU Reports menu contains a Faculty Load menu. This menu contains the Faculty Load reports and processes.

  1. Log into Banner.

  2. Select Reports.

  3. Select Academic Affairs.

  4. Select Academic Departments.

  5. Select Faculty Load Menu.

Reports and processes are run using Banner Job Submission.

Faculty Load Analysis Report

Parameters: Academic year, College Code (% for All), Department Code (% for All), Faculty ID (% for All), Report Options (S, R, O, D, X, %):

  • S = Summary Report - 1 line per faculty member summarizing loads for the contract year.  Page breaks on department.
  • R = Rules Report - Shows the contract rules used for each department. Page breaks on department.  Footnotes summarize ELU loading.
  • O = Overrides Report - Shows the permanent ELU overrides in the catalog for each department.  Page breaks on department.
  • N = Non-Instructional Assignments Report - Shows non-instructional assignments.  Page breaks on department.
  • D = Detail Report - 1 page per faculty member listing all their instructional and non-instructional assignments for an academic year with the associated ELU values.  Organized by faculty member within department.
  • X = Extract - a comma-delimited version of the detail report with one row per faculty member.
  • Combinations allowed, e.g., 'SDX' or '%' for all.

Of the three Job Submission Printer field options (print queue, database and email), print queue and database are the best suited for the formatted reports (S, R, O and D) while either the database or email options are suitable for the X-Extract comma-delimited file report.

Calculate ELUs for Term

Parameters: Term Code: College Code (% for All), Department Code (% for All), Faculty ID (% for All), Run Mode (A, S):

  • A - Calculates loads for term using actual enrollments.
  • S - Simulates loads for future terms using the default ELUs.

This job is run nightly using run mode A for the current term and S for all future terms for which assignments have begun.  It should only need to be run manually if there is a need to recalculate loads for a previous term or generate updated loads before the nightly run.  Submission of the program requires Faculty Load Management privileges.

Catalog ELUs Report

Parameters: Academic Year, College Code (% for All), Department Code (% for All), Schedule Type Options (U, N, %):

  • U - Only show schedule types used in one or more sections.
  • N - Only show schedule types not used in any sections.
  • % - Show all section/schedule type combinations.

This program produces a comma-delimited file of all course/schedule type combinations in the catalog effective for a parameter academic year, for a parameter college and department.  It produces one line for each course/schedule type combination.  The Schedule Type Options parameter allows the user to control which combinations to list.  If the course/schedule type has an ELU override, it will be reported in the last column.  The report can be used to review which courses should or should not have an ELU override.