OHIO BOARD OF REGENTS

Don Langford indicated that the purpose of the meeting was to bring together campus representatives, data reporters, and programming staff from the colleges and universities participating in the data submissions portion of the pilot project (June 1 through July 31) in order to examine, clarify, and assess the data reporting requirements for the pilot project, and to discuss ways to improve the data submissions document for future reporting.

Daryl Wright thanked the participants for the work they have done in previous meetings and emphasized the importance of full participation by campuses in submitting data during the pilot project. He also expressed the need to have the data submissions portion of the pilot project concluded by July 31. Participants confirmed that they will have the four data files submitted prior to the deadline.

Wright reported that each of the state-supported colleges and universities has, thus far, received about $42,000 from the HEI project to help defray programming costs incurred by campuses as they prepare to submit data to the HEI system. An additional $14,526 per campus has been appropriated for the coming year, and the same amount will be provided to campuses a year from now. A substantially larger amount had been requested by the Board of Regents.

Langford briefly reviewed the file naming convention, file header record format, and the procedures for processing data files as they are described in the Data Submission's General Information section on HEI's Web site. He noted that errors in the file header record will prevent a data reporter from running edits on the submission file. One source of error during the pilot was the use of "95" rather than the four-character "1995" for "Year." Another error resulted when the record count did not contain leading zeroes (e.g., 2116 rather than 002116) in the six-character Record Count field.

Materials were distributed to show the screen displays which occur during a Telnet session in which campus data reporters edit their submission files after the files have been transmitted to the HEI server using ftp (file transfer protocol). Copies of test submission files were distributed to illustrate the formatting conventions that are described in the data submissions document.

A current version of the Edit and Load Specifications for the Faculty-Staff Data Area submissions (revised June 16, 1997) was distributed to meeting participants. Campus representatives and data reporters had previously indicated that the Edit and Load Specifications, which describe the table-building processes and the conditions within data submissions that generate error and warning messages, are a useful supplement to the data submissions document in assisting campus programmers as they write their computer programs for HEI reporting.

Data reporters have been encouraged to assign a new version number to each submission file they edit (in order to leave a record of the kinds of errors and warnings encountered) during the pilot project. Consequently, the issue of "directory clutter" was introduced. Procedures for removing nonessential files will be established and implemented following the pilot project. Included in those procedures will be a clarification of who will delete specific files. Wright indicated that there will likely be a replacement of the ftp process with a Web-based data transmissions design in the future. Until then, the HEI staff will consider ways to reduce the number of support files contained in campus directories.

Following discussion of the additional work required by data reporters in maintaining files with various version numbers, Wright indicated that multiple version numbers would be used only for the remainder of HEI development. He suggested that in the production phase only one version number would be necessary for each file submission.

Wright indicated that in the production phase of HEI the expectation is that when data reporters receive an error while running edits they will go back to the most basic source of that error to make the necessary correction, then rerun the process to produce a subsequent version of the whole file. Participants generally agreed, while noting that there are occasions when the source of errors involves the need for communication and coordination on campuses beyond that which a data reporter may have direct influence.

Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) File

One of the data questions introduced during the data submissions portion of the pilot project is related to the error message that appeared when the Highest Rank During Year was provided for an individual whose Appointment Status is PT (part time) or GA (graduate assistant). The data submissions document indicates that Highest Rank During Year is to be provided for full-time individuals only. In order to avoid the use of blanks as a submission response, it became necessary to provide an NA (Not Applicable, i.e., PT or GA) option for that field. However, since there are faculty who have a rank and who are also part-time faculty for the reporting period, campus data reporters pointed out the importance of including such individuals in the file submission, particularly since those individuals may also have tenure and would otherwise not be included in the count of tenured faculty.

It is worth remembering that the Highest Rank During Year reflects the individual's relationship to the institution, not the teaching assignment. That is, a full-time member of the faculty who teaches only one course in a term would be reported as full time.

Further discussion needs to clarify which part-time faculty and instructional non-faculty would have a demographics record that includes Highest Rank During Year. Since "Part Time" and "Graduate Assistant" are included in the Appointment Status field, the question is whether or not to ask also for Highest Rank During Year for all part-time faculty. The categories currently contained in the field were established for full-time faculty.

Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) File

The Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) file must contain zero errors and be loaded to the HEI database before the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) file can be edited by the campus data reporter. An error message will be generated for each individual in the Faculty Funding file for whom there is not a row in the table produced by the prior submission of the demographics file.

Wright stated that a Web-based replacement for ftp/Telnet will include a listing of the files loaded to the database. The timetable for the introduction of Web-based data transmissions has not yet been determined.

Langford indicated that the Financial Data Area pilot project recently recommended that a Funding Unit Inventory be produced which would contain all the valid funding units against which edits for the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) file and the Course Sections Taught (ST) file would be run. The Funding Unit Inventory would be produced prior to the first submissions of Faculty-Staff data in the production phase; the addition of new funding units would be done on a term-by-term basis in order to maintain a current inventory for the term submissions of the Course Sections Taught (ST) files.

During the Faculty-Staff pilot project, the funding units are being supplied by the submissions of the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) files and the Course Sections Taught (ST) files. Errors are not being produced in relation to funding units because there is not an inventory of valid funding units against which checks can be made.

Andy Lechler pointed out that interdepartmental communication on campuses will be important in coordinating the financial data reported in the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) file and in the Funding Unit Expenditure (FX) file (in the Financial Data Area). For Resource Analysis purposes, the sum of the salaries associated with any given funding unit reported in the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) file must be less than or equal to the expenditures associated with that same funding unit as reported in the Funding Unit Expenditure (FX) file.

Following the pilot project and prior to the practice period, two fields will be added to the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) file: Restricted Fringe Benefits and Unrestricted Fringe Benefits. A modification in the existing fields will result in two salary fields that parallel the fringe benefits fields, including salary from "unrestricted" and "restricted" I&G funds. These changes have been proposed by the Resource Analysis participants and by the Financial Data Area pilot project participants.

Course Sections Taught (ST) File

The issue of using 000000000, 999999999, and other generic Faculty Identifiers was discussed as a result of their presence in the pilot data submissions. Campus representatives indicated that such identifiers are used to identify graduate students or other categories of faculty, including "unknown," since there has been no provision for indicating unidentified faculty in the data submissions document. The problem with using the same institution assigned identifier for a group of individuals is that the relational database will read the unit records as if they all relate to the same individual. Nevertheless, a generic classification of unidentified faculty is preferable to no record because there is other useful information contained in the record.

Participants discussed ways to report unidentified faculty members, reflecting categories such as the following: corporate contract, government contract, international graduate students, faculty in shared campus courses, ROTC and military courses, and volunteer faculty. Because the Faculty Identifier field is alphanumeric, the categories could be reflected within the field. It is possible that a verification table containing acceptable categories and codes could be used.

For the two fields which permit multiple entries, Course Section Type and Technology in Instructional Delivery, campus data reporters have been asked to left justify the codes and list them alphabetically. At the beginning of the pilot project the two fields reflected the relationship between a faculty member and a course section, permitting different attributes to be assigned to each faculty member associated with a particular course section, if the campus was able to report Course Section Type and Technology in Instructional Delivery for individual faculty members. In a lecture/lab combination having a single course section identifier, for instance, if one faculty member was responsible for the lecture and the other for the lab, each record in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file would identify one faculty member and whether he or she was responsible for the lecture or the lab.

Wright suggested that a simplifying assumption would be to have the Course Section Type and Technology in Instructional Delivery fields refer to the course section rather than to the individual faculty member's relationship to the course section. The result is that the same attributes will be reported for all faculty associated with the same course section. The resulting aggregation at the course section level removes the possibility of disaggregating to the faculty level, and it prevents those campuses that are able to provide faculty-level data for these two fields from reporting such data. Pilot project participants were asked to submit the same attributes for all faculty members associated with the same course section, and if they do not report the same attributes for the faculty they will receive an error message in their edits, indicating that the Course Section Type, for example, was not the same for the faculty members associated with the course section.

A benefit of permitting and encouraging data reporting at the level of the faculty member is that in cases where more than one faculty member is associated with a course section, the course section aggregation can still be obtained from the collected data. The disaggregation back to individual faculty members, however, would not be possible once the data were collected at the course section level. During the pilot project an error message prevents the reporting of different Course Types for each faculty member associated with the same course section, and data reporters have been asked to submit data in such a way that it appears as if the two or more faculty members have the same Course Section Type and Technology in Instructional Delivery responsibilities in a course section, even if one faculty member actually is responsible only for the lecture and the other is responsible for the lab. This issue will be addressed again at the August 7 pilot project meeting.

There was a suggestion that "Studio" be added to Course Section Type in order to describe activities in art, music, theater, and performing arts which are not currently described by the existing field attributes. "Field" experience was also suggested as an additional Course Section Type to describe experiences available in geology and archaeology.

There was discussion about clarifying the file description to indicate that any instructor who has responsibility for the delivery of a course section would be included in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file. The file would not be limited to the faculty of record.

Participants suggested adding a "Not Available" attribute to the Technology in Instructional Delivery field, indicating that information about the status of technology use is currently unavailable. Pilot participants recognized in establishing the field that initially the availability of technology data may be limited. It was agreed that it would be beneficial to add a "Not Available" option to the field in the practice period version of the data submissions document.

All Employee (AM) File

There was a request by pilot participants to move the Capture Date for the submission file from October 1 to November 1 of the current fiscal year. The census date would continue to be October 1. That is, the file would contain one record for each person who was employed on October 1, consistent with the IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) reporting requirements which call for records on an "employee on the payroll of the Institution as of October 1." There was general acceptance of the request, recognizing that a month between the census date and capture date would provide time to submit more accurate and complete employee data. The file would be submitted in December.

Because the All Employee (AM) file does not permit multiple entries in any field, emphasis is placed on selecting the "primary" category within the Major Fund Group field as the starting place for the fields that follow. After the primary Major Fund Group has been selected, then the Work Category related to that Major Fund Group is selected. Likewise, Appointment Status, Pay Type, and Contract Salary/Wages are based on the Major Fund Group that was identified for the individual.
 

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Last updated June 1, 1998