OHIO BOARD OF REGENTS

Opening

Don Langford welcomed the consultation participants, noting that one year and one day ago they met in a similar consultation to begin discussing the structure of a data submissions document for the Faculty-Staff Data Area. During the past year the faculty-staff e-mail discussion group has addressed key issues, and representatives from 12 colleges and universities have participated in a series of six pilot project meetings and a full pilot submission of faculty-staff files.  Langford reported that the participation level during the pilot project was remarkable - all 12 colleges and universities completed submissions of all the Faculty-Staff data files. Pilot participants were commended for the considerable work they did within a short reporting period.

Matt Filipic stated that there are important policy discussions in higher education that could be informed by better data. Some of the issues include the following:

• In addition to the standard census data about the number of faculty members and their ranks, and demographics information such as ethnic and sex distribution at various levels, "we need to understand the interaction between faculty and students in the classroom and in the instructional laboratory.  We don't really have good information on that in the UIS."  HEI will provide the innovation of connecting data at the course section level, providing a greater understanding of teaching and learning in higher education.

• What is the professional life of a faculty member like?  How is their time spent?  To seek more reliable sources of data than the Faculty Service Report, the Regents will turn to a statewide faculty sample survey.

• Where does the money come from to pay faculty?  Although faculty are usually paid from an Instruction and General budget, there are also research contracts and other funding sources that are used, particularly in the summer.  Because the source of funding changes from term to term, such information is needed term to term.

• State-level policy interests on non-faculty staff involve different issues than those for faculty.  A common complaint in state government is that costs on campuses are rising too quickly because of increases in non-faculty staffing.  Without differentiation, it's not possible to see what drives these staff increases.  There needs to be a sense of the kinds of occupations that staff hold, and their funding sources.  The situation, with regard to non-faculty staff, doesn't change sufficiently from term to term to justify the additional expense of having a cumulative retrospective report of staff employment.  A snapshot, similar to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) snapshot, might meet the State's needs at less cost to campuses.

• Less detailed information is needed about student employees, but because there are large numbers of them, we don't want to ignore them.

• Information is needed in order to inform public policy.  "Public policy will be made with or without information. . . . We believe that better policy will be made if it's an informed policy."

The All Employee (AM) file presented for discussion and consideration at the statewide consultation uses the same IPEDS-style "snapshot" format that was used during the data submissions portion of the Faculty-Staff pilot project.

Although participants at an August 7, 1997, pilot project meeting discussed a plan for a comprehensive retrospective file that would enable multiple entries for individuals, a subsequent Regents staff meeting further clarified the state-level needs for data about staffing. Regents indicated that one record for each individual in the fall term would provide very useful unit record demographic information about staffing in Ohio's state-supported colleges and universities.

Daryl Wright pointed out that the two notable differences between the All Employee (AM) file and IPEDS reports are:

1. The HEI report contains unit record data, while IPEDS uses aggregate data; and
2. Major Fund Group is a category in the All Employee (AM) file and not in IPEDS reports.

Student workers will not be reported in the All Employee (AM) file. Instead, student workers will be reported in a separate retrospective aggregate file (see Student Worker (SW) file below).

Other points of interest discussed included the following:

• the capture date for the file will be October 15;
• the salary/wage field will be expanded from 8 characters to 9.

Filipic indicated that the State's information needs about student workers can be met through a separate retrospective summary report collected at year end.

Student workers appear to be readily identified by campuses, although not always described by a funding source. Some campus representatives reported that there is a separate payroll for student workers, while others indicated that student workers are identified by different criteria. How campuses define student workers may be less critical than their ability to distinguish student workers from non-student workers in some consistent manner. An institution-determined indication of student workers will guide reporting in the Student Worker (SW) file.

Rather than containing the number of appointments or jobs held by student workers during the course of the year, the Student Worker (SW) file will indicate the total number of unduplicated individual student workers. In addition to a total number of student workers, the file will contain the total aggregate amounts spent during the year on student worker wages, broken out by the following general Major Fund Groups: Instruction and General, Separately Budgeted Research, Public Service, Auxiliary, and Hospital. Lastly, the file will contain a field that represents how much of the total amount spent on student worker wages during the year came from federal work-study programs.

The Student Worker (SW) file will be submitted each December, reflecting activity associated with the fiscal year.

Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) File

With acceptance of the fall snapshot approach to the All Employee (AM) file, the two fields, Sex and Race/Ethnicity, will be reintroduced to the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) File in the practice period. Wright pointed out that pilot project participants recognized that with these two demographics fields there may be many faculty for whom these data are collected twice, once in the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) file and once in the All Employee (AM) file. The pilot project recommended the present approach. Eliminating the redundancy would be more complicated than the value obtained. Wright stressed the importance of collecting demographics information about faculty who teach, including those whose employment began after the fall snapshot of the All Employee (AM) file.

The Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) file contains records for faculty, whether those individuals teach or don't teach. If librarians, for example, have faculty status at the reporting campus, they will be included in the file. The file also contains records for individuals who teach but are not faculty. If the individual can be identified with a Social Security Number or an institution-assigned identifier, a record for that individual will appear in the file. However, individuals who cannot be identified by a Social Security Number or institution-assigned identifier in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file, but can be identified by one of the Generic Faculty Identifiers (Agency, ROTC, Shared, or Volunteer), will not be included in the demographics file. Participants suggested the addition of an Other category to the Generic Faculty Identifiers in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file, to be used only when an individual identifier is not obtainable and the existing generic categories are not applicable.

For the Faculty Rank field, if an individual's rank changes during the year, the ending rank will be reported in the Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Demographics (FD) file. In addition, at institutions that do not have ranks for their part-time faculty, the Other category will be used in reporting those individuals. Institutions that have no academic rank for any of their faculty will use the No Academic Rank category.

Discussion of the Administrator field pointed to difficulties in determining which individuals would be reported as administrators, particularly when considering one's teaching responsibilities in relation to one's appointment. The question of whether the administrator category is limited to managerial positions or includes non-faculty staff was addressed with several examples identified. Distinctions based on separate contracts or titles did not provide a clear indication of who would be reported as an administrator.

The original intent of the field was to be able to identify deans, department chairs, etc., who may occasionally teach courses but whose primary responsibility is not teaching. Questions about whether and when to include counselors or librarians as administrators added to the difficulty of describing and defining the field. A recommendation was made to remove the Administrator field and add Work Category, using the definitions and terms already being used in the All Employee (AM) file.  The recommendation was approved by the participants.  The field would provide the needed differentiation of work categories based on an individual's primary responsibility.  The next version of the data submissions document will reflect this change.

Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) File

The Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) file has been developed for the primary purpose of serving the Resource Analysis needs associated with salaries and fringe benefits from Instruction and General (I&G) funds.  Individual salary amounts related to non-I&G funds, including separately budgeted research and public service, are not currently indicated anywhere in the Faculty-Staff data submissions.  Regents staff indicated that it is important to be able to describe expenditures from major sources of funds in addition to I&G.

Regents staff recommended the addition of a field that would indicate salary amounts associated with separately budged research and public service, using the categories from Major Fund Groups. Salary from research grants would represent an important source of non-I&G compensation, particularly during the summer terms, and if campuses already collect and use such information for their own needs. There were several questions and much discussion about the recommendation.

Participants asked whether aggregate reporting of research and public service data might be sufficient, because the data aren't linked directly to departments of instruction. Rich Petrick indicated that the benefit of having the data may still be derived by collecting it at the program level.

One participant indicated that the research money is in grant accounts rather than in specific academic departments. The grant accounts are separate from I&G funds. It would be possible to relate the faculty member to the grant account but not to a department.

Andy Lechler suggested that although funding units must be associated with the salaries from I&G funds, it may not be necessary to have funding units associated with the salaries from non-I&G Major Fund Groups. A faculty member whose activities included teaching and sponsored research would have a record for teaching that included a funding unit, and a record for sponsored research that may not need a funding unit. Currently, in UIS reporting, separately budgeted research is aggregated at the institution level; there is no data for research salaries at the college or funding unit levels.

Petrick indicated that there is a State interest in understanding how much outside grant money is used by campuses, and the level at which such information is collected needs to be determined. He emphasized the benefit of knowing the total salaries from non-I&G funds, even though the sponsored research and public service would not be differentiated.

The discussion did not resolve how or at what levels to collect information about salaries from non-I&G sources. Wright suggested that the Regents reconvene an internal consultation to address the issue. Regents will then offer a proposal to campus representatives that considers the State and institutional needs.

Course Sections Taught (ST) File

Wright emphasized the importance of reporting specific identifiers (Social Security Numbers or institution-assigned identifiers) whenever possible for individuals in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file. Only when individual identifiers cannot be obtained are the Faculty Generic Identifiers to be used. The categories will be Agency, ROTC, Shared, Volunteer, and Other.

Langford proposed a follow-up discussion of  the Shared category with the campuses that share faculty and/or courses. The goal will be to find a way to report specific identifiers rather than generic identifiers for individuals in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file.

The Course Section Type and Technology in Instructional Delivery fields will reflect the faculty member's relation to the course section. In instances where there is more than one Course Section Type or Technology in Instructional Delivery mode associated with a Section Identifier, campuses are encouraged to report the faculty member's relationship to the course section.  Some campus representatives indicated that the department chair provides such information when the course schedules are being prepared. Other representatives indicated that a systematic approach to collecting and reporting the faculty member's relation to the course section has not yet been established on some campuses. As campuses improve their ability to report data for these two fields at the level of the faculty member's relationship to the course section, the Course Sections Taught (ST) file will provide a more accurate indication of faculty activity.

Petrick indicated the importance of having statewide information about the use of instructional technology. Questions were raised about what constitutes a "significant method of delivery" in the Technology in Instructional Delivery field. Campus representatives asked if the field should reflect the magnitude of usage. Some participants said that both "primary delivery" and "supplemental use as an instructional tool" should be reflected in the file. One representative pointed out that data about technology usage would be more credible if it could be described as either primary or some lesser level. Another participant indicated that there is validity for having a general description of whether the technologies are being used at all.

One participant stated that Technology in Instructional Delivery refers to the technology used to deliver curricular content rather than the technology used for general communications between faculty and students. Patty James noted that the categories reported in the Technology in Instructional Delivery field also reflect what the student needs to use in order to successfully complete the course section. Another campus representative recommended the addition of Computer-based Instruction or Computer Lab to the Technology in Instructional Delivery field for those course sections in which students are expected to do some of their coursework in a computer lab.

To make a distinction between instances in which no technology is being reported and the occasions when it is not known what technologies are being used in instructional delivery, the category of Unknown will be added to the Technology in Instructional Delivery field.

No decision was reached about whether or how to restructure the Technology in Instructional Delivery field. Regents staff will continue to discuss ways to collect important technology data in the Course Sections Taught (ST) file. A recommendation will soon be presented to campus representatives by Regents staff.
 

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Last updated June 1, 1998