Academic Work Distribution

 Academic Work Distribution Process (AWD)

Welcome to the Deputy President and Registrar’s Webpage on UCC’s Academic Work Distribution (AWD).

AWD-FECP Academic Advisory Group (AAG)

The Academic Advisory Group was established in 2017 to act as an academic community support in relation to the operation of the AWD-FECP process. The AAG, made up of senior academic members, was formed as a collegial group to work with Heads of Academic Unit and academic staff in the use of the AWD-FECP Framework, whilst ensuring the implementation and operation of the framework is compatible with the needs of the academic community. In addition, the aggregated reporting outputs are designed to defend institutional reputation with external stakeholders such as the HEA and support strategic initiatives such as Athena Swan and Full Economic Costing.

Membership

The membership of the AWD-FECP Academic Advisory Group comprises of representatives from each College, FECP and P&C:

Chair: Professor Silvia Ross
Co Chair: Professor Brendan Griffin

Members:

1. Dr Amanullah De Sondy, CACSSS
2. Professor Ali Khashan, COMH
3. Professor Anita Maguire (FECP Lead)
4. Professor Mark McEntee, COMH
5. Dr Fergal O’Connor, COBL
6. Dr. Ciara Heavin, EDI
7. Dr Anthony Knights, SEFS
8. Mr Kieran Creedon, Representative from UCC People and Culture
9. Ms Clare Lehane, SII & Full Economic Costings Process Manager

Terms of Reference: AWD Terms of Reference

Acknowledgement

It is acknowledged that differing levels and profiles of work may occur due to such circumstances as level of appointment e.g. Headship, academic staff member’s career stage or local exigencies.

AWD Form

The form includes the following categories of activity:

1. Teaching & Assessment
2. Research
3. Scholarly Activities
4. Academic Administration

Collection Exemptions

The following academic staff are considered exempt from completion of the AWD in any given collection round: 

• Academic staff who work less than .2 FTE(less than 20% of a full time equivalent) & part time occasional staff.
• Academic staff on maternity leave, long-term sick leave and approved special leave for the timeframe being recorded.
• Academic staff on sabbatical leave of six months or greater during the reporting period.
• Recently appointed academic staff who have worked less than 6 months.
• Academic staff within six months of retirement.  

Academic Work Distribution (AWD)

• Forward planning and mapping of the distribution of academic activity at academic unit level
• Creation of a Unit Summary of academic activity to inform local discussion on academic activity
• Reference to local, College and University AWD-FECP norms
• Mapping of trends in AWD-FECP against student and human resource data to aid proposals
• Support of individual and School applications for accreditation
• Submission to Professional Body in evidence of activity
• University reporting to internal and external stakeholders (non-personalised summative data)

Full Economic Costing (FECP): 

• AWD is a significant cost driver for HEA Subject Area Teaching Costs which is used to support for example funding requests for new programmes and apprenticeships
• Generates a Research Indirect Overhead Rate which is used as a key input with regards to State Aid compliance measures and as a basis for charging indirect costs for fully funded collaborative research projects and allocating indirect costs as part of the framework for accounting separation of economic and non-economic activities

Data Protection  Notice

The information you supply in relation to your Academic Work will be used to:

• facilitate your unit in using their resources to optimise the quality and quantity of outputs having regard to staff development goals;
• quantify scholarly activities to balance load against capacity and to aid comparability of workload distribution at Academic Unit, College and University levels;
• provide information to facilitate decisions on resource allocation; and
• create a framework to encapsulate information on academic activities to allow the University to report with greater precision.
• The information you supply in relation to Full Economic Costing will be averaged within one of the six nationally agreed Full Economic Costing academic grades. Only academic unit grade averages are used within the costing system.
• Any personal data which you provide to the University will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality, in accordance with Irish and European Data Protection legislation and the University’s Data Protection Policy. Your data will not be used for any other purpose or disclosed to any third party. If you wish to correct/amend your personal details, please contact academicactivities@ucc.ie in the first instance.  If you wish to access your personal data or have any further queries in relation to Data Protection, please contact the University’s Information Compliance Manager (email: gdpr@ucc.ie; telephone: 021 4903949).

Records Management

AWD forms and Unit Summary Sheets shall be bound by the University Record Management Policy in compliance with Data Protection Laws.

History 

University College Cork’s Academic Workload (AWD) was designed over a period of years via a senior Steering Group and a Project Team (led by the Registrar and Senior Vice President Academic).  An AWD Framework was formally approved by Academic Council on the 26th November 2010 and Governing Body in 2010.  Informed by an international benchmarking exercise the then standalone AWD model was designed to respond to internal demands for greater equity and transparency in the distribution of tasks and resources and enabling appropriate reporting on academic activities and overall workload of academic staff.

Separately since 2008 UCC has been involved in a sectoral Strategic Innovation Fund initiative project via a senior Steering Group and Working Group (led by an academic champion) to implement a Full Economic Costing system (FECP) to highlight perceived deficiencies in the funding of research overheads and support funding requests. UCC, in conjunction with DCU, implemented Sub-Project 1 developed the comprehensive academic activities form.

The AWD and FECP projects are in keeping with the requirements of the University's Strategic Plan and objectives, The Croke Park Agreement, and the National Strategy for Higher Education. Between 2009 and 2013 FECP was collecting information from academic staff on their academic activities as a key element in its costing process. Following agreement at Academic Council (24th June 2011) an institutional wide pilot of the university’s Academic Workload Distribution Model was completed.UCC is the first of the Irish universities to align Academic Work Distribution and Full Economic Costing academic activity data sets into a single collection source.  The initiative has importance in relation to the national HE reporting agenda as the AWD-FECP  is a key tool used to report on academic activity, research overhead and support funding requests for both internal and external stakeholders.