Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education (2012)

Appendix D

Estimating Project-Related Departmental Research

Recommendation (7) calls for an “estimate of the departmental research (DR) directly associated with sponsored research projects (now typically considered part of the instructional cost in universities’ accounts),” which should be excluded from faculty instructional labor. The algorithm will have to be developed through a special study, since it appears impractical to capture the data directly in university accounting systems.

Two options suggest themselves:

• Alternative 1: Acquire a sample of faculty reports that include time allocations and regress the average departmental research allocation, excluding academic year salary offsets, against the department’s sponsored research funding. Minor public service activities might be included as well, if they are not separately budgeted. This could provide the basis for adjusting the institution’s overall faculty cost for research, but some adjustment for field would be required. Nonfaculty costs would not be adjusted. (The research design needs to be elaborated.)
• Alternative 2: Array data for sponsored research per faculty FTE into deciles. Set the percentage of faculty time for the top decile to the results of a sample of reported time allocations for a sample of very research-intensive institutions. Scale the other deciles linearly to zero at the lowest decile.

These options need more research, particularly with regard to determining the time allocation percentages, probably through a survey on time use by faculty for a sample of institutions. The sample should be representative of the current

institution segment mix. The Faculty Survey on Student Engagement has an item on number of hours spent in a seven-day week on various activities:

1. Teaching undergraduates
2. Grading paper and exams
3. Giving feedback to students
4. Preparing for class
5. Reflecting on improving teaching
6. Research and scholarly activities
7. Working with undergraduates on research
8. Advising undergraduate students
9. Supervising internship
10. Working with students on activities other than coursework
11. Interacting with students outside classroom
12. Conducting service activities

This structure may provide a good starting point for the analysis.