Managing University or School workload allocations in an increasingly complex higher workload environment is a resource intensive process. Prof Papagiannidis has built a flexible online system that can be easily integrated and extended by using external data sources (such as University databases). If you are interested in more information or a demonstration of WAM please contact him.
The system's main features are listed below related to staff workload profiles, research, teaching and learning and management.
This is the main summary of all members of staff in the school. The report can include adjunct staff or filter them out. The report can be presented in different ways. The default one breaks down allocations in a number of key activities. The summary view presents a more concise report that shows research, teaching, roles and development as % of someone's total workload.
Individual profiles list all activities for a member of staff across a number of tabs. Beyond the personal interest individual profiles can have for each member of staff, they can be used for informing personal development review meetings as they contain key information regarding someone's duties and performance.
Contract: The following contractual information that is used for workload purposes is included in this tab, such one's position, if they have a doctorate, the start/end dates and their workload targets.
Research: The research tab lists the allowances for personal research, any project buy-outs and research sabbatical. These can be set or removed by editors by clicking on the corresponding icons. If a research role is modifiable then a form will be presented to the editor to enter the necessary information. Otherwise, the allowance will be set automatically. In addition, if a member of staff is supervising doctoral students, the students' information will be presented in a table with a total allocation calculated.
Teaching & Learning: The teaching and learning tab list the allowances for teaching and scholarship and CASAP. Assessment can be added separately if this is not accounted for in the School's teaching formula. Dissertations can be added by clicking on "Add dissertations", which first lists the types of dissertations and then invites the user to select the number of dissertations to item. This tab also lists all module allocations. Teaching allocation details are captured in a form which asks the following: Module leadership, lecture and seminar hours, assessment undertaken, etc. The above information is applied to a School formula that takes other parameters into consideration such as preparation time and student numbers. The result of the calculation is displayed in the teaching allocations table. The total of all allocations is also calculated.
Roles: This tab list all roles allocated to an individual and makes it possible to add new ones.
Bank: This tab displays the annual workload averages and the latest deposits made, on which the annual workload averages are based.
CV: The CV tab displays the profile summary for the individual as set in the staff profile. This makes it possible to export all information held for an individual including research, teaching, roles etc.
Publications: The publications tab summarises the publications of the individual and then provides detailed information for each one of the outputs.
Timetable: This tab lists the timetabled slots for the individual.
The workload calculator can be used by any member of staff to estimate the total workload for a specific list of teaching and role allocations. The calculator can also be used for planning purposes. Once the form is submitted the calculator will present the totals and relative workload for different contractual levels.
The workload bank lists all staff currently in the school and their average annual workload for the past 5 years, highlighting any cases over the typical workload thresholds.
The staff summary page provides graphical reports related to the staff composition in the school, which may be useful for staffing rounds. Reports include the number of staff per group, their tenure, grades, whether staff hold a doctorate degree etc. This page also provides break-downs by group.
The school workload summary outlines the total resources available to the school and the resources allocated. The total resources are also broken down by activity type. In addition, this page will list all available roles, their properties, the number of allocations and the resources allocated against them.
The group workload summary offers an overview of group workload levels and how these are split among the 5 categories of workload activities. It is possible to include adjunct staff in the calculations or just the full-time members of staff.
The longitudinal analysis provides graphs showing key trends in the school over a period of a few years. For example, reports include trends on number of staff, number of programmes and modules and number of students.
This page lists all the research groups in the School and their primary and secondary members.
This page lists the frequency and % of research active staff by group and research type. It also provides a list of members of staff and their allocated research type and allocation.
This page lists research buy-outs by individuals. The information captured includes the buy-out allocation and a comment noting the project for which the buy-out was agreed.
The research sabbaticals page lists the individuals who are on sabbatical and the corresponding tariff.
This page lists the research programmes and the number of students enrolled on them.
The supervisions list will display all current students who have not yet completed their studies. For each record the table displays the student number, the programme on which the student is enrolled, whether they are in full or part time mode, their registration date and number of years and the progression status. The completions tab lists all research students who completed their studies in the current year.
This page lists the publications in the school for the first year in a selected season. The table also lists the title, type and status of the publication. Additional information can be obtained by clicking on the "Details" link, which displays the abstract and keywords. Publication information can be downloaded in a "Cover" format (e.g. for displaying on boards) using the corresponding button. Moreover, a bar outlines the online discussions related to each publication using data provided from AltMetric (for more information please visit http://www.altmetric.com). This can be useful for research and marketing/engagement purposes.
This page lists all active and inactive taught programmes. For each programme the number of students is also listed, while additional statistics such as approximate staff student ratios, estimated number of dissertations etc. are available under the statistics tab.
Given a module code this page will generate a module outline form that can be downloaded in Microsoft Word format.
The main tab lists all available modules in the WAM, while the second produces reports including modules per group, level, societal challenge, contribution etc.
For a given list of modules, this page will list all the timetabled sessions. For each session the day, time, location, type, number of slots will be listed. In addition, the member of staff delivering the session will be mentioned.
When dealing with multiple teaching allocations across a number of profiles, it may be more efficient and effective to use this page. This lists all teaching allocations in a grid-based format.
The system automates checking information among four data sets, namely WAM, MOF, allocations and timetable. More specifically, the system will check the MOF data vs the WAM data and if any discrepancies are found these will be highlighted in yellow. Similarly, it will check that teaching allocations match the WAM module information. There should always be a single module leader and assessment should add up to 100%. The total of seminar, lab and other hours allocated should be a multiple of WAM hours (assuming that there may be multiple groups of students if class sizes exceed a certain threshold). Finally, the allocations will be compared against the timetabled sessions.
The moderations management page makes it possible for editors to designate moderators for each module. The moderators tab will also display the number of modules someone is module leader for and how many modules have been allocated to this individual. This can be helpful for balancing moderation duties with module leadership duties.
The dissertation allocations page lists the types and number of dissertations someone has been allocated.
The reference generator makes it possible to prepare references based on predefined templates. Tutors can view a list of their tutees and all the references they have created in their past for them. Reference templates can include a number of variables such as the name of the student, the programme, the student's grades etc. The reference can then be exported on the School's letterhead and downloaded as MS Word file, potentially for further editing. Users can create multiple reference templates (e.g. for masters courses or for job-seeking purposes).
This page lists all duties undertaken by adjunct members of staff. It also lists all supervisions by full-time members of staff that are paid extra. Beyond calculating the total resources outsourced, this page can be very useful for issuing contracts and arranging payments for such activities.
For each undergraduate and postgraduate taught programme this main tab lists the number of students recruited over the past few years. An average is calculated. In addition, ratios, such as Applications to Rejections and Applications to Unconditional offer, are provided. The statistics tab lists the total number of students recruited by the school and by each group.
For a given data range (by default this is set to the last 30 days) this page will display the teaching and non-teaching allocations that have been added to the system.