Bruin Brief 2022-06-17: Teaching Assignment Tool (TAT)
- Paul Macey
“Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.” -Dean Kamen
Every year program directors have the daunting task of figuring out who is going to teach what and when for the next academic year. Program directors must ensure that all courses have an instructor and the instructors have an appropriate teaching assignment. As responsible leaders, program directors safeguard the integrity of assignment-making. How do they do this? They assure equity in faculty assignments and follow workload guidelines. They communicate with each person assigned to their program to discuss teaching preferences. They acknowledge the price tag affixed to faculty time. At the end of the day, program directors issue assignments.
In the past, program directors used tables in a shared word document to cut-and-paste information. Then they emailed documents around for serial revisions. Version control problems, data entry mistakes, and an outdated and time-consuming process led to an outcry for a more modern, less error-prone solution (See Figure 1).
Figure 1. The old model of emailing serial versions of the teaching assignment Word document to complete annual teaching assignments.
How did we improve the process of making faculty teaching assignments? Let us introduce you to the “TAT!”
What is TAT?
TAT stands for Teaching Assignment Tool
The Teaching Assignment Process
Program Directors make actual assignments as faculty supervisors. They work within the framework below.
Populating the TAT with accurate data
Courses from the registrar are uploaded into the TAT
Faculty names are uploaded into the TAT
A set number of units is uploaded for Academic Senate, Adjunct, and Lecturer roles congruent with workload guidelines. Those are Target Teaching Units.
Release time for the year is aggregated from different sources.
The Dean supplies a list of faculty with approved sabbatical leave and those with administrative appointments with a set FTE amount.
The Associate Dean for Research supplies a detailed list of research buy-outs from funded grants.
The Assistant Dean of Administration and Human Resources confidentially inserts medical leave information.
The Associate Dean for Academic Programs collates release time from all sources, and modifies the Target Teaching units in TAT accordingly, leaving a brief documentation trail of the unit reduction or addition.
Making wise use of resources
Program Directors consider faculty expertise, clinical specialty, and teaching preferences. They also consider program needs, vacancies, and emergency absences. Based on supply, demand, and faculty preferences, they make a mental calculus to match faculty to courses.
Each course assignment made by a Program Director accrues a unit load in the Actual Units Assigned category. The responsibility of every Program Director is to create equivalence between the units assigned (Actual Units Assigned) to a faculty member and the expected teaching contribution of that faculty member (Target Teaching Units) for the year.
Program directors also assign units for lecturers who contribute to the teaching mission through grading comprehensive exams or admissions packets of prospective students. Academic Senate and Adjunct Faculty are not assigned units for these contributions.
Assuring accuracy and accountability
Automated features in TAT list metrics to help Program Directors identify errors and amend under-assigned courses and over- or under-assigned faculty.
The Dean and leadership team can review assignments and support Program Directors in executing their supervisory roles
Using TAT, the Human Resources personnel in the School can locate information to generate contracts. The Finance Office can calculate the costs of programs, and assess revenues and expenses for personnel.
Who created TAT?
The general idea behind TAT was first introduced to SON by the IT department and academic leadership team several years ago, but it never fully got off the ground.
In the past few months, under Paul Macey’s guidance, we dusted the mothballs off this idea and breathed new life into TAT to turn it into a functional piece of software.
Our partnership and collaboration with the DGIT team made TAT possible.
We appreciate developer Nir Shemer of DGIT who programmed TAT to our needs, and Vitaly Oratovsky and Stephen Austin for testing the software to ensure it worked the way we needed it to.
Who puts information into TAT? (see Figure 2)
Associate Dean for Academic Programs – responsible for target teaching loads (in consultation with HR and grants office), courses being taught, and class times.
Program Directors – assign faculty courses to meet their workload expectations; populate courses and programs with expertise to meet student learning needs.
Human Resources – add instructors and instructor information.
IT – assign rooms for classes.
Figure 2. The new model of real-time management of teaching assignments using the TAT, with connections between Program Directors, IT, HR, and the Dean’s leadership team.
What comes out of TAT?
The teaching schedule, which was the original intention…but good ideas are contagious, and one can lead to another! So…
HR team uses TAT to help generate offer letters to lectures.
IT coordinates the room scheduling.
The Associate Deans and Dean track discrepancies in targeted vs. assigned teaching units. They examine gaps in expertise. TAT informs the creation of faculty recruitment priorities and adjustments in faculty mix to teach the future generation of nursing students.
Lauren Clark
Professor and Shapiro Family Endowed Chair in Developmental Disability Studies
Associate Dean, Academic Programs
Mobile: (801) 503-4755
nursing.ucla.edu