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Transparency Review

DIARY EXERCISE: How to fill in the forms

For the week during which you will keep a diary you are able to download a pack of forms from the Transparency Review website, as follows:

  • Seven Diary Forms (one for each day of the week)
  • A Weekly Sheet to collect the data from the diary forms and work out proportions of time spent on each activity
  • A Summary Report Sheet on which to record the proportions

You will already have been sent an individual PIN number which you must enter on each of the forms. This is solely to enable the Transparency Review Team to check that everybody has completed the forms. No one outside the Transparency Review Team will have access to the PIN numbers. If you have forgotten your PIN number please contact Jasmine Allen

The diary exercise can be completed in one of two ways. Firstly, it can be done by manually completing the forms. This is the more time consuming of the two methods and is not recommended unless you are not familiar with using Excel spreadsheets. The manually completed forms should then be returned to:

Jasmine Allen
Financial Services
Docklands
Room EB 2.04

Secondly, if you are familiar with Excel the forms can be downloaded from the web and completed electronically. This method is less time consuming. If the data collected on the daily worksheets are transferred on to the spreadsheet then the weekly and summary forms are generated automatically and you have nothing further to fill in.

IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU COMPLETE THE EXERCISE ELECTRONICALLY.

Below are detailed instructions on completing the exercise explaining both methods.

MANUAL METHOD:

The Daily Worksheet

Firstly please enter your PIN number, Grade and Full Time Equivalent e.g. 1.0, 0.5, 0.2 etc on EACH form.

The Diary Form is a simple grid. Down the side as row labels are 9 categories of activity on which data are being collected. The columns are half-hour time slots, to allow for the possibility that you will be working at any time between 7am and midnight (if you work at other times of day there are ways to record this too).

To complete the diary manually, you should simply put in a tick for each half-hour period to show the activity which was predominant in that period. You can do this during the day, or at the end of a morning or afternoon session if that is more convenient, but the nearer you do this to the time of the activity that you record the better estimate you are likely to make of what you were doing. Only record working time: exclude meal breaks, leisure, travelling to work etc. Leave blank any column corresponding to any period in which you were not working.

Do not struggle over your judgement in regard to each half hour slot, - just make a fair estimate. If you are convinced at the end of the day that you have done some work activity that has not been recorded because it just happened not to be predominant in any half-hour, put in an extra tick in an empty column to mark every half-hour spent on it, and delete a tick from another row which might have been over-represented. Similarly, to record work done between midnight and 7am, put ticks into any empty columns in the standard working day.

The Weekly Worksheet

  • At the end of each day count the ticks in each row of the daily worksheet, divide by 2 to convert to full hours and enter the number in the Totals column on the right of that form.
  • Transfer the totals to the corresponding day in the weekly sheet
  • For each row on the weekly sheet, total the sums for each day in the Weekly Totals column
  • Add up the weekly totals to produce a Grand Total
  • Divide each weekly total row by the Grand Total to produce a proportion for the column titled "Time Spent".

The Summary Sheet

  • Transfer the percentages in the Percentage Time Spent column of the Weekly Sheet into the cells of the Summary Sheet.
  • Check that your PIN number, Grade and Full Time Equivalent is on the sheet.
  • Return it to the Jasmine Allen in the Financial Services.

This should not be an onerous task. Completion of the diary forms should only take a couple of minutes each day. The summary sheet may take a little longer using the manual method.

ELECTRONIC METHOD:

To download the forms electronically please go to the web-site address above and click on the "Download Diary Form" button. This will open up the spreadsheet in Excel.

  • Click on "File"
  • Save As
  • Select a directory on your home area and choose a file name e.g. Transparency Exercise.xls
  • Click on "Save"

This will now be saved in your chosen area and you can access it as you wish.

To download the instructions electronically please click on the "Print" button and follow the same procedure as above.

If you are filling in the form electronically then you only need to fill in the first worksheet in the file which is titled "Daily Sheets". All the information you fill in on this sheet will automatically transfer through to the other sheets in the file.

If using the spreadsheet then fill in each half-hour, where work is recorded, with a numerical 1 digit. Within the Excel file there is a separate form for each day.

Please do not forget to put:

  • PIN number in cell C22
  • Grade in cell C24
  • Full Time Equivalent e.g. 1.0, 0.5, 0.2 etc in cell C26

on the Daily sheet. This will feed this information through to all other necessary sheets. The following summary and report sheets will be generated automatically from the daily worksheets. You need not fill in anything further.

I should like to repeat the assurances given in both previous tranche's of the Transparency Review, – all of the information collected will be reduced to percentages of time spent on different activities. The information you supply will be regarded as confidential and will not be available to me, your Head of Department or anyone else other than the person responsible for the data analysis

The definitions of the none categories are set out below.

Definitions of categories of activities

Please find below definitions of the various time allocation categories which are required in the Transparency Review.

You will see that these activities include Publicly Funded Teaching, Non-Publicly Funded Teaching, Publicly Funded Research, Non-Publicly Funded Research, - and Other Activities (such as consultancy). However, additionally we need to record time spent on Support for Teaching, Research, and Other Activities.

Please do read these definitions before you start to fill in the forms. If you have any queries please contact Jasmine Allen in the Finance Services on extension 2336 or by email to j.m.allen@uel.ac.uk

Publicly Funded Teaching

Publicly Funded Teaching refers to:

  • UK award/credit bearing courses
  • all teaching activities like ESF, Erasmus, Tempus
  • all levels of teaching - sub-degree, degree, PGT (but not PGR)
  • higher education, further education, teacher training, NHS (nursing) etc

It includes:

  • holding lectures, seminars, tutorials
  • project, workshop and laboratory supervision
  • preparing materials for lectures, tutorials and laboratory classes
  • preparing materials for an agreed new course
  • editing and updating course materials
  • organising and visiting placements, fieldwork
  • supervision/contact time relating to projects and dissertations; and assessment
  • other student contact time relating to educational matters including remedial classes
  • preparing and marking examination papers, including resits
  • oral examinations
  • reading and assessing student dissertations, reading and marking essays and other student work
  • invigilation of examinations including external examining
  • mentee meetings
  • outreach where Teaching is the underlying activity

Non-Publicly Funded Teaching

Non-Publicly Funded Teaching includes:

  • short courses (full cost short courses; non credit/award bearing courses; overseas courses and other commercial teaching)
  • overseas and self-funded students on UK award/credit-bearing courses
  • teaching carried out through trading units/commercial companies
  • time spent teaching overseas (i.e. non-European) students whether they are enrolled on courses run at UEL or overseas (for example at the HELP Institute in Malaysia) should be allocated to the Non-Publicly Funded Teaching categories.

Support for Teaching

Support for Teaching includes:

  • timetabling
  • examination boards
  • preparing prospectuses
  • interviewing students, admissions and induction
  • course and other committees related to teaching
  • schools liaison
  • pastoral support (outside timetabled tutorials), counselling
  • initial course development (initial approvals, validations etc)
  • preparation of annual quality improvement plans, reports etc
  • writing books and other publications for teaching purposes
  • advancement of knowledge and skills related to teaching
  • secondment to/academic exchanges with other universities for teaching activities
  • publicity for teaching facilities and opportunities.

Research

For Transparency Review purposes Research is defined as follows:

"Research and Experimental Development (R&D) comprise creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge of man, culture and society and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications. R & D is a term covering three activities: basic research, applied research and experimental development." Taken from the Frascati Manual published in 1994 – ISBN 9264142029 HMSO

"Basic research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view."

"Applied research is also original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective."

Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and/or practical experience that is directed to producing new materials, products or devices, to installing new processes, systems and services, or to improving substantially those already produced or installed.

The relationship between research and scholarly activity is somewhat blurred, even in the Transparency Review Manual. As a broad and imperfect guide I suggest that scholarly activity which is carried out in order to produce an RAE output should be categorised as Research. On the other hand, scholarly activity aimed primarily at informing teaching should be categorised as Support for Teaching.

Publicly Funded Research

Publicly Funded Research includes:

  • fieldwork, laboratory, studio, classroom work
  • management of projects, informal discussions, progress reports etc
  • recruitment and supervision of research staff
  • attendance at conferences, seminars and society meetings that are directly connected with specific research projects
  • production of research reports, papers, books
  • training and supervision of PGR students including training in research methodology, review of drafts and preparation of thesis, and external examining
  • collaboration with other departments or institutions in any of the above
  • outreach where research is the underlying activity; Teaching Company Scheme
  • funded by the Research Council, the European Union or by the University itself through its RAE allocation.

Non-Publicly Funded Research

Non-Publicly Funded Research includes research activities as listed above but funded by:

  • UK-based charities
  • UK industry, commerce and public corporations
  • EU government bodies (excluding the EC)
  • all overseas bodies

Support for Research:

Support for Research includes:

  • drafting and redrafting proposals for new work and supporting bids to external bodies where bids involve a significant amount of speculative research, that element can be attributed to Research
  • refereeing papers
  • advancement of knowledge and skills related to research
  • unpaid work advising government departments or committees, professional bodies or agencies in relation to research matters
  • institute and department committee work supporting Research
  • block time in other institutions on research exchange schemes
  • publicity for research facilities and opportunities.

Other Activities:

Other Activities include:

  • consultancy (excluding private) i.e. that is contracted to the institution and carried out in institution time; including advisory work, journal editing, feasibility studies
  • other services rendered, including testing and non-research clinical trials (i.e. activities not covered under the Frascati Manual definition of Research)
  • work carried out through trading units/commercial companies that is not Teaching or Research
  • technology transfer work if remunerated through the university (e.g. directorships of start-up companies and/or consultancy contracts for the companies).
  • outreach (where the outreach activity is not Teaching or Research)

Support for Other Activities

Support for Other Activities include:

  • drafting and re-drafting proposals for new work and supporting bids to external bodies for consultancy and other services rendered
  • negotiating contract terms and conditions with external bodies
  • technology transfer work that is not private, nor remunerated through the institution (e.g. supporting patent applications, licence negotiations, formation of start-up companies)

 

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