Contact Hours

As a general rule, contact hours should be assigned to the individual with classroom contact whether that person is a faculty member or a teaching assistant. Possible instructor types include:

• Instructors – Assign contact hours for time spent in front of students (and also prep?)
• Teaching Assistants – Assign contact hours for time spent in front of students
• Graders – Contact hours should be set at zero for graders [will be automatic]
• Travel – TBD
• Others?

The base contact hours for a course are based on all periods that a base hour course meets. Each meeting time will include all the periods that a course meets or a portion of the total number of periods. If a portion of the total periods for the course is represented by a meeting time, then an equivalent portion of the base contact and/or head count hours will be used to calculate the total contact that the department must match when entering the instructor(s) for that meeting time.

Base count courses

Base count courses are those for with the contact hours for the course are a function of the number of periods the course meets. Generally base count courses:

• Have a fixed meeting time & place
• Are not affected by enrollment
• May have multiple meeting times

Thus, calculated base count contact hours = (# periods in meet time/total periods course meets) multiplied by the original base contact

The results of these calculations are stored in the base contact field in the AAR System and are used to calculate the contact total for base count sections.

Head count courses

Head count courses are those for which the contact hours for the course are a function of the course enrollment. Head count course generally:

• Do not have a fixed meeting time & place
• Determined by the number of students in a section

Calculated head count contact hours = (# periods in meet time/total periods course meets) multiplied by the enrollment.

The results of these calculations are stored in the head count field in the AAR System and are used to calculate the contact total for the section.

Total contact hours

Total contact hours are the minimum number of contact hours required to be allocated between instructors teaching a course. Total contact hours are based on the following factors:

• The number of periods that a meeting time represents
• Whether the course is a base contact hour, head count or both
• If there is more than one unique course meeting at the same time
• If the course is not unique and meeting at the same time, are all of the non-unique courses being sponsored by the same department?

It should be noted that when two courses share the same meeting time, each course may have a different base contact hour associated with it. In these particular cases, it will be the largest base contact hour of all courses involved that will be used to determine total contact hours.

Contact total hours for each meeting time are calculated as follows:

• If course is only base contact hour then contact total = calculated base contact hour
• If course is only head count then contact total = calculated head count hour * paying enrollment
• If both base contact and head count are associated with the course then contact total = (head count * paying enrollment) + base contact (this calculation only applies to courses that do not share a meeting time with other courses)
  
  

Multiple meeting times

For any given meeting time there is either one course that will meet at that time or there will be several. If there are several, they will either be the same course, several different unique courses or a combination of both. Which category that the course or courses fall into will determine how the contact total for the meeting time will be divided among the course(s).

If there is only one course that meets then all of the contact total will be assigned to that course.

If more than one course meets and all are not unique then the contact hour is divided up according to which course will be added to the AAR file (see next topic). All courses that are determined to be added to the AAR file will split the contact total that was calculated for the meeting time.

If a course is not unique and is sponsored by a different department then it will split the contact total equally with all other courses that will be added to the AAR file for the meeting time.

If all the courses are unique then each would be assigned an equal portion of the contact total.

Shared meeting times

Courses with shared meeting times are course where different course sections share the same meeting time and often, instructor. Shared meeting times can occur when two departments share a section together or when a department teaches two different sections during the same time such as a graduate section and undergraduate section.

For base count sections, the base hours will be equally split between the sections. For head count sections, contact hours will be distributed per enrollment in each section.

Shared and Multiple meeting times

Some sections will have shared and multiple meeting times. In these cases, base hours are assigned to the lowest section number only [fix in new system?] Discussion meeting times are assigned workload allotment accordingly.

Thesis sections

Thesis sections are those with section numbers 6971, 7979, 7980 or any other section coded “T” for thesis. Instructors for thesis sections serve on a graduate student’s supervisory committee in one of three roles: Chairman, Co-Chair, or member, known as committee assignments. Committee assignments will populate into AAR from the Graduate Information Management System, or (GIMS).

Committee Chairs and Co-Chairs will be labeled “Chair” in the “Role” field and are assigned full head count value for every committee they serve on as a chair or co-chair.

Committee Members will labeled as “Member” in the “Role” field and are assigned 1/3 head count for every committee they serve on as a member.

Because of this, the Total Contact Hours assigned for the section may be higher than the section contact total. However, this is allowable for thesis sections and will not cause an alert in the system.

Individual Study Courses

Undergraduate individual study courses are managed by departments and will continue to be manually entered and tracked. Departments are responsible for communicating course information to AAR Coordinators for entry into the AAR System.

Head count hours for individual study courses (course numbers: 4905, 6905, 6971, 7979, 7980) are calculated by dividing the contact total by 2 with the result being the head count contact hour for the course. For example, in section 7980, there are four students enrolled. The total contact hours for the section would be 2, or 0.5 per student.

TV Replay Courses

For any term that a course is taught by TV replay, the course is assigned a base contact hour of .10.

Online Courses

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Maximum effort

The maximum percentage (MAX%) is calculated based on the contact hours reported and their defined value in the 12 hour law. If effort devoted to teaching exceeds this MAX%, the remainder will be reported in Other Instructional Activities (OIA).

MAX EFFORT % = CONTACT HOURS/12 or by 8 for LAW courses.