View the “Office Hours” training presentation 

What is AAR?

To meet state and federal reporting requirements, we use the Academic Activities Reporting (AAR) system to document the amount of time instructors spend on instructional activity, as opposed to research or administration.  

AAR is required to be completed campus-wide by all academic units offering courses.

Specifically, AAR consists of four primary functions:

• Identifying the instructors of a course,
• Allocating contact hours based on the time spent in contact with students to the instructors, for inclusion on their effort report,
• Identifying the employee record of the instructors, and
• Identifying if faculty are paid out of fund 143 (salaried expense) or in a lump sum for Self-Funded (“off-book”) courses.

Note:  Before you assign a Lump Sum Payment employee record, please read the relevant HR policy.  

UF is committed to the accurate and timely collection of this instructional data, to fulfill regulatory requirements, better substantiates budget requests, and help ensure future award funding.

The AAR System

The AAR System:

• Identifies course instructors,
• Documents the assignment of contact hours allocated for each course to the instructors who taught it, and
• Establishes the correct employee record.

AAR Coordinators complete the AAR for their respective department each term. They enter or modify instructors assigned to a course and distribute contact hours to the section’s instructors.  They are also responsible for identifying and correcting any errors in the data.

AAR Coordinators must complete online training and have the security role necessary to access the system.  Departments are required to have at least one qualified AAR Coordinator and are encouraged to have more than one.

View-only access is also available to select Department administrators, faculty, and others on a case-by-case basis. FERPA training is needed for view-only access, and Institutional Planning and Research must approve the role.

AAR and other University Systems

Course Scheduling / Section File

The Course Scheduling system is the first step in the AAR process.  Each term, departments update the Course Scheduling system with courses to be taught and the instructors of those courses.  This information is included in the Section File, which is imported into the AAR System.

As a result, it is extremely important that departments ensure that information entered into the Schedule of Courses is as accurate as possible. Good communication between AAR Coordinators and those who enter information into the course scheduling system can help resolve discrepancies that appear later in the process.

Graduate Information Management System (GIMS)

The Graduate Information Management System (GIMS) is used by graduate coordinators to and graduate students to manage information on their graduate programs. AAR imports information on faculty committee assignments from GIMS.

Faculty committee assignment updates must be made through the department’s graduate coordinator in the GIMS system. These changes cannot be made in AAR.

Section file updates to graduate student section numbers,  specifically the transition between 7979, 7980, and 6971 sections, will be made by the Registrar in coordination with the Graduate School. AAR coordinators needing to make changes to these section numbers will need to coordinate with their graduate coordinators and the Registrar.

The Effort System

Having correct information in AAR is vital to ensure accurate effort certification reports. AAR contact hour data is used to calculate effort in the Effort system.  Effort certification reports are also the only part of the process where faculty review their instructional activity.  Excess hours assigned to the instructor beyond the maximum as calculated by AAR are reported as extra instructional activity on the effort report.

The AAR Timeline

The AAR System will be opened each term by Institutional Planning and Research following the conclusion of the drop/add period

Upon conclusion of drop/add, IPR will send a notification to department AAR Coordinators informing them of term-specific deadlines, system changes/updates, and any other important notices pertaining to AAR. At this point the system will be open for use.

AAR Deadlines

Once the AAR System is opened, departments should begin verifying instructors assigned to courses, allocating contact hours to them, and selecting the correct employee record. There are two milestones designed to help Departments monitor their progress entering AAR throughout the term:

• Base count deadline: This  will be approximately six weeks after AAR is opened.
• Head count deadline: This is at the end of the term, prior to the closure of the AAR System.

Notifications

Following the Base Count deadline, an email notification will be sent to all AAR Coordinators notifying them of all base count courses that were not marked complete as of the deadline. This is to allow coordinators to see what courses in their department have not yet been completed and to identify whether there are any discrepancies with the courses OIPR has listed in AAR as complete.