3 November 2011
DRAFT
Academic Staff Workload Allocation Policy,
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning
Introduction
This policy should be read in conjunction with the “University of Sydney Enterprise Agreement 2009-2012”, clauses
210-239, and the “Academic Staff Workloads Policy”. The policy will be reviewed periodically to take into account
relevant changes in enterprise agreements, and other changing circumstances.
The aim of this policy is to ensure that the Faculty’s teaching and administrative duties and service to the University are
distributed amongst the Faculty’s academic staff in a transparent and equitable fashion whilst ensuring adequate time
for research.
Towards the end of each year or at the annual PM&D meeting, each Head of Discipline will discuss with each academic
staff member in the discipline their work plans for the following year. Performance and achievements in previous years
will be considered by the Head of Discipline during discussions. The expectation of 40% research must be achieved and
cannot normally be traded against an increased teaching load. Heads of Discipline will forward the agreed workload
allocations to the Dean for final approval. The process of workload allocation will be completed by the end of the
academic year. Variations arising during an academic year must be approved by the Head of Discipline, advised to the
responsible HEO Manager and notification sent to the Dean.
Heads of Discipline will ensure all academic staff have appropriate loads before consideration is made of sessional
teaching requirements. New staff would be expected to have a lighter than standard load, with details to be negotiated
with the Head of Discipline.
Research
The Faculty expects every academic staff member to have a 40% engagement in research. In making applications for
research grants staff must bear this in mind. If they wish to commit to more than this it must be agreed with the Head of
Discipline/Dean, and teaching relief for the time over 40% must be included in the grant application or sought from
other sources.
The time commitment on ARC and other grants with formal contracts will be taken as stated in the contract or grant
approval.
As an interim arrangement staff meeting the Faculty’s definition of research active are accepted as doing at least 40%
research. Further refinement and development of the Faculty’s research active definition will be provided in due course.
Teaching and education
In general, staff would be expected to teach at least the equivalent of three to four 6 credit point (CP) of non-research
units of study and undertake the primary supervision of two HDR students and some students undertaking honours
and/or a research unit in a masters by coursework program. The details of the current implementation of this policy are
given in Appendix 1. In this policy and related appendices ‘tutorial group’ is to be read as tutorial, laboratory, studio or
computer lab small group.
Units of study are grouped into categories and hours assigned to each category based on the number and types of
contact hours. Tasks within a unit of study are divided into
 Those that scale with number of enrolments such as coordination and marking,
 Those that depend on contact hours such as preparation, and
 An overall subject preparation component.
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Units taught in parallel are treated as one unit with the enrolment numbers of the units combined to ensure load is
appropriately captured. Independent study-type units are considered to be offered by academics in line with their
research programs, so no additional benefit is included for teaching.
Research Units of Study
Research units of study comprise honours units of study and dissertation and research reports in masters by coursework
programs. Coordination is given to the coordinator where there are sufficient students to warrant coordination,
normally in excess of 10 students. Supervision and marking are given to the supervisors.
Coordination, marking and subject preparation for other units of study
All other units of study share the same guidelines for coordination, subject preparation and marking. Coordination and
subject preparation are split pro rata between staff who share the coordination duties of a unit of study, including any
contribution by sessional staff. Similarly teaching is split pro rata between staff who share responsibility for the
teaching of a unit of study.
Repeat lectures and tutorials and additional groups
Repeat lectures and tutorials within the week do not attract any preparation time but the extra contact hours will be
included as per the relevant unit of study category. The load for a staff member taking a full tutorial group in a subject
coordinated and taught by another staff member will be the contact hours for the tutorial group as per the relevant unit
of study category and attendance at the lectures of the unit of study, as appropriate.
Under-enrolled electives
The Faculty has a policy of cancelling elective units that have fewer than 20 enrolments except those in postgraduate
programs where the cohort is fewer than 20 students. In these cases, the electives will be cancelled when numbers are
lower than the cohort size. Staff are, in some cases, allowed to teach these on the understanding that it is voluntary
(honorary) work, i.e., the time is not included in any consideration of load.
HDR supervision
The supervisors of HDR students receive a load of 46 hours per annum per EFTSL for students within the RTS time
limit of four equivalent full-time years of study, to be divided between supervisor and associate supervisor(s), as agreed
between them in each case.
Administration and Service
Where administration duties exceed the norm, for example in the case of an associate dean or head of discipline,
teaching relief will be provided.
Two hours per week for 46 weeks (92 hours) is allocated to all staff to cover such items as discipline and Faculty
meetings, graduations, information days and other general marketing and communication events, Spendvision work,
emails not related to research or teaching, etc.
Other inputs to calculating administration load are as follows (see appendix 2 for details of some calculations):
 Associate Dean (Education), normally 15 hours per week for 46 weeks (690 hours)
 Associate Dean (Research), normally 15 hours per week for 46 weeks (690 hours)
 Associate Dean (Research Graduate Studies (HDR)), normally 11.25 hours per week for 46 weeks (518 hours)
 Head of Discipline, 3 hours per week base plus 1 hour per EFTSL, with EFTSL calculated as the average of
the most recent two years with full data
 Program Director, 1.5 hours per week base plus 0.5 hour for every student, with enrolment numbers calculated
as the average of the most recent two years with full data
 Art Workshop Director, 2 hours per week base plus 0.5 hour for every EFTSL over 50 students, with EFTSL
calculated as the average in Art Workshop units of the most recent two years with full data
 Year coordinator in the Bachelor of Design in Architecture, 1 hour per week for 13 weeks per semester
 PRC, to be advised
 Editor of a major scholarly or professional journal, 20 hours per issue
 Membership of an ARC College of Experts, 120 hours per annum
 Assessor of ARC Grant Applications, 1 hour per application assessed
 Professional associations
o Chapter or National President, 100 hours per annum
o Council Member, 50 hours per annum
o Chair, Professional Awards Panel or Committee, 20 hours per annum
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o Member of a panel, committee or award jury, 10 hours per annum
Director of Faculty or discipline lecture series, 10 hours
Supervision of staff if not a Head of Discipline, 5 hours per staff member supervised
Member of the Academic Board if not part of Associate Dean role, 20 hours per annum
Organiser of an international conference or symposium, load to be agreed to by Dean/HoD
Organiser of a major exhibition, load to be agreed to by Dean/HoD
Other – e.g. serving on faculty committee such as Research or Education, or Divisional/Uni committee not
covered by AD duties.
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Appendix 1: Parameters of the current model implementing the teaching component of the
FADP Workload Policy
Table 1: List of categories of units of study indicating the number of contact hours of each type of session, the tutorial
group size and the number of credit points. Units are assigned to the category that best fits.
Unit category
Tutorial
Lecture
Lecture (2)
Computer Lab
Computer studio
Design studio
Art workshop
Seminar
Independent study
Lectures
(hrs)
26
28
56
13
13
13
0
13
0
Tutorials
(hrs)
13
0
0
0
0
0
0
26
0
Computer
Labs (hrs)
0
0
0
26
26
0
0
0
0
Design
Studios
(hrs)
0
0
0
0
39
78
39
0
0
Tutorial group size
(number of
students)
30
30
0
20
20
16
20
30
0
Credit
points
6
6
6
6
6 or 12
6 or 12
6
6
6
Table 2: Preparation times per contact hour for each type of session and total hours per contact hour.
Type of contact
hour
Lecture
Computer Lab
Tutorial
Studio
Associated
working
hours per
contact hour
3.5
2
1
0.5
Total hours
per contact
hour
4.5
3
2
1.5
Marking is 1 hour per student per 6 CP where a staff member is solely responsible for marking the unit of study,
otherwise it is 1 hour per student per 6 CP in the tutorial group(s) marked by the staff member. For example, in a 6 CP
studio unit with 20 students per group, a staff member taking two groups would receive up to 40 hours of marking.
Coordination is 13 hours with 3.25 hrs per extra tutorial group where the staff member is actively coordinating the unit,
and this attracts 10 hours subject preparation. For a Research unit of study, coordination is give pro rata based on a
group of 20 students, e.g. 6.5 hours coordination where 10 students are enrolled. A staff member who is notionally
coordinating a unit actually coordinated by a sessional staff member, receives 6 hours. Subject preparation is 10 hours
per unit of study.
Supervision of research units is 13 hours per semester plus marking as above.
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Appendix 2: Calculated hours for some administrative duties
hours per year
Associate Deans
Education
normally 690
Research
normally 690
Research Graduate Studies (HDR)
normally 518
2009-10 average EFTSL including
HDR students
hours per year
Architectural and Design Science
199
337
Architecture and Allied Arts
675
813
Design Lab
136
274
81
219
2009-10 average enrolment numbers
413
hours per year
276
98
118
225
182
Audio & Acoustics
57
98
Building Services
33
72
IDEA/Digital Media
35
85
Facilities Management
30
84
Illumination Design
36
87
Sustainable Design
57
97
Heritage Conservation
26
82
Urban Design
25
81
85
2009-10 average EFTSL
112
hours per year
39
88
Head of Discipline
Urban and Regional Planning and Policy
Undergraduate Program Director
B Design in Architecture
B Design Computing
Postgraduate Program Directors
M Architecture
Urban & Regional Planning
Art Workshop
BDesArch Year coordinators
hours per year
Year 1
26
Year 2
26
Year 3
26
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