Work duty accounts for academic staff at the Department of Education

Work Duty Accounts

All completed work is registered by the administration at the institute in the database «Aura». Registration is based on established fix rates.  The institute leader must agree upon any tasks that do not have a fixed rate or are outside the course plan in written form prior to completion.

It is up to the individual employee to double check that their registered hours have been updated, are correct and within the guidelines set by the institute. The administrative employee responsible for registering the hours in AURA is available to review all registered hours upon appointment. Any missing hours more than 2 years back in time will not be registered.

Work Requirements for Academic Staff

All that is included within teaching, examination and exemptions are included in the teaching obligation.

Work Requirements for PhD candidates on a 4-year contract, Post. Doc og University Lecturer

All that is included within teaching, examination and exemptions and administration are included in the teaching obligation. It is recommended that PhD candidate have the opportunity to experience both teaching, supervision and examination work.

Overtime and Minus Work Hours

Over time, it is expect that the total work hours should be in approximate balance.  Approximate balance means that any plus/minus hours do not amount to more than one semester work requirements, which for academic staff 59 years or under equals 449 hours.

General Rules

• Academic staff can register no more than to semester worth of work hours in overtime. For academic staff 59 years or under that equals 898 hours.
• Any additional surplus in hours should be taken out as research leave therefore reducing the hours to approximate balance. Any employee with more than 449 hours that applies for research leave has the opportunity to apply for the overtime hours to receive an extension to the research leave for up to 6 months. A plan to reduce any overtime hours is discussed during the year employee review.

Measures taken for employees that have negative hours

• will not receive research leave
• will receive additional tasks within committee work, etc.
• A transitional agreement is established for those who have either positive or negative work hours and individual agreements are made with the institute leader.
• Completion of teaching requirements for employees in recruitment positions is agreement upon with the institute leader.
• As a principle, buy-out of hours is taken from both the teaching and research portion of the position. As a general rule, the buy-out cannot be more than 50% of the teaching portion.
• Budgeting with buy-out hours and deductibles in externally funded projects should be clarified with the institute leader well in advance of the application deadline.
• The new guidelines for registering working hours as described above take effect from June 1, 2017.

Teaching

Weighing of teaching hours

Lectures and seminars generally receive the same … This is because there is no clear distinction between the teaching activities that occur within lectures and seminars. One exception to this is seminars that are led by master level students.

Important! Full hours will not be given if two teachers are lecturing at the same time. Normally, each teaching hour is weighed by ¾. If three or more teachers are participating in the same lecture, hours are weighted by ½.

Academic Development

Teaching and consultations within Academic Development follows their own rates.

Supervision of Master Students within all master programs

The amount of hours given includes both one on one meetings with students, supervision via email, reading and commenting on texts.  The supervision and student arranging an individual agreement with regards to how these hours are divided.

When supervision is shared with a co-supervisor, the general rule is that the main supervisor receives 2/3 of the hours and the co-supervisor receives 1/3 of the hours.

Supervision of PhD Candidates

Supervisors and candidates can agree upon a personalized division of supervision throughout the semesters.

With co-supervision, the main supervisor normally receives 2/3 of the hours, while the co-supervisor receives 1/3.

Mandatory Activities (various task and activities that do not result in the final grade but are requirements needed to be completed prior to the final exam)

No additional weighting is generally given to non-written mandatory activities,

• Mandatory assignments that are only presented during lectures/seminars do not receive additional hours outside the already weighted lecture hours.
• Written assignments with a maximum of 6 pages: ½ hour per assignment
• Written assignments with more than 7 pages: 1 hour per assignment

Examination

Examination work includes both grading and any explanation requests. The examiner can choose whether the explanation will be given orally or in written form.

Examination work is doubled for PhD candidates.
 

School Exams

• Exams 4 hours or less: 1 hour per student
• Exams over 4 hours: 1.5 hours per student per examiner

Oral Exams

• 30 minutes or less: 1 hour per student
• Over 30 minutes: 1.5 hours per student
• Oral exam with self-selected literature: 2 hours per student

Home exam/semester assignment or similar

• Assignments with a requirement of maximum of 6 pages: 1 hour per assignment
• Assignments with a requirement of over 7 pages: 1.5 hours per assignment
• Final bachelor assignment: 2 hours per assignment

Master thesis- 2 examiner minimum of one external

• 30 ECTS thesis: 8 hours per examiner
• Over 30 ECTS thesis: 10 hours per examiner
• Trail lectures: 2 hours per examiner
• Thesis defense: 2 hours per examiner

PhD Course

• 5 ECTS course or less: 2 hours per paper
• Course over 5 ECTS: 3 hours per paper

PhD Thesis

• 1^st opponent: 50 hours – 2^nd opponent: 45 hours—3^rd opponent: 30 hours
• If a member of the assessment committee is requested to make an individual statement (not dissent) +5 hours
• Committee coordinator: 10 hours—Dean: 10 hours
• For preliminary rejection: 15 hours

Additional Tasks that are registered within the work requirements

Course Coordinator role includes planning and organizing teaching, revision of literature list, creation of exams and assessment guidelines, along with course evaluation.  2 hours per ECTS is given to the coordinator of each course.

Mandatory task where the amount of hours is not set, for example: participating in committees that do not have a set hourly rate, are agreed upon in written form with the institute leader.

Employees that have the requirement to acquire basic pedagogical competence in their work contract can register course hours within the required work hours.

Sick leave (applies only to permanent employees): If you are on sick leave for either one semester or one year, no work hours are required during the given sick leave. Otherwise, hours are reduced by 75 hours per month for permanent employees.

Development work-Studies

Each individual employee must have an agreement with the institute leader regarding how many hours will be credited for the various types of development work connected to the study programs. This could include the development of new program and the development of new student active teaching methods for existing courses.  One can also have agreement for crediting hours for the work related to large projects connected to studies, such as applications to DIKU or other agencies that fund external projects.

Projects with external funding

Buy-out is calculated based on the project’s accounting—total hours is deducted by the economy section.  Buy-out connected to research projects or other research related activities should be divided equally between teaching and research time.  Normally, the maximum amount of teaching time that can be buy-out is 50% of the required hours.

Special conditions for research fellows

Research fellows are allowed to collect overtime hours with the plan of reducing the workload later on during the contract period. Research fellows that travel for abroad for a minimum for 3 months within one semester receives exemption for teaching requirements for that semester. Work requirements connected to a research group or project should be agreed upon with the institute leader or the leader of the research group/project.

Research fellows can receive up to 150 hours reduced in their mandatory hours to participate in university pedagogy. This corresponds with the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education foundational part of the academic development course. 

PhD research fellows and post docs that attend Norwegian language courses for non-Norwegian academics receive exemption of 50 hours of work requirements in order to encourage them to learn Norwegian. For those who participate and pass such a course and want to further extend their Norwegian skills in a way that ultimately makes them able to teach in Norwegian language, another 50 hours of work requirements can be waived for attending an advanced course.

Evaluating applications to academic positions and PhD program

Applicants to Professor Positions

Applicants to Associate Professor

Applicants to Post. Doc position

Applicants to Research Fellow/Lecturer/Senior Lecturer

Promotion to professor: 30 hours per applicant

Admission to PhD program

Additional Duties

Coordinator

*Program coordinator tasks included in the credited hours include participation in program council meetings, cooperation with the administration on specific cases. (See the description for the role for more details)
**Research education coordinator tasks in the credited hours include: planning meetings and other cooperation with the administration, coordinating the courses, participation in mid-term evaluations.

Duties and committees

Leadership Duties

 Either the research leader or the head of academic studies can be selected as the deputy head of the department.