UniForum data collection 2018

Transcription

1 UniForum data 2018 Data checking report guidance HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking Document prepared by HR Information Team & the UniForum project team, August Aims of the Report Staff Collection Timetable Scope of the Staff Survey When to amend data in CoreHR Step- by-step guides How to run the report: HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking How to check for completeness 1: Missing department codes How to check for completeness 2: Missing records How to check for completeness 3: Additional records How to check for accuracy 1: Staff Classification errors How to check for accuracy 2: Job Text errors How to check the Scope... 7 Annexe A: HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking... 8 The purpose of the UniForum benchmarking programme is to build an understanding of how services that support the teaching and research of the University are structured across all parts of the University. This data checking report is provided significantly in advance of the 2018 UniForum survey to enable departments to review the accuracy of their staff data on CORE, and make necessary updates before March

2 1. Aims of the Report 1.1. This document has been developed by the HRIS Information team and the UniForum team to assist administrative leads in each department to prepare for the 2018 UniForum survey. The report has been produced far in advance of the survey and we would encourage departments to familiarise themselves with their data and ensure it is accurate in order to ensure CORE can be updated before the survey is launched Report HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking enables departments to review staff contract records where the contract of employment has been held on or since 1 August 2017 and up to and including the date the report is run. Departments are asked to consider: the completeness of staff data and provide missing information where necessary; the accuracy of staff data and make/request corrections where necessary; which staff in their department would be included in the staff (project scope) based upon information in CORE on the date of the report It is expected that departments will request amendments to errors in their data when they are identified, and contact uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk for more information about the data survey. 2. Staff Collection Timetable September 2017 January 2018 March 2018 June 2018 July Sept 2018 Publication of report HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking for use by departments to check their staff lists Review of UniForum Organisation Structure by divisions Deadline for Departmental data checking of staff records and organisation structure. Deadline for the return of areas by departments Allocation of staff records to areas Online data survey where non-academic staff records will be coded against UniForum s activity codes by staff in departments 2

3 3. Scope of the Staff Survey 3.1. The UniForum staff activity survey 2018 will classify the activity of data on staff who are: a. not undertaking teaching or research activity (academic staff roles focussed on teaching and research are excluded from the UniForum survey). b. on permanent, fixed-term or open ended Chancellor s Masters and Scholar s (CMS) contracts for all working patterns (full-time, part-time and variable hours work) on all pay grades, c. employed on at any point between 1 August 2017 and 31 July d. commenced (active) or ended (inactive) appointments Those undertaking teaching and research roles are not included in the as UniForum aims to consider the services that support these efforts. The following definition of teaching and research is to enable you to decide who is out of scope: a. Individuals who are pursuing their own research aims (for example, principal investigators) or are part of a curiosity-led research group (for example, post doctorate researchers). b. Individuals directly involved in teaching activity or in preparation of their own teaching material and who are teaching students who are pursuing a degree aim. c. Heads of Division, Faculties, and Departments are out of scope since their role would only ever be filled by an academic UniForum works at the level of individual s contract record, and because all teaching and research staff are out of scope, it follows that all administrative activity undertaken by academics is not expected to be included in the UniForum exercise Inevitably there will be grey areas where you may not be sure whether an individual s role is within scope. One of the reasons for participation in UniForum is to provide benchmarking information across institutions, it is important that all participating universities as far as possible define the scope in the same way, which may occasionally mean that scoping decisions may be less intuitive within an Oxford context In order to ensure all relevant roles are included in the, report HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking enables to you to see all individuals employed on fixed term or permanent contracts in your department The UniForum team is available to help with any questions you have in this area, please uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk for assistance. 3

4 4. When to amend data in CoreHR 4.1. The information held in CoreHR is used for a wide variety of purposes. The records should reflect the contract of employment and job description of an individual s appointment according to HESA staff return rules. Some of the staff records will already have been returned to HESA and included in Athena Swan applications and analysis. You may only request/make amendments to records where genuine errors in coding are identified Since the UniForum data is focussed on administrative and other support functions, and excludes teaching and/or research contracts, you may not request amendments to records purely to include someone in the data exercise who is marked for exclusion in the staff list, or vice versa. The information in column A is only an indicator as to whether a record might be in or out of scope and a final decision will be taken nearer the data. It is not necessary to change CORE in order to include records in the unless there is an error in the record. A decision can be made on an individual contract where necessary For any record where you believe column A is not correct please let the UniForum team know by ing uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk including the appointmentid (please do not include any personal details of the individual) and why you believe column A is not correct. Although the reports from CoreHR will not be able to pick up these records, Uniforum will retain a list of appointment IDs where this is the case to build up guidance on the matter, and ensure these records are treated correctly in the The table below shows how staff records are coded for a variety of purposes. The groups within the red box are key items for HESA and Athena, and such records are ineligible for the UniForum (which are represented in the blue box). All contracts categorised as AC, AP, AR, or AT in CORE are generally out of scope, but again please contact uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk to establish if you think it is not the case for a specific record. Contracts of any other staff classification are in scope. Table 1: Grouping of staff for each data exercise based on the staff classification code/academic employment function recorded against the appointment in CoreHR function = teaching & research function = research only function = research only function = teaching only function = neither teaching nor research staff classification code* = AC Academic staff classification code* = AP Research Staff staff classification code* = AR Research Fellow staff classification code* = AT Teaching Support All other staff classification codes* HESA Teaching & Research Research only Research only Teaching only Neither teaching nor research Athena** Academic & Research Academic & Research Academic & Research Professional & Support Professional & Support UniForum Excluded from Excluded from Excluded from Excluded from Included in Staff classification code equates to CoreHR field Sub Category ** Some additional rules are applied to this group for some groups such as departmental lecturers 4

5 5. Step- by-step guides 5.1. How to run the report: HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking Confirm the department code or codes required to obtain the full list of staff and their contracts. CoreHR uses the departmental two-character code as found in the PRAS organisation structure which can be accessed here. a. Core users are invited to run the report directly. (Further guidance on running a Discoverer reports, and exporting to Excel can be found here: IP4 running reports ). b. Administrative leads who are not core users should ask their department s relevant CoreHR to run the report for you. (Please contact hris.dataquality@admin.ox.ac.uk if you require confirmation of your department s CoreHR user). c. In UAS and Humanities departments without direct departmental access to CoreHR, please contact uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk detailing the two-character codes for your department, who will run the report and share it with you. Please bear in mind we will only run the report for those who do not have a CoreHR user in their department How to check for completeness 1: Missing department codes Once the report has been run and exported to Excel, check the spreadsheet contains all of the department codes you are expecting by filtering on column Department Code and check all required codes are listed. If all of the required codes are not there please re-run the report, double-checking that you have requested the correct codes. If having run the report again, the required code or codes are still missing from the output it is likely that the individual running the report does not have access to the particular department code or codes in question. Please talk to your HRIS guardian about access or identify an individual who does have access to the codes How to check for completeness 2: Missing records When running the report you should expect to see all staff who have been employed by the department at any point since 1 August 2017 (fixed term or permanent but not casual or TSS). Reasons why individuals do not appear on the report: a. The employment ended before 1 August 2017, b. The employment is recent and has not yet been processed but is on the system; please check with your CoreHR administrator to see if this is the case, c. They are a joint appointment with another department and their staff record is allocated to the other department; please check with the other department if this is the case, d. They are a casual worker or contractor, or employed through TSS. If the missing record does not fit any of the reasons above please either ask the relevant CoreHR user in your department to check the record for you. In UAS and Humanities departments, only where there is no CoreHR user, please contact uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk 5

6 5.4. How to check for completeness 3: Additional records Reasons why it might appear that there are additional individuals included in the report: a. The individual left before 1 August 2017 but their employment did not end until after date due to holidays etc. b. The individual has multiple contracts (see Multiple contracts below). c. The individual is on secondment, leave of absence, Maternity Leave, Long term sick leave. Multiple contracts Some staff members will have more than one contract, even though they have been in the same role for the period, in such instances the individual will be listed once for each contract. This is a common feature of CoreHR and does not usually reflect a problem with the data. Duplicate contracts can indicate a change in the role of the individual e.g. grade, or could reflect a change to the department e.g. the place in the organisational structure. If the data is accurate and there is no overlap between the contract dates there is not usually a problem How to check for accuracy 1: Staff Classification errors Staff Classification Error is highlighted where there is a likely error in the staff record based around the staff classification fields. The staff classification guide provides an explanation of the links between records. a. Staff Classification mismatch: a change needs to be made to the Category or Sub- Category. For example if a record s sub-category is AP or AR the Category must be 2 Research Only. b. Grade mismatch: where a sub-category is not possible given the grade of a record. For example LP Library Professional is for roles Grade 6 and above, LA Library Assistant is for Grades 1-5 only. All records must follow these rules. If you are unsure where to code the role, and the text does not given an indication, please use the staff classification guide. c. Role specific information: Some roles, e.g. Marie Curie Fellows should always be coded to the same sub-category. The notes in the field will inform you what these should be changed to. d. Advisory: If the classification does not fit the norm for the grade or role this indicates you should check that the record is correct as it is likely to be an error How to check for accuracy 2: Job Text errors Job Text and Job Title from CoreHR are concatenated into one field in the report. Both of these fields need to be completed in CORE, not just for UniForum where it assists those undertaking the activity coding, but also to ensure the University has a correct record of an individual s role. Please amend in CoreHR where the field is highlighted. If the field refers to Departmental Lecturers please ensure you follow the guidance given in the error field. 6

7 General Accuracy Although Staff Classification and Job Text are two areas which the report highlights, you should ensure that all fields are accurate in the report. In particular, the Employee status column demonstrates where roles are externally funded which affects all divisions but Medical Sciences in particular. The field will contain: Permanent, open-ended externally funded, fixedterm, self-financing How to check the Scope The scope of UniForum refers to whether a contract should be included in the data survey. The UniForum survey is concerned with the services which support teaching and research and therefore does not include those on contracts who undertake teaching and research. Please ensure you have read Scope of the Staff Collection above to understand which contracts should and shouldn t be included. Report HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking allows you to review the status of each record to see whether or not it is currently coded as in or out of scope for the UniForum exercise. The first two columns in the spreadsheet, and detailed in Annexe A: HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking below, describe the current status of the record based on how it is currently coded in CoreHR, specifically the CoreHR field Sub-Category described in the report as Staff classification: Sub category and description. Although this assessment fits the majority of contracts into the correct category we are aware there will be some roles where this calculation is not sufficient. For any record where you believe column A is not correct please let the UniForum team know by ing uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk including the appointmentid (please do not include any personal details of the individual) and why you believe column A is not correct. Although the reports from CoreHR will not be able to pick up these records, Uniforum will retain a list of appointment IDs where this is the case to build up guidance on the matter, and ensure these records are treated correctly in the. Where you have multiple, identical roles across teams/departments you may wish to check for consistency of coding across such roles. 7

8 Annexe A: HRINFO16_UniForum_Data_Checking Please note all fields are as at the time the report is run, or on the last day of the contract if it ended earlier than the report was run. Column Title In or out of scope for UniForum? Why in or out for UniForum? UniForum Category Athena Swan Role Group Staff classification Error Job Text Issues Staff Classification: Category & Description Staff Classification: Sub Category & Description Job Text & Job Title Department Code Description Indicates whether or not a record will be included in the Uniforum data process, see why in or out for UniForum for the reasons for this It is essential that you review this column to ensure you are happy with the status of the record regards Uniforum, as it explains why records are included or excluded from the, based on Category & Description (G) and Sub-Category & Description (H) in CoreHR. If you have records coded to AC, AP or AR and you believe they should be in scope for Uniforum please contact uniforum@admin.ox.ac.uk with details. This is a calculated field and departments are not required to check it. All staff included in UniForum are academic-technical or professional staff. Included as a reference for departments who might wish to refer to the Athena Swan category when deciding whether a record is correct: Academic & Research, Professional and support, Not applicable contract not active, Not in Athena population (University Organisational Structure section 0) Indicates an error in the staff record, and gives more details. Please refer to Staff Classification errors Job Text should not be empty, it is usually the description of the role which would be on an individual s contract. Without Job Text it is difficult to identify roles in UniForum but more importantly the University does not have a correct record of members of staff. Please complete. HESA item which identifies the primary employment function of a contract. See the Staff Classification pdf document on the HRI team web page for further information. Oxford staff classification code which impacts HESA and Athena as well as how records are processed for Uniforum. See the Staff Classification code pdf document on the HRI team web page for further information. A concatenation of the generic Job Title and Job Text as held in CoreHR against the appointment. Please ensure this is complete. As allocated to the contract in CoreHR which uses the PRAS organisation structure coding 8

9 Column Title Department Description As allocated to the contract in CoreHR Appointment Status CO Commenced for current appointments EN Ended for ended appointments. In most cases if an individual has two contracts, one of them should be ended. See Multiple Contracts for more information Surname Forename Known As Person Reference Appointment ID Contract Start Date Contract End Date Target End Date Employee Status Employee Sub Status Fte Percent FTE Hours As recorded in CoreHR As recorded in CoreHR As recorded in CoreHR Unique person identifier as allocated in CoreHR Unique appointment identifier as allocated in CoreHR Contract start date for the appointment listed Contract end date for the appointment, please note this will only be populated if the contract has ended Planned contract end date for fixed term contracts only Whether the contract is permanent, open-ended externally funded, fixedterm, self-financing. Indicates whether a contract is full-time, part-time, term-time, or variable hours Contractual FTE The standard full time hours for the contract Actual Grade & Desc As recorded in CoreHR Location Pay Admin By Code Pay Admin By Desc This may be the same as department (above) or indicate working abroad, or a particular physical location Indicates the department code plus one of the following suffixes: DEP administered in CoreHR by the department DIV administered in CoreHR by the division Department description or Division description, depending on the Pay Admin by code 9