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Frequently Asked Questions

FAR Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is a WTU?
     A Weighted Teaching Unit (WTU) is a measure of faculty workload. For example, a lecture class that meets three hours per week generates 3 WTU.
  • How are WTUs calculated?

    It depends on whether a course is classified as “C” course or an “S” course.

    • “C” Classified Courses

    These courses are lecture, discussion, seminar, clinical process, activity laboratory, instructional laboratory, performance, or activity meeting at a set time and place. These courses are "non-supervision" and are classified into six categories representing the mode of instruction, a workload value (a constant known as the K-factor), the number of course meeting hours/week, and the normally expected enrollment for the course. A course may have two or more segments or co-requisite activities requiring more than one classification (lecture with a laboratory). For C classified courses ("non-supervision", CS number C01 thru C21), WTUs are computed as the product of Course Credit Units and a "K factor" as follows:

    CS Number K-Factor CS Number K-Factor
    C01 thru C04 (lecture) 1.0 C16, C17 (lab) 2.0
    C05 thru C06 (seminar) 1.0 C18 (activity) 6.0
    C07 thru C14 (activity) 1.3 C19 thru C21 (activity) 3.0
    C15 (lab) 1.5    
    • “S” Classified Courses (“supervision courses”)

    This category involves direct one-on-one faculty supervision of students for independent study, student teaching, field work experience, studio instruction, theses and projects by arrangement. Workload credit is earned per student enrollment and is designed to be independent of the course's unit value. For "supervision" courses (CS number S23, S24, S25, S36, & S48), WTU is computed as the number of students enrolled times an adjusting factor as follows:

    CS Number Adjusting Factor CS Number Adjusting Factor
    S23 1.000 S36 0.333
    S24 0.667 S48 0.250
    S25 0.500 S77 and S78 Zero

    The CS number is assigned to a course when it is created (Curriculum Committees and Office of Academic Programs).

  • What are Joint Doctorate Course Units?
    Joint Doctorate courses offered on the UCSD campus are 4 quarter units or 2 quarter units, and translate on our campus to 2.67 semester units or 1.33 semester units respectively.
  • What is FAR?
    The overall purpose of the Faculty Activity Report (FAR) is to provide a way to account for faculty workload (instructional and non-instructional) to support the Academic Planning Database (APDB) report required by the system office.
  • What is the correlation between the FAR and the APDB report?
    Each California State University campus is required to report faculty workload and course data each term to the Chancellor's office through a reporting system called the APDB. All information entered and "Reported" in the FAR will be included in the APDB.
  • What is the instructor’s responsibility in the FAR process?
    All tenure-track faculty are expected to review their FAR each semester and enter WTUs not automatically pre-entered. A FAR webpage is available for this purpose and can be accessed at //farapp.csusm.edu/far/.
  • What is the deadline to submit workload in the FAR webpage?
    Consult the timeline provided by your Associate Dean.
  • Who can update the FAR webpage?
    All tenure-track faculty can log into their own FAR webpage to add non-instructional workload. Department Chairs have viewing access to the FARs of instructors in their department. Chairs review FARs and can add comments in the “comments” section. College Associate Deans have editing access to the FARs of instructors in their college. Associate Deans can make adjustments to an instructor’s FAR after the Chair’s review.
  • Which WTUs are automatically pre-entered in the FAR webpage?

    All Instructional workload, supervision or otherwise, is pre-entered. The following Assigned Time WTUs are also pre-entered:

    • Routine Service

    Tenure-Track faculty (non-FERP) receive 3.0 units of Routine Service.
    FERP Faculty receive 1.5 units of Routine Service (default, can be adjusted if faculty is at other than half-time)

    • Department Chair Service

    In addition to the 3WTU for Routine Service, Department Chairs and School Directors are automatically assigned 3.0 WTU (default) for Department Chair service. Individual faculty must adjust if assigned time for Chair service is other than 3.0 WTU.

  • How do I add Additional Assigned Time?
    An instructor is expected to add all agreed upon assigned time that is not pre-entered. Click on the "Add Assigned Time" hyperlink on the page and choose the appropriate drop downs. Comments can be added.
  • Do High Enrollment courses get Additional Assigned Time?
    Yes. Any course with more than 120 enrolled students receives Excess Enrollment WTUs. Click on the "Add Assigned Time" hyperlink on the page and choose the appropriate drop downs. WTUs for Excess Enrollment is 3. Comments can be added. Click Save.
  • I was recently assigned new duties and I cannot see all instructors in my Department. Why?
    FAR relies on all HR paperwork being processed to assign appropriate roles to users. If this is an emergency please send an email to workload@csusm.edu.
  • Why are all "Assigned Times" for CoBA associated with ACCT?
    All CoBA Departments (ACCT, FIN, MKTG, etc.) are assigned to one Dept ID (1116) for budgetary purposes. When FAR sees Dept ID 1116, it finds Departments assigned to 1116 and it pulls in the first one it finds (alphabetically). Assigned Time is reported in APDB by instructor and not by Department, so this anomaly does not negatively affect what is reported to the Chancellor's Office.
  • I am on sabbatical, how do I fill out the FAR?
    • Click "Add Assign Time" hyperlink
    • Choose "Approved Leave" and "Sabbatical"
    • Choose appropriate Department (required)
    • Enter comments (required)
  • Why would an instructor not appear in or not have access to the FAR webpage?
    Instructors must have all of their HR paperwork processed to appear on the FAR webpage (Active Job Record) and be assigned to an Academic Department. Please contact your Administrative Coordinator to discuss status of the instructor's hiring process.
  • There is an error in course listing. What do I do?
    Please contact Academic Scheduling at acdsched@csusm.edu or your department AC as needed.
  • An Instructor has 0.00 submitted WTU's. Why?
    All instructors (lecturers and tenure-track faculty) that have an active job record will appear on the FAR webpage whether or not they are assigned to teach a class for the current term. If there is no class assigned to the instructor then their WTU will appear as 0.00.
  • How does the FAR Webpage Handle Instructors for Combined Classes?
    Instructors will only appear under the Department heading that they are assigned to when they were hired. (The Department they are assigned to on their active Job Record.) If a person's Job Record has the instructor assigned to two Departments than their name will appear under both Departments.
  • Why does FAR show some Lecturers as Tenure-Track?
    The Chancellor’s Office and Collective Bargaining Agreement require a job code to be used for overload assignments for both Tenure-Track and Lecturer. This job code (2403) is mapped to Tenure-Track faculty positions. FAR uses job codes to differentiate Lecturers from Tenure-Track faculty so any Lecturer that is assigned this job code is identified as Tenure-Track. Currently, FAR has no mechanism in place to exclude this job code or an ability to remove these faculty from appearing as Tenure-Track. Please ignore these instructors when reporting workload.