Adjusting Contact Hours for a Class

Purpose: Use this document as a reference for how to make adjustments to the Instructor Contact Hours for a single class for a specific Term and for Faculty Workload calculations and non-credit bearing class FTE calculations.

Audience: Class Scheduling Staff.

You must have at least one of these local college managed security roles:

  • ZC CM Class Maintenance
  • ZD CM Class Maintenance
  • ZD FWL View Cnt Calc
  • ZZ CM Local Configuration
  • ZZ FWL Adjust Class
  • ZZ FWL Contract Calc

If you need assistance with the above security roles, please contact your local college supervisor or IT Admin to request role access.

Instructor Contact Hours are a common factor used in most FWL calculation formulas. Each Course Catalog entry contains two sets of hours, Course Contact Hours on the Course Data tab and Instructor Contact Hours on the Component tab.

For Faculty Workload (FWL) calculation purposes the Instructor Contact Hours, which are stored as a weekly value (e.g. 5 hours per week), are multiplied by a standard number of weeks 11 (e.g. 11 weeks 55 hours) to become the Term Contact Hours.   These are the hours that appear on the FWL Pay Line ,divided by the number of pay periods in the contract term.  These hours also drive the FTE% and are sent to payroll as the hours work each pay period.   If those hours are not correct on the course they have significant impact on the FWL processes.

When a class is scheduled the Course Contact Hours (Course Data tab) and the Instructor Contact Hours (Component tab) are carried over to the class.  On Maintain Schedule of Class, when clicking on the Contact Hours link the Course Contact Hours are visible.  These values have no influence on FWL calculation.  The best way to verify the Instructor Contact Hours associated with an already scheduled class is to view them on the Adjust Class Associations page.

If you determine that the contact hours are not correct for a class, Best Practice is to contact the person at your college responsible for maintaining the Course Catalog and request an update or ensure that your payment practices and methods of instruction are in line with approved curriculum and State Board policy (see note below). Updating the catalog will ensure all future classes will be scheduled with the corrected number of contact hours.   Once the correction is made to the catalog, the classes already scheduled will require adjustment at the class level, as these classes have already had their hours inherited from the catalog prior to the update.  In cases of variable credit classes, individual class maintenance may be needed, without updates to the catalog to adjust the contact hours on an class-by-class basis. Refer to the Quick Reference Guide on Adjusting the Course Catalog Component for FWL for more information.

Adjust Contact Hours for a Class

Note: Details on the State Board policy on instructor contact hours are found in Chapter 4 of the State Board Policy Manual.

The following queries will assist you with identifying course and class missing contact hours:

  • QCS_CM_CLASS_MISSING_CNTCT_HRS
  • QCS_CM_CRSE_MISSING_CNTCT_HRS

Navigation:  Curriculum Management > Schedule of Classes > Adjust Class Associations

  1. The Adjust Class Associations page displays.
  2. If navigating to this page from the Maintain Schedule of Class page, the search criteria page will inherit the required search values from class, otherwise enter the following in the search criteria:
    • Academic Institution:  Enter the institution (e.g. WA220) or use the Look Up.
    • Term: Enter the term (e.g. 2163) or use the Look Up.
    • Subject Area: Enter the subject (e.g. ENGL) or use the Look Up.
    • Catalog Nbr: Enter the catalog number (e.g. 101), remember that in PeopleSoft catalog numbers do not begin with zero.  
    • Academic Career: (optional) Select either Academic Career or Continuing Education from the drop down list.
    • Course ID: (optional) If the Course ID is known, enter this value and leave the Subject, Catalog Nbr and Career fields blank.
  3. Select Search.
  4. If more than one catalog entry matches the search criteria, the list of returned results will be displayed below the Search Criteria fields.  Select the link for the relevant class to enter the page.  If only one entry exists, the system will automatically open the page directly.
  1. The Adjust Class Associations page displays.
  2. Select the Class Components tab.
  3. In the Class Sections area:
    • select the magnifying icon to Find the Associated Class number,
    • select the right/left arrow to page through until you find the association group that contains the relevant class number or,
    • select View All and scroll down to find the desired class.  
  4. Make sure that the correct Class Number is displayed to ensure you are fixing the contact hours on the correct class.
  5. Update the Contact hours value for the specific Component (e.g. Lecture) to adjust the Weekly Contact Hours, regardless of the hours entered on the Course Catalog.
    1. If this is a non-credit bearing course, take the total contact hours and divide by 11 weeks and enter result.
      • This value will be used in FTE calculations if greater than 0, otherwise the Course Contact Hours will be used.
    2. The sum of all various component hours should equal the total class hours.
    3. For credit-bearing courses, please refer to the SBCTC policy manual for contact hours to credit ratio policy guidelines.
    4. Institutions should not deviate or alter unless a full impact-analysis that includes consideration of FWL and consultation with State Board has been completed.
  6. When updates are completed, select Save.
Class components tab

Warning: Classes are 'grouped' by Associated Class numbers.  All classes that are grouped together by a shared Associated Class number will be impacted by adjusting the contact hours in this page. Class associations are typically used group multi-component (e.g. lecture/lab) combinations together, but a unique Associated Class number can isolate an individual class section for the purposes of adjusting contact hours.

Note: Once adjustments are made, the FWL Calculation Process must be run, either online (recalculation) or using the FWL Calculation Process in batch. Refer to the Quick Reference Guide on FWL Calculation Processing (batch) for more information on running this process.

End of procedure.

0 Comments

Add your comment

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.