Frequently Asked Questions

The University of Illinois at Chicago is required by both state and federal regulations to complete activity reports. The Office of Data Resources collects that data that is used to complete the reports. Data from the reports is shared with the Office of Grants and Contracts and Business and Financial Services.

Auditors from both state and federal agencies will periodically audit the data from the reports. The federal auditors expect the activity reporting data to be consistent and accurate. The reports provide data on the activities associated with expenditures from federal grants and contracts. Several schools have been fined recently for errors and inconsistencies in their effort reports. It is most important to accurately reflect the distribution of time and effort for each staff member in your unit.

There are three major reports that are completed for the Illinois Board of Higher Education: the Discipline Cost Study, the Program Cost Study, and Faculty Credit Hour Study. The IBHE uses the Cost Study reports to compare costs of instruction at the state universities in Illinois.

The activity reports are also used by the Office of Business and Financial Services to produce parts of the Indirect Cost report which determines the campus ICR rate and to monitor cost sharing that occurs on federal projects.

There are numerous internal reports that use the data from the activity reporting system and data from these reports are used in the Resource Performance Measures report (RPM) that is found on the DRIA website.

Regulations require that we provide activity reports for all academic staff with paid appointments and percent time (or FTE). If the effort is greater than 0% and salary is paid, then data is captured and an appointment line is generated in the report system. The appointments are sorted by Banner sub-organizations within department. If your department does not have any sub-organizations, then all academic staff appointments will be listed in alphabetical order under your single Banner organization code. If you have subdivided your unit, then appointments will be sorted at that level.

Each appointment for a staff member will show the position number, the fund type and the account as it is recorded in Banner. When salary is paid to the individual, this will be displayed in the Year-to-Date pay box on the report.

The reporting system will have an appointment line for every position that a person holds and for each source of funding that is used to pay that position. For example, if a faculty member in a single position is paid half of her salary by state funds and half of her salary by grant funds, then two lines will display on the report to show her appointments. In addition, if a faculty member in a department is paid in two different positions, then both of those appointments will be displayed in the report.

Finally, if an individual has a split appointment in two different departments, then the two lines will be separated and each appointment will be displayed in the appropriate unit. If you want to see all of the appointments for an individual in your unit, you can click on the person's name at the top of the report page to see his total appointments.

The reporting system will have an appointment line for every position that a person holds and for each source of funding that is used to pay that position. For example, if a faculty member in a single position is paid half of her salary by state funds and half of her salary by grant funds, then two lines will display on the report to show her appointments. In addition, if a faculty member in a department is paid in two different positions, then both of those appointments will be displayed in the report.

For each appointment that is listed for an individual, it is necessary to distribute 100% of effort across the available activity categories on that line. You should distribute the 100% of effort to reflect an accurate distribution of the person's effort across the possible activities.

The activities that you will find on the activity reports are standard categories that define the type of work that is done at the University. For most faculty member, effort is reported in the three main areas of instruction, research and service. Since UIC Medical Center is a primary health care facility and UIC Colleges offer a number of health education programs, there are categories for health science units that relate to clinical activities and patient care.

Click here for the definitions for activities.

Appointment data for academic staff is selected from the Banner HR and payroll system at the start of the contract year. Data Resources will notify Departments in October of each year that data on appointments for the academic staff has been loaded to the ARS system. At the same time, DRIA will load data from the Banner Schedule and Student system to the ARS so that Departments can see the assigned sections for faculty or teaching assistants. The section assignments for the term are taken directly from the Banner database as they are entered by the Timetable Planner in each unit.

Departments will be notified at several points during the year when new section data are added to the ARS and when summer appointments are added.

Reporting by authorized department staff begins in the mid-fall and continues to the end of the academic contract year. Data Resources will capture appointment data after the academic payroll in October. The course assignment data for the fall term will be captured at the same time and will include information on all sections with registrations as of the 10th day of the fall term. Departmental users will be notified when fall data are available and information can be entered. The reporting system will then be open to units for data entry, updates and changes until the year ends in mid-August of the next calendar year. Over the course of the year, departments will have to complete effort distribution reports for all appointments that are made in their unit and they will have to assure that all instructor assignments are correct for courses that are offered in Fall, Spring and Summer terms.

During the year, any new or changed appointments will be added to the report system every month as DRIA monitors the actual payments that are made to academic staff over the course of the year. In addition, summer appointments will be picked up when those appointments are processed in Banner. Effort reports will be required for summer appointments as well as the regular year academic appointments. Summer course assignments will also be picked up from Banner and will be included on the report system. The time period for reporting begins in the fall and ends with the next summer term. Users will be reminded several times throughout the year that reports must be completed or that new data has been added to the Activity Reporting System.

The Department Head or Director designates the person who is responsible for entering data into the activity reporting system. DRIA will maintain a signed authorization form for each unit which shows authorized persons who are responsible for data entry. The Department Head or Director is responsible to assure that the distribution of effort for each person in his or her unit is an accurate reflection of how the individual spends his or her time.

The data in the ARS is taken directly from the Banner HR/Payroll system. Payments are added or deleted from ARS with each paymaster calculation. You will see the year-to-date payment dollars change with each payroll that is run. New appointments will be added for staff when a new CFOAP record is created in Banner.

You cannot add or delete appointment data from this website. If you find questionable data for an individual that you did not expect, please check with your HR coordinator to see if a change has been made to how a person is paid.

Yes, the ARS will pick up all labor redistributions. As an example, if a staff member receives payment from a state account for a certain period of time and then your department processes a labor redistribution to transfer those payments to a different fund and account, the ARS will redistribute the person's appointments to reflect those changes.

Cost Sharing is defined as the portion of costs that are associated with a grant or externally funded project that are not borne as part of the grant and not funded by the awarding agency. Cost sharing occurs when a cost specifically benefits a sponsored project, but it is not charged to that project. Cost sharing in the ARS system reflects the portion of a person's salary (that is not funded by the grant) that is contributed to the support of the funded project. For specific questions about cost sharing, please check with the Office of Grants and Contracts.

When a staff person contributes effort to a grant or funded project, it is necessary to record that effort as organized research and to add that effort to the Cost Sharing form for your department. You can access the cost sharing form on the first page of the website when you enter the ARS site for your unit. You will have to list the person who is cost sharing and the grant to which that effort is associated. If a person is cost sharing for more than one grant, the person can be listed multiple times for each grant.

The National Institutes of Health has announced specific guidelines pertaining to the NIH Career Awards. It is very important to meet the NIH guidelines that are required for the proposed career award. Please read the Notice from NIH pertaining to effort reporting for career awards at the following link:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-056.html

If you have specific questions related to reporting effort for NIH Career Awards, please contact the Office of Research Services.

The University assigns a NACUBO function to each fund and to each account that is established for units to use. The program codes in Banner are used to assign the NACUBO function and the program code is then associated with all expenditures that are made by departments and colleges. The NACUBO function determines the primary purpose for the expenditures from that fund and account.

OBFS accounting

NACUBO codes

Source of Funds

If you find that an individual has responsibilities that are not allowed under the fund and program code from which he or she is currently paid, it is necessary to change the source of funds that is used to pay the individual. Your department should change the person's labor distribution in Banner to a correct source of funds and if necessary, do an earnings transfer for previous payments from the wrong source.

The changes will be captured after the next payroll is processed and will be reflected in the Activity Reporting System.

We don't assign percentage effort to 0% appointments. If the stipend is paid from the same CFOAP as the faculty appointment, we will add the amount of the stipend in with the regular pay for that person. If the stipend is not paid from the same source, it will not be included in the pay - but you should remember to allocate the administrative responsibility within the distribution of effort for that person with his or her regular pay.

Please be sure to check with HR in your unit to see if there have been any changes to the appointment for that staff member. The staff appointments included in the ARS are taken directly from the Banner system after each payroll. If someone is missing, it could be that the appointment was not processed in time for the payroll calculation - and we will catch them after the next payroll. You should also check if the labor distribution for that person matches your CFOAP to be sure that they have been paid from the correct source. It might be possible that the appointment has been assigned to a different CFOAP. If you are still uncertain about the data for an individual in your unit, you can send an e-mail to us at dria@uic.edu.

Definitions for the activities that are used in the Activity Reporting System can be found http://www.dria.uic.edu/faa/default.asp?section=definitions.