Appendix 3 Job Description and Evaluation Form for University Teaching and Research Staff

The system for evaluating personal work performance for teaching and research staff

The personal wage component of salary is based on criteria and procedures that have been established to evaluate how civil servants perform the tasks assigned to them and the impact their performance should have on their salary. The personal wage component constitutes that part of a civil servant’s salary which is determined by personal work performance.   This system is applied to teachers and researchers whose work has been evaluated according to the job demands level chart.

1. Evaluation criteria

The universities’ functions are defined in 4 § of the University Act.   Teachers’ functions are defined in § 19 of the decree concerning the qualification requirements for university staff.  According to this, the main criteria  for evaluating the personal performance of teachers and researchers are:

1. Teaching merit
2. Research merit
3. Merit with respect to community and university service

The criteria for each job demands level, on which the personal work performance for teachers and researchers is based, are specified in Appendix 3a.

The main criteria, with examples of different factors in the left side column in Appendix 3a, are the same for all universities.   In the creative and performing arts universities and disciplines, the performance factors within in the main criteria should be defined according to the special features of the creative and performing arts disciplines.

The specific job demands level criteria, as shown in the right side column in Appendix 3a, are also basically the same for all universities.  However, each university can specify additional job demands level criteria.  Existing appropriate evaluation schemes and procedures which have been used within universities can be taken into account.  Examples of such schemes could be presentation portfolios, the basis on which professors receive bonuses for the supervision of postgraduate research students and evaluation models and practices used in the creative and performing art universities and disciplines.  However,  the university-specific criteria should be consistent with the main criteria, the assessed performance factors and the general policy for the clarifying job demands level criteria, as shown in Appendix 1.

2. Evaluation of personal work performance

The personal salary component is based on how well the employee has met the tasks or targets outlined in    his/her job description and work plan.

The criteria for the evaluation of merit for each member of the teaching and research staff, according to the demands level specific criteria, are documented on the form (Appendix 3b) and are to be used as grounds for the evaluation of the personal work performance.   The university-specific criteria mentioned above should be determined before the start of the performance assessment.  The documentation of additional university-specific criteria should be attended to as part of the evaluation scheme for personal work performance for university teaching and research staff.  The merit attributable to the jobs should be documented for the last three years for levels 5 and higher and for one year for levels 1 to 4.

The evaluation is graded for each main criterion (teaching merit, etc) on a scale from 1 to 9.   In the evaluation, ‘9’ corresponds to an outstanding level of merit, ‘5’ corresponds to a good level of merit, ‘3’ to meeting expectations and ‘1’ to very little merit.

2.1 The evaluation process

Each teacher and researcher lists his/her merit points according to the specific job demands level criteria as in Appendix 3a and jobs (number of publications, teaching merit etc)

using the form in Appendix 3b.   The head of department or the supervisor will check the merit points and provide his/her preliminary view on the form in Appendix 3b.

Later, a body or a civil servant (e.g. dean, a personnel administrator, academic quality assessment panel, rector) defined by the assessment practice within the university will compares merit levels   by type of job, discipline and job demands levels, as outlined in Appendix 3a in such a way that the relative merit level for each teacher or researcher in relation to the merit level of others in equivalent jobs within the same control group can be assessed.  Then the merit levels are assessed according to the main criteria for each job graded on a scale from 1 to 9.  The procedure applied within each university should enable agreement on its content to be reached with the local union representatives of the staff group in question.

Personal performance is assessed by comparing merit levels between job tasks with the merit levels of other staff in equivalent job demands level groups and jobs.  In other words, the merit ponts of a teacher at a certain level are compared to those of other teachers in jobs with similar requirements.  If an employee meets the tasks of only one criterion (i.e. in only research or teaching), the personal performance of employees in equivalent jobs representing the same discipline and job demands level group will be considered. For example, the research merit level for a researcher doing research only at job demands level 4 should be compared to the merits of researchers in basically the same situation.

Special features of particular disciplines should also be considered in the evaluations, so that teaching or research merit within disciplines that differ from each other (e.g. ‘science’ and ‘arts’) should be performed by comparing teachers and researchers in equivalent disciplines.

2.2. Defining the results of the evaluation

Personal work performance are to be evaluated with regard to the job description and work plan as described above in 2.1.  The specific performance criteria applied to an employee are defined so as to correspond to the demands level group in question as outlined in Appendix 3, based on the job demands level and possible university-specific definitions.

When evaluating teaching and research staff, the main criteria should be emphasised according to the job.   When the job comprises only research or teaching, the work performance should be evaluated based only on these tasks. If the job comprises various proportions of research, teaching and community service tasks, the merit points reflecting the tasks should be assessed relative to those proportions.

For instance, in Examples 1 and 2 (below), the overall assessment result for personal work performance is calculated by summing the weighted results calculated from tasks and merit points.

Example 1

Example 2

The assessment should be documented on the form in Appendix 3c.   The employer is to verify the personal work assessment.