Minimum Minutes of Instruction

Minutes of Instruction

Contact minutes and load factor (percent of the load attributed to each instructor) need to be designated to support the tracking of faculty workload. Each credit hour of a lecture-based course equates to 50 contact minutes. As an example, a three unit lecture course taught by two instructors who share the load equally would show both instructors having 75 contact minutes and 50.0000 load factor. In classes that utilize graduate assistants as part of the instruction, departments need to include these individuals in the contact minutes and load factor as they would regular faculty. It is imperative to record faculty work load as accurately as possible.

Contact minutes should only be entered for the time the course will truly be "in contact" which would apply to in person or online, synchronous courses. If the course is asynchronous or arranged, the field should be left blank.

One (1) hour of class time equates to 50 contact minutes. Courses longer than 50 minutes have an assumed break that requires minutes reflected accordingly. For example, for a night course to count as 150 contact minutes, it would need to meet from 5 p.m. - 7:50 p.m. as opposed to 5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.