Introduction
The goal of performance evaluation in the Faculty of Environment is to arrive at a fair, comprehensive and effective assessment of the performance of faculty members in the three areas that comprise their work: teaching, scholarship and service.
This document facilitates performance evaluation by establishing the procedures and guidelines that will be used by the committees responsible for this task. At the same time, this document is designed to help faculty members reflect on, enhance and improve their performance.
The guidance in this document is consistent with the Memorandum of Agreement, Policy 76 and Policy 77, the University’s Framework for Teaching Effectiveness, and its Addendum, and the University’s Values.
Basic Principles
Faculty performance reviews in the Faculty of Environment will have regard for the following general principles.
• Judgments regarding a faculty member’s teaching, scholarship and service will respect the diverse ways in which these activities may be undertaken in the Faculty of Environment.
• The rank of the faculty member being evaluated will be taken into account during decision making. For example, expectations regarding scholarly output will be adjusted to distinguish between Full Professors, Associate Professors and probationary faculty.
• Judgments regarding a faculty member’s teaching, scholarship, and service will be based on tangible evidence contained in the Performance Evaluation Template (PET). The onus is on the faculty member to provide that evidence using the PET. Additionally, the onus is on the faculty member to use the PET to clarify norms and expectations that should be considered during the evaluation process, e.g., disciplinary, or for Indigenous scholarship, teaching and service.
• Individual units are in the best position to understand the norms and expectations pertinent to their faculty members. A process for standardizing evaluation scores across all units in the Faculty of Environment will be applied following the completion of unit-level evaluations. The purpose of this process is to ensure that faculty members in all units are evaluated equitably. . The evaluation system will be open and transparent. Sufficient feedback will be provided to faculty members after each performance evaluation, and during critical points such as the years leading to the application for tenure and promotion, to permit them to (i) understand the judgments that have been made about their performance and (ii) make any necessary modifications to their work to increase their likelihood of success.
Additional specific principles relating to the performance evaluation process, and to the evaluation of teaching, scholarship and service, are noted below.
Process Considerations
Evaluation Period
A review is necessary for all regular faculty members (Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, Professors in both the Tenure and Teaching streams) on full-time, part-time,, reduced load, and joint appointments where the weight is > 50% in the Faculty of Environment.
Probationary and definite-term appointments will be evaluated every year. Tenured and permanent faculty will be evaluated every two years, with the evaluation period beginning on an odd-numbered year and ending on an even-numbered year. Review for all faculty covers teaching and service for the current evaluation period and scholarship for the previous two years, regardless of the length of the evaluation period.
Performance Evaluation Committees
A Departmental (including School) Performance Evaluation Committee (DPEC) will be struck, and will operate according to Policy 77 and the MOA. A Faculty Performance Evaluation Advisory Committee (FPEAC) will be formed comprised of the Dean, unit heads, and Associate Deans nominated by the Dean. The FPEAC will meet annually following the completion of the work of the DPECs. In advising the Dean, the FPEAC has the following responsibilities:
• Determine whether expectations regarding scholarship, teaching and service have been applied consistently among faculty members of the same rank.
• Determine whether faculty members in different units who are operating within the same basic disciplinary conventions were evaluated consistently across units.
• Advise the Dean on adjustments to evaluations conducted by DPECs where inconsistencies across units and/or ranks are identified.
• Recommend updates, as necessary, to the Performance Evaluation Template and supplementary Instructions for Completing the Faculty Performance Evaluation Form.
Performance Evaluation Template (PET)
A common performance evaluation template will be used by all faculty members in the Faculty of Environment. Guidance regarding the information that should be included in the template is provided in this document and in the separate Instructions for Completing the Faculty Performance Evaluation Form. Units that have created performance evaluation addenda to address exceptional considerations specific to their unit may create supplementary guidance for completing the Faculty of Environment’s PET.
Weightings
In the Faculty of Environment, the normal weights for teaching, scholarship and service for Assistant, Associate and Full Professors in the Tenure Stream are 40%, 40% and 20%, respectively. For Assistant, Associate and Full Professors in the Teaching Stream, the weights are normally 80%, 0% and 20% for teaching, scholarship and service, respectively.
Normally, a member’s weights remain constant throughout the evaluation period. However, for a variety of circumstances changes will occasionally be made to the weights during the evaluation period. In this case, the DPEC and the FPEAC are expected to pro-rate expectations in the different categories (scholarship, teaching and service) roughly proportional to the time spent under a given weight. For example, if a faculty member is awarded a research chair midway through an evaluation period and the scholarship weight changes from 40% to 60% after one year, the DPEC and FPEAC should evaluate scholarship as if the weight was the average, 50%, over two years.
Feedback and Improvement
The Faculty of Environment Performance Evaluation process is designed to allow faculty members to reflect on, enhance and improve their performance. Thus, feedback is provided following each evaluation round. However, faculty members who have questions about how to improve their performance should consult with their Chair or Director as soon as possible.
Following completion of the Performance Evaluation, histograms showing the score distributions shall be distributed to all faculty members. Chairs and Directors will provide faculty with an opportunity to meet to discuss the results, and to identify opportunities for improvement. At this meeting, Chairs and Directors will review expectations for teaching, research and service; discuss the extent to which the faculty member is meeting these expectations; and identify opportunities for improvement.
Where a pattern of performance ratings of less than 1.0 in one or more areas gives the faculty member, Chair/Director, or Dean cause for concern, a review process will be implemented by the Dean, which, in the first instance, will stress the development of a plan for improvement arrived at by the faculty member, Chair/Director and the Dean. Such a review is required if a faculty member’s overall rating is less than 1.0 in any given evaluation period.
Standards and Criteria for Evaluating Teaching, Scholarship and Service
General standards and criteria for the evaluation of teaching, service and scholarship of faculty members at the University of Waterloo are contained in Policy 77, the Memorandum of Agreement, and the Teaching Effectiveness Framework. The information presented below, and in unit-level addenda where these exist, provides detailed guidance to faculty members designed to help them complete their evaluation forms effectively, and provides guidance to DPECs and the FPEAC.
Scholarship
The Faculty of Environment adopts a broad view of scholarship. Scholarship will be judged by the DPEC and the FPEAC primarily based on publications, exhibitions, research awards, research funds, academic and professional presentations, and other tangible manifestations of scholarly activity and creativity during the evaluation period. However, in the Faculty of Environment scholarship also includes reflective and critical inquiry where this is communicated in publications and other media, professional outreach and engagement, and innovative design.
Policy 77 identifies other evidence of activity and standing as a scholar that is accounted for in the Faculty of Environment’s performance evaluation process under teaching and service. Supervision of students is counted under Teaching. Election to professional and disciplinary societies, service as a referee for journals and granting councils, and membership on government or professional committees are counted under Service.
Joint Versus Individual Scholarship
Faculty members may pursue their scholarship individually, or in collaboration with others. For all co-authored publications, estimated percentage contribution by the faculty member under review must be stated in the PET.
Importance of Funding
The Faculty of Environment aspires to be research intensive. Where feasible, faculty members with research weightings are expected to seek external funding to support their scholarly work.
The number of applications for funding submitted and awarded in a year, and the dollar value of funds secured, will not by themselves be viewed as indicators of scholarly activity or quality. Factors that DPECs and the FPEAC should take into consideration in weighing the contribution of funding to a faculty member’s scholarship rating include the following:
• Whether or not funds were secured through a competitive process that included refereeing by external experts.
• The extent to which those funds lead to publication of scholarly work, innovative design, or other scholarly activities.
• Research funds used to support graduate students within the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo will be given greater weight during evaluation.
• Supervision of other kinds of highly qualified personnel at the University of Waterloo (e.g., undergraduate thesis students, post-doctoral fellows, research technicians).
• Faculty member’s contribution to collaborative funded projects, e.g., principal investigator versus one of several co-investigators, contributed 80% of the written materials, etc. Space is provided in the PET to report this information.
• Proportion of total value of a grant held by the faculty member, and whether the funds are held at the University of Waterloo.
Faculty members should use the PET to indicate their contributions in these respects.
Funding faculty members receive through private consulting activities is not counted as scholarship for the purposes of performance evaluation. However, scholarly outputs that result from private consulting work may be listed in the PET where appropriate. For outputs from private consulting work to be considered in the evaluation of a faculty member’s scholarship, they must constitute novel research contributions that would be publishable in scholarly journals or other venues for research outputs. Outputs such as technical reports would generally not be considered as scholarship.
As is the case in all aspects of the evaluation process, the onus is on faculty members to clarify the extent to which, and how, research funding should contribute to their evaluation for scholarship, particularly in light of disciplinary norms.
Supervision
According to Policy 77, the quantity and quality of supervision are considered teaching rather than scholarship for the purposes of performance appraisal. Outputs of supervision, such as publications co-authored with students, are counted as contributions to scholarship.
Evaluating the Quality and Quantity of Publications, Outreach and Engagement and Innovative Designs
As noted in P77, regardless of the discipline and type of scholarship, the key ingredients are the originality, quality and impact of the scholarly work.
DPECs and the FPEAC will take account of considerations relevant to scholarship, including the following:
• Rank of the faculty member, with full and Associate Professors, tenure stream expected to produce a higher volume of scholarship than Assistant Professors, tenure stream.
• Disciplinary norms and conventions in the faculty member’s field.
• Norms and expectations for the merit review of Indigenous scholarship
Individual faculty members must use the space provided on the PET to communicate disciplinary norms and expectations, and other considerations relevant to the evaluation of their scholarship. The University’s Office of Indigenous Relations can assist faculty members and members of the DPECs and the FPEAC regarding the evaluation of Indigenous scholarship.
In the case of publications, only items published or accepted for publication during the scholarship evaluation period will be considered. An item is considered “accepted for publication” during the scholarship evaluation window when the publisher has indicated formally that required changes have been made, that no further substantive changes are required, and that publication will occur. The PET allows for identification of work in progress, as an indicator of active, continuing scholarship.
General guidance on the importance that will be assigned to different kinds of scholarly outputs is provided below. In considering the relative significance of different tangible manifestations of scholarly activity, DPECs and the FPEAC must exercise their judgment, and faculty members must provide information that permits DPECs and the FPEAC to make fair and appropriate decisions. Ultimately, the onus is on the faculty member to organize scholarly outputs appropriately in their PET, and to explain the significance and impacts of different kinds of contributions. This is especially important in cases where impacts and outcomes result from work that go beyond traditional academic metrics.
The significance of some kinds of tangible scholarly outputs can be difficult to evaluate and may not be apparent for some years. Hence, in performance evaluation peer review is emphasized. In terms of publications, refereed works of all types normally will be given greater emphasis than non-refereed works. A refereed publication is defined as one where (1) third parties with the necessary expertise have evaluated the scholarly merits of the work – openly or anonymously – and have then recommended whether or not it should be published, and (2) publication of the work was contingent on the author(s) responding appropriately to the comments of the referees, with an editor or other third-party acting as judge.
Major examples of refereed publications include the following:
• Articles in journals – where journals with international or national stature will receive more emphasis than those in local or regional journals
• Books and monographs by recognized, reputable publishers; publishers with international or national stature will receive more emphasis than those with local or regional stature
• Chapters (including appropriate editorial writing) in edited books or monographs by recognized publishers
• Papers in conference proceedings; the stature of the conference will be considered (e.g., international versus local)
• Other refereed publications with special significance, e.g., reports to government agencies or other groups
Publications that have not been refereed may still represent important contributions to scholarship. Examples of non-refereed publications include the following:
• Books and monographs published by local or regional publishers
• Articles in magazines or journals of criticism having substantial intellectual stature
• Chapters (including appropriate editorial writing); those by recognized publishers will be given more emphasis
• Papers in conference proceedings; the significance of the conference will be considered
• Presentations at academic and professional conferences. The significance of the conference will be considered, as will the nature of the presentation (e.g., an invited keynote presentation at a major international conference versus a presentation at a seminar). Note that conferences that screen abstracts, but do not require authors to respond to referee comments, are not considered “refereed”.
• Professional reports for agencies and organizations. Note that publications for contract research that do not involve scholarship are not counted in the evaluation of a faculty member’s scholarship.
• Book reviews
• Other publications (e.g., maps or atlases)
Articles in the mass media or trade journals will generally not be accorded the stature of the foregoing kinds of publications. Nonetheless, the Faculty of Environment values knowledge mobilization and public engagement. The PET includes space to allow faculty members to identify outcomes and impacts from these kinds of contributions.
In terms of the evaluation of design, the following kinds of scholarly contributions are considered, with attention paid to whether contributions have international, national, regional or local stature:
• exhibitions
• design work, art, planning, computer programs, patents, and related innovative work
• awards for design, planning, buildings, etc.
• films, film scripts and comparable work
The onus is on faculty members to provide a complete overview of their scholarly contributions in the PET, along with evidence of their relative importance, impact and quality.
Teaching
Several key principles underlie the evaluation of teaching in the Faculty of Environment:
• As communicated in Policy 77 and the University’s Framework for Teaching Effectiveness and its Addendum, the quality of a faculty member’s teaching will be evaluated based primarily on the effectiveness of their teaching, compliance with Faculty and University teaching procedures and guidelines, student advising and other activities supporting their growth as an instructor/supervisor. This includes being available to students for consultation outside the classroom at reasonable times.
• Teaching effectiveness should be evaluated holistically, drawing evidence if available, from multiple sources such as self-reflection, peer reviews, student course perception surveys, evaluations of supervision, and feedback from former students when systematically collected.
• Where research-focused graduate programs exist in a unit, graduate student supervision and involvement in graduate student committees is expected for tenure stream faculty, and will be considered by the DPECs and the FPEAC for teaching stream faculty.
• In all units, supervision of undergraduate theses or capstone projects is encouraged and is included as teaching.
Other considerations that the DPEC and the FPEAC take into account when determining the score for teaching include the following:
• Number, type and size (enrolment) of courses assigned to the faculty member by the Chair or Director.
• Number and type of students supervised (e.g., professional Master’s versus research Master’s; graduate students versus undergraduate students).
• Whether or not the course has been taught previously by the faculty member.
• Amount of support from teaching assistants.
• Number of instructors per course (i.e., team-taught versus sole instructor).
The onus is on faculty members to use the space provided in the PET to provide information needed so that DPECs and the FPEAC can fairly evaluate their contributions to teaching relative to the University’s Framework for Teaching Effectiveness and its Addendum. The University’s Office of Indigenous Relations can assist faculty members and members of the DPECs and the FPEAC regarding the evaluation of teaching that has an Indigenous focus.
Service
All faculty members must contribute through service. The category of service is defined broadly to include administrative, committee and other tasks and duties at the University of Waterloo, support for University of Waterloo colleagues in their teaching and scholarly activities, and contributions to the profession and the community.
Key principles that underlie the evaluation of service in the Faculty of Environment by the DPEC and FPEAC include the following:
• Internal service is an essential duty. All faculty members are expected to contribute significantly and meaningfully to one or more of their unit, the Faculty, or the University; in smaller units, faculty members must contribute service to the unit. The effort expended, and the quality of the contributions, will be considered.
• Minimum expectations for satisfactory service performance include all of the following: attendance and constructive engagement with colleagues at unit meetings; participating in unit- or faculty-level events such as recruitment sessions and hiring processes for new faculty (separate from appointment committee work); attending Convocation; timely completion of mandatory training; and participating in other student-focused events.
• Good citizenship is highly valued in the Faculty of Environment and will be recognized in the evaluation of service. Examples of good citizenship include (but are not limited to) mentoring new faculty, undertaking voluntary training in support of student well-being, and being available and present on campus for colleagues and students in the unit.
• External service that enhances the reputation of the University, Faculty and/or the Department/School is valued.
• External service to professional and scholarly organizations, including community engagement, also is valued and will be recognized during the evaluation process.
• Expectations regarding the nature and amount of service increase with rank. For example, senior faculty are expected to take on leadership roles within the university.
• External activities for which a faculty member has been paid a professional fee
(excluding small honoraria) are not service. The PET includes space to identify these kinds of professional activities.
Evaluation of service requires adequate information to ensure sufficient evidence for assessing the quality and quantity of contributions. Therefore, the onus is on the faculty member to describe the nature and scope of their service contributions in the PET to allow for proper evaluation. The University’s Office of Indigenous Relations can assist faculty members and members of the DPECs and the FPEAC regarding the evaluation of service with an Indigenous focus.
Date: November 14, 2024