Fair Work Commission|2021-11-30

University of the Sunshine Coast v National Tertiary Education Industry Union [2021] FWC 6490 (30 November 2021)

s.739 - Dispute resolution

Alleged dispute about any matters arising under the enterprise agreement and the NES;[s186(6)]

[1] The University of the Sunshine Coast (the Applicant/USC) has made an application in relation to a dispute arising under the University of the Sunshine Coast Enterprise Agreement (2019-2022) (the Agreement) with the National Tertiary Education Industry Union (the NTEU/Respondent).

[2] The dispute in question was originally brought to the attention of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) through an application by the NTEU on 23 July 2020. The matter was listed for conference before the FWC on 17 August 2020. Various correspondence and consultation occurred between the parties for the next three and a half months. On 4 December 2020, the USC lodged a Form F10 seeking for the dispute to be relisted.

[3] The matter has been subject to listings in front of the FWC at a Conference on 20 January 2021; Interlocutory Hearing on 8 March 2021; Conference on 19 May 2021; Conference on 11 June 2021; Conference on 17 June 2021; and Conference on 23 June 2021. The matter was listed for hearing on 9 and 10 August 2021. USC was represented by Mr Travis O'Brien of Counsel instructed by Herbert Smith Freehills. The NTEU was represented by Ms Linda Gale, Senior Industrial Officer.

[4] The dispute in question centres around the workload model developed by USC's School of Health and Behavioural Science, the School of Education and Tertiary Access and the School of Law and Society (the Schools).

[5] The dispute concerns the interpretation of clause 8.2.2(f) of the Agreement which states:

"(f) In consultation with staff, workload models based on quantitative standards for the allocation of teaching delivery and teaching-related workload will be developed and published by each School. The workload model will accurately reflect the time taken to do the work."

[6] The Union submitted that the Schools' workload model does not allocate sufficient time for the following tasks:

1. Teaching-related duties, in particular the time allocated in accordance with the first box of the workload models under 'teaching related allocations';

[7] USC submitted that the Schools' workload model was developed in accordance with the requirements in clause 8.2.2 of the Agreement, and further, that the School of Law Society is not subject to the dispute.

[8] USC submitted evidence from Ms Linda Murphy, Professor Jay Sanderson, Professor Shelley Dole and Professor John Lowe. The NTEU submitted evidence from Dr Andrew Bonnell, Associate Professor Yoke Lin Fung, Dr Kate Mounsey, Dr Rachael Dwyer, Associate Professor John Kenny, Dr Bruno Basic, Professor Tim Prenzler, Associate Professor Clive Harfield and Professor Andrea Lamont-Mills.

[9] Ms Murphy is employed by USC as Deputy Director, Human Resources. Prior to this, Ms Murphy held the role of Senior HR consultant at USC for 4.5 years.[1] Ms Murphy was asked in cross examination what steps USC had taken since the introduction of the new agreement to develop accurate quantitative standards on which to base its new workload models, and Ms Murphy replied as per her statement, the consultation process that's outlined in that statement.

[10] Professor Sanderson made three witness statements in the matter on 10 February[2], 16 April[3] and 12 July 2021.[4] Professor Sanderson is an academic employed by USC as the Head of School (HOS) for the School Law and Society. In this position, Professor Sanderson allocated workloads between academic staff. Professor Sanderson said he had been employed in this position for five months.[5] To allocate workloads for the academic period of semester 1 2021, Professor Sanderson used the Academic Workload guidelines dated 15 October 2020.[6]

[11] In allocating workloads, Professor Sanderson submitted that he inputs the teaching (such as lectures and tutorials) and other tasks (such as marking and travel) being undertaken by the academic and the class sizes into an excel spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet would output the number of workload hours the academic would be allocated for those tasks. Professor Sanderson described this as the "workload model".[7]

[12] Professor Sanderson said the main change in the guidelines had been the allocation of time for course coordination. He said in previous guidelines, large classes with a size of over 100 would receive a discrete number of hours based on the size. In this new model, Professor Sanderson stated that there was a multiplier which applied to both teaching and teaching-related components of the academic's workload. Professor Sanderson explained that the effect of this was that as the class size increased, the workload allocation for the academic was capturing the increase for both teaching activities and teaching-related activities such as administration or marking, not just teaching as had previously been the case.[8]

[13] Further, Professor Sanderson said that there had been changes in the way that the allocation was presented. Previously, the workload was presented in terms of the number of lectures and tutorials to be taught, whereas the workload with the new guidelines and workload model was presented as gross hours.[9]

[14] Dr Bonnell for the NTEU stated that the NTEU has negotiated at most universities for a framework for academic workload regulation which is based on an annual cap on allocated working hours; Collegial consultation and transparency; Workload models which fairly estimate the time required for various common tasks; and Individual workload allocations based on those models, with additional allowance for individual circumstances. Professor Sanderson responded that the model/guidelines were developed exactly on those four key elements. Professor Sanderson said they were a "fair estimate", and clause 8.2.2 needs to be read as a whole. Professor Sanderson said the Agreement then has a process for individual workload allocations based on those models, with additional allowance for individual circumstances, and while there is generally little change from year to year for most staff, individual discussions do lead to changes.

[15] Professor Dole provided three witness statements in USC's case dated 10 February,[10] 16 April[11] and 12 July 2021.[12] Professor Dole was employed as the HOS for the School of Education and Tertiary Access at USC. Professor Dole had been employed in this position for six years. In this position, Professor Dole is responsible for allocating workload between academic staff and is responsible for around 51 academic staff.[13]

[16] Professor Dole stated that when allocating workloads for the academic period semester 1 2021, she used the most recent version of the Academic Workload guidelines, drafted on 25 November 2020. Professor Dole gave similar evidence to Professor Sanderson concerning the use of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to input tasks and hours.[14] Professor Dole said that the revised version of the "workload model" clearly showed the total hours allocated.[15]

[17] Professor Dole said that, whilst the new model sets quantitative standards, individual workloads can be altered considering the range of factors recognised in clause 8.2.1(a) of the Agreement.

[18] When allocating workloads, Professor Dole indicated that she began from the model and then set individual workloads accounting for differences and individual circumstances. Professor Dole said she would do this in consultation with the academics.

[19] Professor Dole stated that the new guidelines and model incorporated factors from the Agreement so individual circumstances of staff could be accounted for when allocating workloads.[16]

[20] Professor Dole accepted during cross examination that she did not know that the words 'accurately reflect the time taken to do the work' was new language that was not in the previous enterprise agreement. Professor Dole was asked whether her attention had been particularly drawn to the requirement that the workload models be based on quantitative standards, and she said no.
[21] Professor Dole agreed that once the amount of work is resolved based on these factors and duties are allocated, each duty is measured according to the workload model, and it was agreed that the allocations per hour are not varied from that flow from the workload model but the mix of duties that the model applies to.

[22] Professor Lowe provided three witness statements for USC dated 12 February,[17] 16 April[18] and 12 July 2021.[19] He was employed as the HOS for the School of Health and Behavioural Science at USC. He held this position for 13 years. In this position, Professor Lowe was responsible for managing the academic and administrative staff who delivered the courses offered by the school, including allocating workload between academic staff. Professor Lowe was responsible for 88 academic staff.[20]

[23] According to Professor Lowe, setting allocations for the workplace model started from a long-applied model at USC. Previously, the School of Health and Behavioural Science used the FOSHEE guidelines. Professor Lowe said that he was involved in drafting the new guidelines, which drew upon and combined the FOSHEE guidelines and the previous Faculty of Arts, Business and Law guidelines. These efforts resulted in the new guidelines drafted on 13 July 2020, titled the Academic Workload Guidelines.[21]

[24] Professor Lowe said that the guidelines were subsequently revised following consultation with the NTEU. Professor Lowe had not implemented these revised guidelines as the school had been the subject of a workload allocations dispute with the NTEU since 6 July 2020.[22]

[25] Professor Lowe said that the tasks and hours from the guidelines were incorporated into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet covering the tasks being undertaken by the academic whilst considering class sizes. The subsequent output would be the number of workload hours the academic would be allocated for those tasks. According to Professor Lowe, there is little difference between the former FOSHEE guidelines and the new guidelines in this respect.[23]

[26] Professor Lowe submitted that the main differences between the guidelines were beneficial to academic staff. Professor Lowe said that he used the guidelines as a starting point for allocating workloads. Further, the introduction of the new model had not changed the conversation Professor Lowe had with academic staff about their workloads.

[27] Professor Lowe submitted that he considered the factors listed in clause 8 of the Agreement when allocating workloads, including the range of factors in clause 8.2.1(a) that influence the workload of the individual academic and the factors in clause 8.2.2(f) when relevant to the individual.[24]

[28] Professor Lowe noted that the times provided in the guidelines are a 'median' time. Professor Lowe said that in his extensive experience as an academic, the time was very close to what is expected of academics. Further, Professor Lowe submitted that the allocations in the guidelines were not a 'one size fits all' approach and he would be able to have individual conversations with academic staff to determine whether their workload was reasonable.[25]

[29] Professor Lowe said he was aware prior to 13 July 2020 that there was a new requirement in the Agreement about academic workload guidelines accurately reflecting the time taken to perform the work.[26] Professor Lowe was asked whether he noted that the Agreement requires that workload guidelines be based on quantitative standards as they relate to teaching and teaching related work and he said yes. He said he did not know they were new provisions.[27] Professor Lowe agreed with the proposition that where the model doesn't accurately reflect the time taken to do the work, it can be fixed by an exercise of discretion.[28]

[30] Professor Lowe was referred to a table at the end of the model called 'Other Activities' as an area where a HOS is expressly given discretion to reduce teaching and teaching-related delivery allocations by up to 100 hours to recognise significant responsibility for major curriculum development and renewal initiatives. Professor Lowe expressed the view that it was more than that. Professor Lowe indicated all staff new to the university receive these 100 hours, however an Associate Professor or Professor depending on what they are teaching, and their background, would possibly be given a portion of that time.

[31] Dr Bonnell provided a witness statement[29] and currently holds the position of Associate Professor of History at the University of Queensland (UQ). Dr Bonnell has been a full-time academic since 1987 (with a 6-month interruption in the first half of 1993).

[32] Dr Bonnell stated that he has undertaken training to be a supervisor of academic staff and conducted annual performance appraisal of colleagues which involves assessing performance relative to opportunity, which includes consideration of the impact of workloads. As a course convenor he said he has frequently been a supervisor of casual academic staff and has been involved in allocating workload to these casual staff.[30]

[33] Dr Bonnell stated that traditionally, academic work consists of teaching, research and "service", which can include a broad range of administrative roles and tasks. Increasingly, universities also expect staff to demonstrate activity in the category of "engagement", which generally means work that engages with the public or with constituencies outside the university.

[34] Dr Bonnell submitted that workload models which fairly estimate the time required are central to the operation of a workload clause, because if the time required to do the work is systemically underestimated, then the annual cap becomes meaningless, and the individual allocations will misrepresent the actual workload allocated.

[35] Dr Bonnell accepted that any workload model or formula can't account for every variation or every nuance or every situation, and agreed it would have to be based on a reasonable estimate of the average time it would take someone to perform a task to a proper professional level.

[36] Dr Bonnell accepted Heads of School have a degree of discretion however his evidence was to the effect that in his experience in his union capacity if things are set out in a transparent fashion and quantified in a workload model, that is preferable to individual negotiations, because there's a loss of transparency and staff tend to wonder whether everyone's getting treated fairly or not. Dr Bonnell accepted he did not teach at USC.

[37] The NTEU also submitted evidence from Associate Professor Yoke Lin Fung, who has worked at USC since 2014. Associate Professor Fung is a teaching and research academic who completed a PhD in Internal Medicine at UQ in 2008. Associate Professor Fung provided two statements in the matter dated 1 April 2021[31] and 19 July 2021.[32]

[38] Associate Professor Fung agreed academics have different levels of experience and agreed she could not make any comment about the preparation time of any academic other than herself, or how the model relates to any other academic. Associate Professor Fung also agreed the model must be based on an average preparation time.

[39] Associate Professor Fung agreed she had reached agreement with Professor Lowe to make an adjustment to her work however it was not clear to her that the model itself could be adjusted. Associate Professor Fung agreed work demands varied from week to week and said the more important figure in the model was the total hours.

[40] Dr Kate Mounsey, a Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science, School of Health and Behavioural Sciences, provided a statement.[33] During the Hearing, Dr Mounsey's statement was incorrectly identified as Exhibit 13. For the purpose of this decision, the Statement of Dr Mounsey dated 19 July 2021 will be Exhibit 13A. Dr Mounsey has been employed at USC since 2012. Dr Mounsey gave evidence that it is extremely difficult to maintain her research career and supposed 40% research allocation under the current circumstances when teaching related hours are underrepresented in the academic workload, and even more so, when they are not actually counted at all.

[41] Dr Rachael Dwyer, a Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy in the School of Education and Tertiary Access provided a statement.[34] Dr Dwyer has been employed in the school (or its predecessor) since July 2016 and reports to Professor Dole.

[42] Dr Dwyer said the workload model applicable in her School does not accurately reflect the time taken to do the work. Dr Dwyer said there is a disconnect between the evidence-based views of staff and the opaque assertions of management on how many hours of productively spent time it takes to complete the various elements of academic work. Dr Dwyer said an annual hours limit of 1668 is meaningless if workload allocations are underestimated. Dr Dwyer agreed that the allocation of hours would need to be based on an average.

[43] Associate Professor John Kenny provided a witness statement.[35] Associate Professor Kenny has retired from full time work and is currently an adjunct at the University of Tasmania (UTAS). From 2005 until 30 June 2020 Associate Professor Kenny was employed as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer in Science Education and most recently as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at UTAS.[36]

[44] In late 2015 Associate Professor Kenny started an ongoing research project based on a survey of 2526 academic staff from every university in Australia which gathered information and opinions about their work. Data collected included quantitative time estimates for major tasks associated with teaching, research and service/administration roles. Associate Professor Kenny's most recent paper has recently been submitted for publication and he gave evidence it had been through the peer review process, accepted and published about a week earlier.

[45] Associate Professor Kenny stated that he has a lot of experience at UTAS in developing workload models and guidelines being a founding member of the Academic Workload Development Committee (AWDC)[37] and the Faculty of Education academic workload committee between 2008 - 2014, which developed the faculty workload model and guidelines.

[46] Associate Professor Kenny said in his experience, while time-based models are considered the most flexible and suitable to use, they are generally poorly developed in most universities, due to a dearth of research about the working time associated with many common academic duties. He said they often ignore or underestimate the complexity of tasks, such as development of quality teaching materials. Further he stated that there is no evidence, to his knowledge, in the research outlining time associated with the Research and Service (engagement) components of academic work.

[47] In reviewing the USC guidelines, Associate Professor Kenny hypothesised based on a work allocation of responsibility for a 12.5% course (unit) with 60 students involving one two-hour lecture and three two-hour tutorial groups per week over 12 weeks of the semester this fictitious workload involved 96 hours of delivery.

[48] Associate Professor Kenny gave evidence that an analysis for the course scenario shows that the time allocations for teaching duties using USC guidelines are consistently and significantly lower than those derived from the research. Associate Professor Kenny attributed the discrepancies shown as largely due to the USC guidelines conflating numerous teaching related activities into a time allowance of one hour per hour of delivery, including preparation of materials, consultation, and moderation.

[49] Associate Professor Kenny said many of these teaching related activities are a key part of academics being able to meet the quality requirement as stipulated in the USC guidelines: that a course demonstrate currency in the discipline and excellence in "learning and teaching practices".

[50] Associate Professor Kenny said in the research, each of these activities have been articulated more clearly to fully understand the true work time demands on academics, and the research distinguishes between course planning activities and preparation of teaching materials, which must be done for all courses, regardless of the number of students involved.

[51] Associate Professor Kenny said each of these activities is recognised to occur at three levels of effort, depending on the course in question: new development, substantial review or update, and the research also separates out activities associated with assessment, moderation and consultation, each of which is related directly to the number of students in the course.

[52] Associate Professor Kenny said these allocations were then used to determine the teaching loads for the three academic case studies: Teaching Focus, Teaching & Research Focus, Research Focus[38]. Associate Professor Kenny said for a Teaching Focused academic, using the hours of teaching delivery in the USC guidelines, for a situation where the academic is teaching all update level courses, the minimum discrepancy is between 291 hours and 359 hours. He said similar calculations are presented for Teaching & Research and Research Focussed academics.

[53] Associate Professor Kenny said these discrepancies will increase significantly if any of the courses to be taught need substantial review or need to be developed from scratch. Associate Professor Kenny said while the USC guidelines offer "up to 100 hours" in these situations, it is at the discretion of the HOS and is most likely to be inadequate to cover the extra work involved as this barely covers the 97 hours discrepancy for an on-campus course at update level.

[54] Associate Professor Kenny said the USC guidelines allocate 26 hours per annum for the supervision of masters and honours, which he said his experience indicates should be about 40 hours per annum. Associate Professor Kenny concluded that in their current form, the USC guidelines do not accurately reflect the time required to do the work.

[55] In cross examination Associate Professor Kenny agreed that a workload model cannot be based on statistical outliers and said it's a very difficult area to quantify. He said if he asked 50 people, he would get 50 different answers. He said in his research they have asked 2556 people around the country what their work entails, and they have carried out some statistical analysis on that through the median process, which is an accepted methodology, because the median minimises the effects of outliers on the actual outcome. Associate Professor Kenny believed his research comes out with a series of realistic estimates.

[56] It was put to Associate Professor Kenny that the only way to really tell if the USC model is going to work is by putting it into practice and seeing how it operates. Associate Professor Kenny agreed if the model is approximating reality it has to be tested, however he maintained the USC guidelines do not approximate reality at all.

[57] It was put to Associate Professor Kenny that until the model is seen in operation and how the discretion is going to be applied, you can't say whether it's going to work or not. Professor Kenny responded that including something as discretionary within the guidelines has proven to be from their research something that can destroy transparency, trust and credibility if it's in the hands of the wrong person, and what is needed is a holistic look at the work with realistic figures.

[58] Dr Bruno Basic was employed as a teacher within Tertiary Preparation Pathway (TPP) in the School of Education and Tertiary Access. Dr Basic provided two statements dated 1 April 2021[39] and 19 July 2021.[40] He said the purpose of the TPP is to get students ready to undertake undergraduate courses across the university. Dr Basic had worked in this position for 12 months.[41] Dr Basic submitted that he predominately taught TPP104 Mathematics, which is one of the biggest courses in TPP.[42]

[59] During the workload allocation process, Dr Basic stated that he would usually meet with the HOS to discuss his work during the upcoming year. Dr Basic said that as he was a probationary staff member, he had a different teaching load to some other staff in the school.[43]

[60] Dr Basic's evidence was that in order to maintain a teaching standard that he can be proud of he is working after hours and during weekends which is not sustainable in the long term.[44] Dr Basic accepted that a workload model needs to be based on an average or a median amount of time for a particular task and also accepted that the HOS had discretion to allocate additional hours to an academic with less experience such as himself.

[61] Professor Tim Prenzler provided a statement[45] and is employed by USC in the School of Law and Society and is the Secretary of the USC Branch of the National Tertiary Education Union. Professor Prenzler agreed a workload model would need to be based on median or average hours. He agreed that the model is based on the quantity of face-to-face teaching done and the allocation for preparation is an extrapolation from the quantity of face-to-face teaching hours.

[62] Associate Professor Clive Harfield provided a statement[46] and is employed by USC in the School of Science, Technology and Engineering. He gave evidence that throughout the 2020-2021 financial year, he recorded the total hours he spent working each day. He said his total annual allocation of hours is 1668, however, throughout 2020-2021, he worked a total of 2573 hours and 30 minutes. He attached to his statement a copy of a log of hours. Associate Professor Harfield said the time being allocated for Academic work at USC grossly underestimates the time it takes to perform the duties associated with the role.

[63] Professor Andrea Lamont-Mills, employed by the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) as Associate Dean, (Research) in the Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences provided a witness statement.[47] Professor Lamont-Mills has been the NTEU USQ Branch President since 2016.

[64] Professor Lamont-Mills said her experience at USQ is that allocating time for work tasks is based on what would be a reasonable amount of time to perform the work. USQ then benchmarks this time against sector workload models, with the workload model being approved at the Vice-Chancellor's Executive after having undergone extensive staff consultation.

[65] Professor Lamont-Mills said for example, in the USQ workload model, for every one hour of tutorial delivery, staff will get 2.5 hours of preparation time. For a lecture, staff will get 2.5 hours of preparation time for every one hour of lecture delivery. Professor Lamont-Mills said using her workload she has a 1.5 hour tutorial every week, and across the semester this equates to 19.5 hours of teaching and 48.8 hours of tutorial preparation, and she has a one and a half hour lecture each week, and across the semester this equates to 19.5 hours of teaching and 48.8 hours of lecture preparation.

[66] Professor Lamont-Mills said the workloads at USQ are allocated based on the workload parameters and are managed using an electronic purpose built system. Data is inputted from other systems and includes research and service workload as well as teaching for each course/unit an academic teaches into, the number of students enrolled in each course, the hours of lecturing and tutoring including preparation time, course co-ordination, course consultation, and development allocations are present.

[67] Professor Lamont-Mills said the HOS then has a discussion with the relevant academic about this allocated workload to ensure that this is what the academic was expecting and to determine if any adjustments are required. Professor Lamont-Mills agreed that the USQ model provides discretion for the HOS to increase the hours, and this works very well.

[68] Ms Murphy submitted that, following the submission of the Agreement to the FWC, three meetings occurred with the Heads of School to develop a draft workload guidelines document. Three meetings also occurred with the Dean (Academic). According to Ms Murphy, the existing faculty guidelines were used as a basis to construct the new guidelines.

[69] Ms Murphy said that, from 26 February 2020 USC was dealing with COVID-19 related issues, which delayed the release of the draft Academic Workload guidelines until 13 July 2020 when they were sent to staff and the NTEU for consultation. Ms Murphy admitted that in August it was identified that the School of Health and Sport Science Workload guidelines had inadvertently not been circulated to all staff. According to Ms Murphy, this was rectified on 17 August 2020.

[70] On 6 July 2020, Ms Murphy said that the NTEU raised a dispute with USC in relation to workload allocations in the School of Health and Sport Sciences. Following this, on 10 July 2020, USC and NTEU met to discuss this dispute and the NTEU raised questions about the workload models and spreadsheets. Ms Murphy stated that the USC agreed to further consultation as requested by the NTEU. However, on 23 July 2020, the NTEU raised a further industrial dispute about consultation. Ms Murphy conceded that the USC and NTEU, with the assistance of the FWC, eventually agreed on a programme for further consultation with staff and the NTEU. Subsequently, further consultation occurred, and staff feedback was collated.

[71] Ms Murphy said that as per the agreed programme, the NTEU was provided with a copy of staff feedback and updated draft guidelines. Following this, Ms Murphy stated that the NTEU advised of disputes in the School of Sport and Behavioural Sciences, School of Education and Tertiary Access and School of Law and Society. Ms Murphy outlined that she arranged a session to discuss the guidelines with the NTEU and any members, in accordance with the agreed programme. Following this, additional modifications were made to the workload guidelines.

[72] Ms Murphy submitted that in this session, the NTEU did not provide any details of the problems they later pursued in the hearing pertaining to this matter before the FWC. According to Ms Murphy, in this session, the NTEU only provided non-specific comments about the inaccuracy of the allocations and would not elaborate on how the allocations were inaccurate, nor provide suggestions on different allocations.

[73] Ms Murphy accepted in cross examination that the previous agreement didn't require that workload models accurately reflect the time taken to do the work, and that the previous agreement did not include the words that the workload models be based on quantitative standards. Ms Murphy also accepted that those new words were included in the new agreement at the request of the NTEU during bargaining.

[74] Following the approval of the Agreement, Professor Dole said that the Heads of School came together and drafted a new set of Academic Workload guidelines which amalgamated the FOSHEE guidelines and FABL guidelines. Professor Dole was involved in the drafting of the new guidelines. According to Professor Dole, the new guidelines were uniform across the whole university and were drafted in response to staff feedback requesting greater consistency.[48]

[75] Professor Dole submitted that staff have an opportunity to raise issues with workload allocations and workload was often an item of discussion on the school staff meeting agenda. Professor Dole said that in 2020, workload was an item of discussion on 14 May, 24 September and 10 November. Additionally, after agreed workloads had been individually negotiated and in accordance with the guidelines, the staff workload allocation would be published and accessible to all staff. [49]

[76] Professor Dole outlined that consultation on the new guidelines occurred from the period of 13 July to 27 July 2020. On 13 July, Professor Dole sent an email to the School of Education and Tertiary Access staff about the consultation period. The previous faculty guidelines and the revised draft guidelines were attached to the email. Professor Dole said that she announced that an "extraordinary staff meeting" would be scheduled on 16 July 2020 so that feedback on the guidelines could be gathered and she invited staff to submit feedback individually and/or to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) during this period. Professor Dole said she chaired the "extraordinary staff meeting" via Zoom, noted the issues raised by staff, prepared a document that summarised this feedback and sent it to all staff on 22 July 2020. This document was then located in a central place and all staff were invited to update this document until 27 July. On 27 July, Professor Dole said that the collective response to the draft guidelines, titled the 'School of Education staff response', was submitted to HR. [50]

[77] It was put to Professor Sanderson that contrary to his evidence, staff raised concerns including Timothy Peters. Professor Sanderson said an open and robust meeting was held in July to discuss the guidelines and feedback was provided to HR. Professor Sanderson said he could not recall the specific feedback. He also could not recall the specifics of the feedback of Professor Prenzler. Professor Sanderson accepted there had been "lots of feedback" but distinguished that from issues.

[78] Professor Sanderson said he could not remember specific meetings around the guidelines and the incorporation of staff feedback. Professor Sanderson thought there were changes made to the draft model circulated and to the final model.

[79] Professor Dole was asked whether the concern raised by staff about course coordination for small courses of 50 or below was addressed. Professor Dole accepted that the guidelines with the course coordination multipliers was issued after the consultation process. Professor Dole's evidence appeared to be that the feedback was submitted to HR and she assumed HR had addressed it. Professor Dole's evidence appeared to be that the Dean academic with HR, in consultation and collaboration with the heads of school dealt with the staff feedback.

[80] Professor Dole said when they were looking at course coordination which has been a thing that they have looked at repeatedly throughout the process, they have continuously addressed it from their own perspective and what they knew the staff have raised.

[81] Dr Dwyer said when the workload guidelines were released, it was raised at a staff meeting that some staff felt these guidelines didn't accurately reflect the time they spent doing their work. Dr Dwyer said the HOS facilitated a meeting where staff gave feedback, and this response was submitted as part of the consultation process. Dr Dwyer said staff were not given any information about how the allocations in the workload model had been developed, or why changes were necessary.

[82] According to Dr Basic, there was not much face-to-face discussion about the workload model, partly because of the circumstances of COVID-19. Further, Dr Basic did not recall attempts to set up alternative modes of consultation nor receiving much information about it at the time. Dr Basic said that during 2020, the workload increased during the online transition. Accordingly, any consultation that did take place on the workload model coincided with the school transition and therefore he was unable to pay close attention.[51]

[83] In relation to teaching and teaching-related duties Professor Sanderson explained that academics were provided an hour of preparation for each hour of class they teach. Professor Sanderson added that if academics were required to create new materials for a course, this would be given a separate allocation under the guidelines. Professor Sanderson submitted that he did not have any concerns with the accuracy of this allocation based on his 15 years' experience as an academic.[52] Further, Professor Sanderson noted that teaching had a range between 208 and 312 hours. Accordingly, if an academic staff member had concerns about their workload, the new guidelines and model allowed for adjustments to be made to their teaching allocation.[53]

[84] Professor Dole said that when allocating teaching workloads, she ensured that academic staff were allocated up to 312 direct teaching hours in accordance with the Agreement on a 40/40/20 academic profile. Other allocations would be balances according to clause 8.2.2(f) of the Agreement.[54] Professor Dole submitted that it would be unreasonable for the guidelines to specify the number of hours allocated for teaching and teaching-related activities at any higher level of granularity as this would detract from the flexibility of the guidelines, which allowed her to exercise discretion in adjusting workloads. Further, it would be difficult for the guidelines and model to capture the complexity of teaching activities in a meaningful and accurate way.[55]

[85] Professor Lowe said they have an academic in his School who has taught the same first year biology course for 15 years. He said they aim to have lecturers deliver the same course for a minimum of four years and all large courses have a teaching team for delivering longer. Professor Lowe said for a brand-new course, in the first year, they develop the subject, in the second year they modify it and in the third year they have settled it and updating is an easy and quick task.

[86] Professor Lowe said after the first year, an academic receives the same allocation for teaching the same course in second year, third year, fourth year, and so on. The allocation is not dependent on the number of years an academic has taught a course, despite teaching the subject repeatedly. Professor Lowe said minimal preparation time should be required, by the third and definitely by the fourth time the course is taught.

[87] Professor Lowe said the model allows for special consideration for staff who are new to the university; allows for additional allocations for those teaching a subject for the first time or being required by student feedback to alter the delivery of a course; allows for additional time if a lecturer wants to do a major review of the subject; Teaching time is supported by research and contact time which allows the academic to keep up to date and innovate, peer reviews and hopefully publishing personally, all of which complement their lecturing. He said it is referred to as a teaching research nexus.

[88] Professor Lowe said most subjects in his school are well settled, with minimal or no changes required. He said in these circumstances, he believes the 1:1 time ratio when considered in the whole model, is sufficient. Professor Lowe said expertise in the field, from lecturing, research and engagement, allows an academic to easily stay current on a course.

[89] Professor Lowe said if someone is taking three hours for preparation, then there may be many reasons such as they are doing work they do not need to do; they need more confidence in their capacity or they are not at the edge of their field or focussing their research and engagement.

[90] Professor Lowe said whichever it is, the Agreement allows an academic to meet with him and for them to provide assistance either in work allocation or mentoring. Professor Lowe said in his own experience, it takes him less than one hour to prepare for his two-hour presentation in the first-year course in Public Health and Chronic Diseases. He said he is delivering the same lecture, with the same material (with possible minor tweaks), in a field he is familiar with, and in which he is doing research. Professor Lowe estimated it would take him two hours to prepare a one-hour lecture from scratch.[56]

[91] Professor Lowe said in his school the course co-ordinator prepares the tutorial program. They will set the materials, determine the discussion points and set the outcomes and deliverables. Professor Lowe said it is a cookbook approach and the tutors will follow the recipe and reach the same result. The programs are typically streamlined to offer the same tutorial time to students in the same program. Professor Lowe said the tutorials deal with directed content to support the lecture program. Further reasons for this are like those for repeat lectures. Professor Lowe said as a matter of fairness and equity to students, a tutorial presented to students in the same subject needs to be the same for each.

[92] Professor Sanderson said in his School, they have implemented the new workload model. The workload guidelines for each of the School of Law and Society, School of Health and Sport Science and School of Education and Tertiary Access in their practical effect, incorporate the same model for the measurement and allocation of academic working time. For efficiency in this decision, I have set out below one example for all of the schools.

[93] The model provides that in addition to the teaching delivery allocation, a teaching-related allocation is included in the new workload model of:

The starting point is the equivalent of 1 hour per teaching hour of lectures, tutorials and workshops (or online only equivalent). Within this hour it is expected that activities such as preparation for delivery, course coordination, basic updates to course outlines and materials, staff and student consultations, moderation and management of marks and grades. For repeats of lectures, tutorials, clinical simulation, laboratories and workshops (or online only equivalent) this will be reduced to 0.5 hours per hour.

[94] Professor Sanderson said in summary, the allocation is equivalent of one hour per teaching hour (e.g. 24 hours per year for a subject lecture in a 12-week teaching workload), and for repeats of lectures this will be reduced to 0.5 hours for the subsequent lectures (e.g. 36 hours for delivering two lectures in a 12 week teaching workload.

[95] Professor Sanderson, Professor Dole and Professor Lowe each gave evidence that when allocating workloads, they had access to and have used a separate allocation of up to 100 hours for new/major curriculum development and renewal, and discretion to reduce teaching hours for new academic staff of 100 hours over two years. In addition, it was said that staff have allocation for two days research time each week and one day per week for engagement again in which they stay up to date and proficient in their fields.

[96] Professor Sanderson said it is rare that a staff member teaches a subject for only one year. He said it is not unusual for an academic to be teaching the same course for five or more years. The allocation for lecture preparation and associated work, applies every year even when no or minimal changes are required. He said by the third year, the lecturer should be proficient in delivering with minimal preparation. They would look at what they did previously and what they have learned in their research and their engagement activity to update any changes or developments. Some staff, depending on the content or discipline area, make little change to their lecture material from year to year.

[97] Professor Sanderson said given the current delivery options, repeat lectures are not common and he believed the allocation for repeat classes is more than fair as preparation is largely not required; For equity and consistency all students must get the same content and information at the same level; in some cases, the lectures for one subject delivered at multiple campuses are delivered as one online lecture. That is, there are generally no repeat lectures. Professor Dole gave similar evidence about repeat lectures.

[98] Professor Sanderson and Professor Dole said the work model, and discussion with staff, addresses circumstances where new course is introduced; and/or a substantial review of a course content is needed; and/or a lecturer with the relevant expertise has not taught the course before; and/or the lecturer is new to the university.

[99] Professor Dole said the staff in her School are employed because of their expertise and specialist knowledge, and they are provided with two days research time each week and she expects them to be at the cutting edge of research in their field. Professor Dole said they draw upon their specialist knowledge to create lecture content, so they are not undertaking research into new fields for every lecture.

[100] Professor Dole said every staff member is employed to undertake one day per week of engagement with their community and academic staff are allocated 334 hours per year in their workload allocation for this, enabling staff to continue to build their expertise in their discipline area.

[101] Professor Sanderson said tutorials have the same teaching related allocation as for lectures and repeats of tutorials or online only equivalent will be reduced to 0.5 hours. Professor Sanderson said in his school, and at other universities he has worked at, the course co-ordinator will generally design and develop tutorial plans, workbooks, deliverables and outcomes so that it follows and supports the lecture plan and learning outcomes, and he delivery of tutorials must follow the set pattern from the course co-ordinator.

[102] Professor Sanderson said the fact that the course co-ordinator provides a tutorial answer guide, and that all tutorials for a course are substantively the same, is important for the equity and consistency reasons he had referred to, and to ensure that students get the same learning content and experience in any tutorial. He said USC cannot, and should not, change the tutorial content for each tutorial class.

[103] Professor Sanderson said it is important to reiterate that USC provide a holistic model for assessment of allocations. He said there is an inherent danger in deconstructing separate parts, looking at one element in isolation from the overall workload. This is because a workload allocation is a balance of multiple things which are inter-related.

[104] Professor Dole added that the new model clearly delineated the proportion of teaching hours allocated to marking hours, aiding academics who have high teaching workloads by offering sessional support for marking.[57]

[105] Dr Bonnell stated that the most widely disseminated formulae regarding associated duties is embodied in casual pay rates, deriving from award cases in the 1990's. The academic casual pay rates at UQ allow for two hours of preparation (and associated work) time for a one-hour "basic" lecture; three hours of associated work time for one hour of a "developed" lecture; and four hours associated work time per hour of delivery for a "specialized" lecture, but these distinctions are not adequately defined anywhere. Dr Bonnell explained that these assumptions of time for associated duties derive from the Higher Education - Academic Staff - Award and are common in Enterprise Agreements across the sector.

[106] Dr Bonnell submitted that given the development of modern IT platforms, it is now widely expected (by students and university managers) that staff will make use of PowerPoint slides or similar aids in their lectures. Dr Bonnell said it can take at least an hour per hour of delivery to put together PowerPoint slides for a lecture, on top of the reading and note-taking. This additional work was not allowed for when the original rates were arrived at.

[107] Dr Bonnell explained that there is great variation in the preparation time needed for a lecture. A two-hour lecture which he has delivered before may take an hour or two to review and perhaps update the notes and read some recent literature. Writing a new two-hour lecture from scratch, especially on a topic that is not close to his research specialisation (which is increasingly the case) may require a whole eight-hour day or longer, including preparation of PowerPoints. Dr Bonnell stated that if he is giving a lecture on a topic that is relatively new to him, he may need to spend more hours doing background reading. In these circumstances, the four hours' associated work per hour of delivery would be an absolute minimum, and it would be very easy to spend much longer on relevant reading. Dr Bonnell noted that a less experienced, early-career academic would feel under considerable pressure to spend even more time on preparation.[58]

[108] Dr Bonnell stated that COVID-19 has created a demand to make course material available in multiple formats, catering to both external students and students on campus. Dr Bonnell said that this has required duplication of course websites, acquiring familiarity with online delivery software (e.g. Zoom) and revising assessment tasks to cater for different cohorts of students simultaneously without any workload compensation for these changes in his school, which he believes is a typical situation.[59]

[109] Dr Bonnell submitted that a similar casual formula as for lectures governs tutorials in that an original hour of tutorials may require two hours of preparation and/or associated work, while a repeat tutorial may require one hour of associated work (including preparation, consultation with students before and after the delivery of the tutorial, and sometimes in-class marking assignments). Dr Bonnell stated that while academics will typically set aside around two hours a week for consultation in their offices, the ubiquity of email communication means that they are likely to receive, consider and respond to queries from students at any time of the week, typically outside normal office hours.[60]

[110] Dr Bonnell discussed the requirement for academics to maintain electronic course profiles and course Blackboard sites, which demands familiarity with a growing array of teaching and learning policies. He said this associated work is often not captured in the workload formulae. Dr Bonnell also noted that the amount of time that student consultation takes up can vary considerably.[61]

[111] Dr Bonnell said the three USC workload models subject of the current dispute clearly underestimate the time required to perform academic teaching and teaching related duties to even a basic standard. Dr Bonnell submitted that the default allocation of one hour of associated work for each hour of classroom delivery is only sustainable in cases where an academic has previously delivered that lecture or tutorial before and only has to reacquaint themselves with the material. Dr Bonnell said the suggestion that the allocated time also covers additional activities such as "course coordination, basic updates to course outlines and materials, staff and student consultations, moderation and management of marks and grade" means that the allocated time in the USC models is a gross underestimate of the time required to perform the work to even a minimum professional standard.

[112] Dr Bonnell noted that while there is less preparation required for a second delivery of the same lecture or tutorial, there is no reduction in other associated duties, which alone would generally exceed the 30 minutes per contract hour allowed in USC models.[62]

[113] Dr Dwyer gave evidence that about 20-30% of a course will need to be redeveloped annually, if there are no significant changes, and this varies upwards for new courses or ones requiring a substantial rewrite. Dr Dwyer said this means that for a series of two-hour lectures, between four and six hours of content needs to be re-recorded each year, and this does not count as a significant revision. Dr Dwyer said for every hour of lecture delivery she undertakes between one and four hours of associated work specifically related to preparation and delivery, and when the preparation is on the lower end of the scale it is usually because the nature of the content is such that it doesn't "date".

[114] Professor Dole responded to the evidence of Dr Dwyer concerning lecture preparation saying it is a requirement that staff who are employed to teach in the tertiary sector are continually updating their course material. Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer has delivered five of her courses for the past four years and they have never had difficulties settling the allocations. Professor Dole said it is also hard to respond precisely (to Dr Dwyer) when no details are given for the figures claimed, and the figures have a 500% variable /bandwidth.

[115] Professor Dole said there is no evidence of how/why Dr Dwyer undertakes between one to four hours of associated work, and this is a difficult claim to verify given the 500% variable. Professor Dole said if Dr Dwyer is taking up to four hours for every lecture hour, then this has never been raised with her in all the allocation meetings she has held, and if there is a reason for that then she would address it with her under clause 8 .2.2(g).

[116] Dr Dwyer gave evidence that for a tutorial, developing new material from scratch will take about a day per tutorial depending on how well it aligns with her expertise, and she is experienced such that she will need to re-write only one or two tutorials each course that takes about three hours per tutorial.

[117] Dr Dwyer said placement involves students who are spending time in schools observing in classrooms and teaching under supervision. All education students undertake placements in all years of their programs. Dr Dwyer said when she visits with the students on placement, she spends around 30 minutes talking to them about their experience and their progress. Dr Dwyer said if the students are all on one site, the time necessary to conduct a placement visit would be around three hours. If the students are located separately then travel time needs to be factored in, and it multiplies by the number of sites, not necessarily reflective of the number of students.

[118] Dr Dwyer said if a student is at risk of failure, the placement workload is intensive and triggers a process where the mentor teacher and site coordinator counsel the student and then follow up after five days for further assessment. In this circumstance Dr Dwyer said she usually needs to speak by phone daily with the student, and possibly the supervisor and mentor teacher also. In such a case the per student time necessary to conduct a placement would be a minimum of six hours, with an additional two visits to the site.

[119] Dr Dwyer said most of her student consultation is by email. At least half are about things answered elsewhere such as when an assignment is due and other matters that she has asked students not to contact her about. Dr Dwyer said nevertheless she needs to respond to these students so that they don't lose direction.

[120] Dr Dwyer said students have technical questions and it is part of her role to help with these, due to a lack of support services and this work can be time-consuming. Dr Dwyer said student consultation contains an aspect of pastoral care. Student wellbeing is central to the learning experience and students often struggle in life with one thing or another.

[121] Dr Dwyer said one of the referral points may be to specialist learning support where learning access plans are developed. Dr Dwyer said she normally spends about 1 hour per day on ad hoc student consultation plus another 6 hours per semester for study halls and meetings with students. Dr Dwyer said in combination with other teaching-related duties, this is more than is allocated under the workload model. It is also essential work that cannot be cut back without a consequential impact on student outcomes and wellbeing, and student retention.

[122] Professor Dole responded to the evidence of Dr Dwyer regarding the administration load associated with setting up courses for the year. Professor Dole said that to support staff in these duties, the HOS seeks clarification with all staff about the courses they wish to teach and encourages staff to teach the same course over a number of years so that the administration in updating lectures and assessment tasks is reduced every year from the first time that course is taught by that staff member.

[123] Professor Dole said when a staff member takes on a new course for the first time, the HOS provides additional support that can vary from support for marking, reduction in tutorial allocation and/or reduction in other school administrative duties (e.g., supervision of students on practicum; time off from attending school meetings, etc).

[124] Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer is an Arts Specialist and predominantly teaches the secondary arts curriculum courses. Professor Dole said the secondary arts courses in particular, have had very low enrolments, and by virtue of the workload allocation model, Dr Dwyer has benefitted from being allocated full teaching related hours in courses with low enrolments.

[125] Professor Dole said the whole purpose of the new guidelines is to allocate workloads holistically, and Dr Dwyer's statement does not recognise how USC takes into account the workload across her subjects, the enrolments in them and her individual needs. Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer and herself have never had any difficulty addressing any concerns she has raised with issues that concern her and as the HOS, she ensures that the allocation of work does not exceed 1667 hours.

[126] Professor Dole responded to Dr Dwyer's evidence concerning tutorials stating Dr Dwyer has taken five of them for over four years, and one is a new course with very few students that has been developed by a team that attracts a high related teaching allocation.

[127] In response to Dr Dwyer's evidence about placements of students, Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer outlines the extensive time taken for placement supervision if students are placed 'at risk' of failure, however this responsibility is then handed over to the Placement Coordinator. Further, the number of students who become 'at risk', or fail, is very low (approximately 2%). Professor Dole said a personal site visit is not always required or expected and emails and phone calls should be the usual mode of communication to check on student progress during placement. Academic staff are allocated one direct teaching hour per student per practicum placement.

[128] Professor Dole said it must also be noted that in 2020, all staff within the School of Education were allocated direct teaching hours to undertake supervision of students on placement, and because of COVID-19, all placements were cancelled. The direct teaching hours allocated to staff for placement were not then converted to other teaching duties. This means that in 2020, academic staff were given direct teaching hours in their workload for which they did not teach.

[129] Professor Dole responded to Dr Dwyer's evidence concerning student consultation saying the majority of student enquires are associated with assessment, and many academic staff have implemented strategies to minimise student enquiries via such activities as: improved rubrics that contain specific assessment feedback; FAQs on Blackboard; recorded video messages about assessment task requirements; drop-in and recorded sessions at specified times via Zoom. Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer has only one course with more than 200 students, and she has sessional assistance. Professor Dole said in three of her other courses, she is provided with full teaching-related hours when there are four, three and nine students respectively, enrolled. Professor Dole said she has looked at her allocations holistically, and they have always talked through her allocation issues.

[130] Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer regularly meets with her and raises issues that concern her about her allocation or courses. In response to Dr Dwyer stating she had difficulty in undertaking time for research, Professor Dole said Dr Dwyer's appointment allocates her two days per week for research and a further one day per week for engagement, and Dr Dwyer has been teaching five of the same courses for many years and this should mean that she is not needing to be fully renewing all course content every semester.

[131] Dr Basic for the NTEU outlined the process he uses for preparing lectures. Normally, he would view the material to be provided and divide it into separate segments. This is known as chunking. Instead of having a 45-60-minute lecture, the content would be divided into short three-six minute segments. Dr Basic said that each segment covered very specific content or skills and he would produce this content for the course by using content rich videos.[63]

[132] Dr Basic submitted he would plan out the videos and make sure they are narrow, focused and have relevant content, he would then record the material, then commence editing. Dr Basic contended that he had developed some useful techniques to ensure editing was efficient and produced at high quality.[64]

[133] Dr Basic said that for an hour of produced content, it took about 10 hours of planning and production generally comprising 10 to 15 videos, which represented the lecture content for that week. Further, Dr Basic would consult with other staff about how they might approach different topics and add his own experience. In doing this, he would record a rough draft, seek feedback from peers and take that feedback to set out storyboarding, planning, recording and editing of the content in the way described above.[65]

[134] Additionally, Dr Basic noted that the cards previously used to enable students to physically manipulate an equation were not suitable for a digital learning environment unless all students prepared cards and not all students are prepared to do so.[66]

[135] Dr Basic submitted that he would research contemporary methods for conveying this content, which would require consulting appropriate literature.[67]

[136] Professor Dole said that the time it takes to create video content for lectures is not disputed, and as Dr Basic's line-manager, she is aware of the aspirations of Dr Basic in preparing quality videos to augment teaching materials for his courses. Professor Dole said during the PPR discussion with Dr Basic, she suggested ways he might incorporate research into his teaching. Professor Dole said it should also be noted that as a new staff member, Dr Basic is not teaching courses that are new and there is considerable course material available that has been developed. Professor Dole said a complete overhaul of any course is not required, and staff are expected to manage the time that they spend on course updates and work with what is available and make changes progressively over several iterations of teaching.

[137] Dr Basic said for tutorials that for one hour of contact time, he would spend at least two to three hours preparing the material. He admitted that it would be possible to develop a bank of examples over time, but regular review for currency would be required to ensure their relevance.[68]

[138] Dr Basic said in his statement that preparation for a tutorial will depend a lot on the cohort of students, and it is important to understand the needs of the audience. Dr Basic gave an example, if he has a class that has mostly people wanting to go into nursing, he will use examples that are specific to the field of nursing rather than more general examples.

[139] Professor Dole said no explanation is given for the 50% variable in times taken by Dr Basic.

[140] Dr Basic also submitted that student consultation involves liaising with students and providing support to them throughout the semester and that last semester he allocated five hours per week to do drop-in sessions with students which are one-hour timeslots where students can see him without having made a prior arrangement. He said the drop-in sessions allow students to get help in areas where they struggle and talk to other students who might be in a similar situation.[69]

[141] Dr Basic submitted that it is difficult to estimate the time he devotes to student consultation each semester, and it will change from cohort to cohort. However, he was certain that reducing this time would disadvantage students and impact retention. He was also fairly certain that there are instances where these consultation times eat into his personal time. Dr Basic noted that granted he could turn students away, but that is not what TPP is about.[70]

[142] Dr Mounsey said her teaching experience at USC is extensive and covers a range of courses from introductory laboratory skills, physiology, pathophysiology to graduate level immunology, and she teaches into several courses within the discipline across all year levels.

[143] Dr Mounsey attached a spreadsheet[71] to her statement with attached exemplars detailing the actual time taken to do representative teaching related tasks in semester 1 of 2021. Dr Mounsey said these times were either recorded by her as start and finish times to complete activities, or by reference to the time spent editing the various documents. Dr Mounsey provided further detail on task context, specific requirements and explanation of the time taken to complete tasks. This included assessment preparation - online quizzes, assessment moderation - online quizzes and preparation of new learning materials - BIM 331 'Lectorials'.

[144] Dr Mounsey said in semester 1 of 2020 she coordinated three courses, substantially redeveloped BIM331 and like all other academics, had to quickly adapt her courses to a different delivery mode from week five. Dr Mounsey said the associated increase of teaching related hours for this is obvious, and in 2020 Dr Mounsey said she worked a total of 155 hours above her initially agreed teaching workload allocation, with these numbers calculated using the SHSS workload model in effect at the beginning of 2020.

[145] Dr Mounsey said she calculated an additional 105 teaching related hours worked over and above standard working hours in semester 1 2020, and in 2021 an additional 91.5 hours over standard hours in semester 1.

[146] Dr Mounsey said academic staff responsible for course coordination and development of weekly learning materials are more significantly impacted than other staff who may only 'teach into' other courses. Dr Mounsey said current workload systems do not appear to cater to these differences, and concerningly, teaching related hours were not considered at all in the allocation of semester 2 workloads in 2020, and Dr Mounsey said she was instructed by her HOS to work additional direct hours "to raise my allocation to 312 hours", despite being clearly above the overall 40% teaching allocation regardless of which model was applied.

[147] Associate Professor Fung said review and updating of materials for a standard two-hour lecture takes from two to four hours and involves developing new slides to incorporate new content, removing old content, revising old content to present it in a different way that may help students understand it better, then reviewing the lecture as a whole to ensure there is logical flow of content.

[148] Associate Professor Fung said for a new two-hour lecture, developing the content, designing the lecture slides and teaching material will take about eight hours of preparatory work. This involves deciding what is necessary content, gathering information, diagrams, pictures, relevant current publications. Then a series of slides is developed and arranged to build depth into the topic, and cases added to exemplify how the concepts are applied.

[149] Professor Lowe said in response to Associate Professor Fung that what is outlined in these points is the work that every academic does to keep their materials up to date and industry work ready. Professor Lowe noted that the timing refers to her own personal work and is not reflective of a general experience. Professor Lowe disagreed with her estimates on the amount of time it should take to conduct such activities because there have been little changes to the programme and or to courses, these are only updates of currently provided courses. Professor Lowe said the industry standard and information in the discipline is not changing that much from year to year.

[150] Professor Lowe said Associate Professor Fung only provides a broad bandwidth of hours for the amount of time it takes her to update materials, namely two to four hours for updating an existing lecture and up to eight hours for creating new lectures. Professor Lowe believed this range of hours is substantially more than what, in his experience, the rest of the school generally requires. Professor Lowe said under the guidelines, one hour is provided as a starting point per teaching hour of lecture for activities including preparation and basic updates. If there are major curriculum renewals, the HOS has discretion to reduce teaching and teaching related delivery allocations by up to 100 hours, and moreover, the amount of updating required would be a factor Professor Lowe would consider in determining Associate Professor Fung's individual workload allocation, as required under clause 8.2.2(g) of the EA.

[151] Associate Professor Fung said the Advanced Haematology tutorial is led by her colleague and she is the "second tutor" and course coordinator. Associate Professor Fung said they ask students to work in groups and they apply a pedagogical approach to constructing the student groups. For their Task 1, the groups have to work together to review a case study, provide an oral presentation and report on the case study. Associate Professor Fung prepares the Task 1 case studies, and this includes preparing blood film images, case histories, laboratory results, instructions on the task and the rubric. On top of that there is scheduling and distribution of material Associate Professor Fung said for each two-hour tutorial class, she needs 1.5-two hours preparation time.

[152] Associate Professor Fung said the Blood Banking tutorials are built on the students' performance in a quiz from the previous week. Associate Professor Fung said these concepts can be very confusing and challenging. Hence, after she marks each quiz, she develops fresh tutorial content to address the concepts which students appear to struggle with. Associate Professor Fung said she develops different ways of explaining the concepts and allow questions to help students understand and to facilitate deeper learning. Associate Professor Fung said for a two-hour tutorial it will usually take two-three hours to prepare content to deliver the class. This is for the preparation and distribution of the materials for the tutorial only and does not include any updates to course outlines and materials, staff or student consultations, or moderation or management of marks and grades.

[153] Professor Lowe responded that it should be noted that the tutorials in the labs have substantial help from lab tech services to conduct what needs to be delivered. Lab techs will prepare the lab for the academic and will clear the lab after the academic has finished using it. In other words, preparation time for running a lab should be minimal.

[154] Associate Professor Fung said before the start of each semester, she reviews the Lab Manuals/Workbooks and updates them and incorporates the current safety protocols, and then prepares them for printing. Associate Professor Fung said this takes four to five hours for each course, thus a total of between eight and 10 hours per year.

[155] Associate Professor Fung said for a two-hour haematology lab, she needs about 2 hours to gather the material blood films, case histories, results etc and update content. This does not include any updates to course outlines and materials, staff or student consultations, or moderation or management of marks and grades.

[156] Associate Professor Fung said for a three-hour blood banking lab, the blood samples for each case have to be fresh so consequently the results for each lab are unique. Because the lab results for each case are different, prior to commencing each blood banking lab session she needs to run the entire test herself to ensure that everything will work, that there are no unexpected results and that the students have been provided with all the reagents and consumables they need to complete their activity e.g., cross-matching, blood grouping. After running the test, Associate Professor Fung said she uses the results to prepare new power point slides for the lab session. Therefore, the actual preparatory time for a three-hour lab is four to five hours but she is allocated three hours.

[157] Professor Lowe responded that the labs, while using new materials, repeat from the previous year. He said it is not clear to him as HOS how the conducting and preparation of the labs by an experienced person such as an academic would take more time than the lab itself is intended to be completed by a student, who is an inexperienced person.

[158] Professor Lowe said an inexperienced person would take three hours to conduct the lab. The labs are not unique each year and it is a repeating of the previous year's work. Professor Lowe agreed with Associate Professor Fung that in blood banking, she needs to conduct the lab first; however, it is the same lab that she would have run the previous year and each lab has assistance from tech services to set up and conduct the lab. Professor Lowe said if it actually takes four to five hours for Associate Professor Fung, with technical services to prepare the lab, this will need to be discussed with her under clause 8.2(g).

[159] In regard to Professor Lowe's response to the evidence of Associate Professor Fung it was put to him that he relied on anecdotal reports rather than quantitative data about the time taken to perform work and he responded that he relied on the expertise of discipline leaders in their field who are teaching within their field, doing teaching and teaching-related and research within their own discipline.

[160] Professor Prenzler said in semester 1 of 2021 he was the course coordinator for Professional Ethics and Integrity Management (CRM304). He said this course was first delivered in 2017, and he was responsible for setting up the materials. He said the course content for CRM304 is delivered via lectures and tutorials. There were eleven two-hour lecture periods and eleven weeks of tutorials in the timetable. He said in each tutorial week there were six different tutorial groups, four on campus and two online, and he was responsible for delivering three of those tutorials each week.

[161] Professor Prenzler said the two-hour lecture times involved one hour of him presenting course material to students using a PowerPoint presentation which he would speak to while expanding on the content in an explanatory fashion, and one hour of the students watching a documentary or dramatization of a case study. As part of the lecture, he would ask questions of the students to make sure that the content was being understood and invite students to ask questions.

[162] Professor Prenzler said in 2021 there were no major changes to the course content in CRM304 from its delivery in 2020, however, even where there is little or no change to the primary course materials or lecture content, a significant amount of preparatory work goes into deciding whether an update is required. He said sometimes this work will overlap with his current research projects, but the large bulk of that preparation work is not related to his current research.

[163] Professor Prenzler gave an overview of week eight of the semester for the subject CRM304. Professor Prenzler said his process for preparing for the lecture and tutorial involves him doing a quick skim of the lecture and tutorial slides to refresh his memory, then read the required readings which takes considerable time. He said he reviews the PowerPoint slides for the lecture and tutorial, watches the video for the week. He said he needs to watch news and current affairs shows most days, and watch a large number of documentaries, to ensure he is up to date with developments in the subject area of CRM304, and he also peruses criminology databases for new scientific reports in the CRM304 subject area and access many of these to see if they are suitable for use in the course.

[164] Professor Prenzler said preparation for lectures which included in an example watching the movie In the Name of the Father and reading a chapter from his own textbook. It was put to him that this made him a statistical outlier which he rejected. Professor Prenzler also agreed that he had not gone to his HOS Professor Sanderson regarding his workload.

[165] Professor Prenzler agreed Professor Sanderson had some discretion to address workload however he said he wouldn't want to put Professor Sanderson in that position and he didn't think the system would really tolerate that or allow that. He agreed it was his decision not to go to Professor Sanderson.

[166] Associate Professor Harfield said the material he presents needs to be continuously reviewed and updated. He said developments across computer science, relevant laws, criminology and political and international affairs require him to be abreast of ongoing changes in the industry. He said the speed with which materials can become outdated in his course is rapid and the average lifespan of any given software or hardware entity is approximately 90 days.

[167] Associate Professor Harfield said material taught in week one of semester can be out of date by the end of the semester and the suggestion material produced in one year can be reused again in following years is grossly inaccurate. Associate Professor Hartfield said on 30 June 2021, he reviewed recent news stories and subject matter websites for cybersecurity updates to incorporate into semester 2 teaching. He said this took one hour and 10 minutes. He said he later reviewed the new downloaded material for teaching in semester 2, and he input the details into Endnote and this took one hour and 26 minutes doing this work. Associate Professor Hartfield gave other similar examples.

[168] Professor Lamont-Mills provided an example of a class she is currently delivering (PSY4020 Ethics and Professional Practice). The Professor said she checks the currency of last year's lecture slides, making sure that nothing significant has changed since last offer, reviews for errors, and makes any amendments as needed. Professor Lamont-Mills said she does this for each lecture and tutorial. Professor Lamont-Mills then looks at the student feedback and based on this feedback and her assessment of their understanding of content from last year, she makes any amendments as needed, and such amendments are typically needed.

[169] Professor Lamont-Mills said she then seeks feedback from colleagues and reviews the weekly readings to ensure they are still current and updates as required and does additional readings to inform the pedagogy and content of that lecture. Professor Lamont-Mills said for a 1.5-hour lecture this will normally take about a day of work, or 7.5 working hours, depending on the degree of change required.

[170] Professor Lamont-Mills said that when developing a course that has never been taught before, USQ allocates 200 hours that includes developing the assessments for the course, and in addition to this, academics also get the time to prepare for lectures and tutorials on the normal basis. Professor Lamont-Mills said to develop a new lecture, this would take about four hours for every one hour of delivery, be this face-to-face or recorded.

[171] In her final statement Professor Dole said her school tutorials are invariably delivered in real time, either face-to-face or by Zoom and she is not aware of any non-face time online tutorials. Professor Dole said in her school the course coordinator will design and develop tutorial plans, deliverables and outcomes so that it follows and supports the lecture plan and learning outcomes. The delivery must follow the set pattern from the course coordinator.

[172] Professor Dole said workload allocation is a balance of multiple things which are inter-related. Professor Dole said her comments about research and engagement time plays into why the allocation for updating lecture/tutorial times is fair and balanced.

[173] Professor Sanderson accepted he had not provided evidence of quantitative research conducted or considered to ascertain the time actually taken by academic staff in his school to perform various teaching-related duties or otherwise in developing the new workload model.

[174] Professor Sanderson was asked about the spreadsheet he referred to at paragraphs 14 and 15 of his first statement. He agreed that when information is entered in the spreadsheet it populates the fields for teaching and teaching related duties. He agreed this assists in monitoring the 312 hours for teaching hours, and the teaching-related hours as well including the whole 667 hours around teaching in that spreadsheet. Professor Sanderson said the starting point is the previous year's teaching and many staff are teaching the same thing they've done in the past.

[175] Professor Sanderson appeared to accept that if the union argument that assumptions in the workload model underestimate the time required to perform particular duties was correct, that flaw would be carried through in the spreadsheet. Professor Sanderson appeared to be unaware that the Agreement included a new requirement that the workload model accurately reflect the time taken to do the work.[72]

[176] Professor Sanderson agreed that when he referred to staffing being allocated between 208 and 312 hours, he was referring to full time staff and their teaching delivery hours, and 667 was total teaching hours. He explained that for a standard 40/40/20 academic, it would be the same for research, being 667 hours for research and about 333 hours for engagement when looking at a two-day teaching, two-day research and one day a week for engagement that results in a total annual cap of 1668 hours.

[177] It was put to the Professor Sanderson that the one hour of preparation time allocated for each hour of teaching time included preparation, course coordination, basic updates to course outlines and materials, staff consultation, student consultation, moderation and management of marks and grades. Professor Sanderson responded that it doesn't include course coordination which is a separate allocation. Professor Sanderson was referred to the Academic Workload guidelines[73] that said under the heading of Teaching Related Allocation that included reference to course coordination.

[178] Professor Sanderson agreed that the first half of that table sets out the time that's provided with respect to each hour of delivery for lectures, tutorials, clinical simulation laboratories and workshops. Professor Sanderson made the point that staff taking lectures and tutorials and workshops aren't necessarily course coordinators, so that's where course coordination comes up separately in teaching and teaching-related and that's where the multiplier is put in.

[179] Professor Sanderson accepted that if someone is taking a small course with less than 50 students, then the multiplier that's applied is one, resulting in no change to the number of hours allocated, and the only place for course coordination is in the teaching related allocation of one hour. Professor Sanderson accepted that is one hour is the only allocation whether the academic is the course coordinator or not.[74]

[180] Professor Sanderson appeared to accept that if a staff member is not the course coordinator, they would not be doing course coordination, or the moderation and management of marks and grades, or staff consultation which are generally the course coordinators responsibility. Professor Sanderson accepted that an academic who is not the course coordinator would have more time available for preparation and basic updates to course outlines and materials.

[181] Professor Sanderson said this is done over the whole year and staff will teach and coordinate three or four courses over the whole year of different sizes, and they have different experiences and different expertise with those courses, so it is difficult to take this out and look at very abstract aspects of it. Professor Sanderson said he was referring to the 667 hours for teaching, the 667 hours of research and the 333 of engagement and how that all works together across the year. Professor Sanderson gave the example of a staff member having up to 160 hours of marking, but that moves down, and said changes that happen across the workload allocation across the year take into account a range of factors.

[182] It was put to Professor Sanderson that the ability to reduce allocation by 100 hours was talking about major changes, or revisions. Professor Sanderson indicated the process started at the previous year's teaching and a discussion and a consultation with an individual staff member occurs about their teaching. It was put to Professor Sanderson that creating new materials is a much broader concept than major curriculum development or renewal and staff create new materials in courses all the time. Professor Sanderson responded to the effect that it was routine and a standard practice to update courses so that is not significant or a new renewal.

[183] The Professor accepted that he had not undertaken any qualitative research to discover how long staff in his school actually spend undertaking the duties identified as related activities, however stated that he continually consults and talk with his staff.

[184] Professor Sanderson said he used the discretion to provide up to 100 hours, for a new or major curriculum development and renewal in most years, and there has been a couple of staff that have introduced new courses this year, so that allocation would have been used for those staff. Professor Sanderson could not give examples of using this discretion for a small part of a course and added that few staff do 312 hours of teaching within the school, so that range of 208 and 312 is vitally important. He also said there is a range of marking, and not everyone does 160 hours per year and these things are taken into account.

[185] It was put to Professor Sanderson that the time allocation allowed for teaching related duties in the model is exactly half of the minimum time that's allowed for related duties for sessional staff. Professor Sanderson indicated he did not have that information.

[186] Professor Sanderson accepted lectures repeated from a previous year involved reviewing the lecture content to consider whether it needs updating. He said it may or may not require refreshing familiarity with key texts or audio-visual resources or re-recording materials. Professor Sanderson indicated some courses don't change, so it depends on the circumstances. He agreed it is necessary to update information about assessment dates or term dates, or if materials include assessment questions such as interactive quiz elements in lectures

[187] Professor Dole accepted that some staff feedback in the School of Education included a clearly expressed view that one hour per teaching hour is not reasonable to cover the time involved in the associated duties. Professor Dole also accepted that in the draft model that was circulated and the final model that was adopted, there was no change to an hour for an hour in relation to teaching-related duties attached to the contact hour.

[188] Professor Dole accepted she had not provided any evidence of any quantitative research conducted to ascertain the time actually taken by academic staff in her school to perform teaching-related duties. Professor Dole said she would find that problematic, because she doubted whether it would have any validity in terms of being able to give a general response.

[189] Professor Dole was asked whether she consulted other quantitative research about academic work hours and again she said no and explained the reason was her experience as a university academic of many years.

[190] Professor Dole was later asked what steps she had taken to ascertain that her view drawn from her experience resulted in an accurate reflection of the time taken to do the work. Professor Dole said she had trouble with that phrase and finds it problematic and now that it had been drawn to her attention that it wasn't in the last enterprise agreement, it's very problematic to her. Professor Dole gave evidence that she had no idea how to reflect the actual time it takes, could ever be determined to create a workload that does not atomise to the nineth degree, to ensure that there is no flexibility.[75]

[191] Professor Lowe accepted he had not provided evidence of quantitative research to ascertain how long it takes academic staff in his school to perform various teaching-related duties.[76] His evidence was to the effect that it was based on his experience and what academics report to him over the number of years that he has been HOS. It was put to Professor Lowe this was not empirical evidence and he accepted he cannot comment on that because when someone tells him something, whether they monitored it or estimated, that's their choice of words to him. He said he takes his staff at face value.

[192] Professor Lowe was asked about feedback he had received from Dr Masters, Dr Schomberg, Associate Professor Russell and Professor Harvey who are seeking changes to the allocation of teaching-related time associated with the teaching contact time. He said those individuals are part of one of his six disciplines in the school, the biomed discipline. Professor Lowe said he made it clear because they were doing different things, he would deal with each of them individually.

[193] Professor Lowe accepted that under the model if an academic is teaching in a subject, and they are not the course coordinator, then some of the things listed under 'teaching related' would not fall to that academic such as course coordination or moderation of marks.

[194] Professor Lowe agreed under this model if someone has zero teaching hours, they have zero teaching-related hours under the first line of the table. Professor Lowe said the model is in error.[77] Professor Lowe gave evidence to the effect that he has the discretion, when it's pointed out, to allocate additional hours including in teaching time. Professor Lowe gave evidence that this was a general discretion available to a HOS.[78]

University of the Sunshine Coast v National Tertiary Education Industry Union [2021] FWC 6490

At a glance

Court

Decision date

Source

Judgment (560 paragraphs)

University of the Sunshine Coast v National Tertiary Education Industry Union [2021] FWC 6490 (30 November 2021)

Parties

Legislation Cited (1)