Management by Objectives (MBO)

The Department of Media and Instructional Technology is governed by the MBO approach. Each faculty member establishes objectives each year to strive to meet based on their personal expectations and the University and College requirements. This approach is implemented as follows:

  1. In March, each faculty member prepares an Annual Plan that lists her/his proposed outcomes for the next year in the areas of teaching, research, and service.
  2. A meeting is held with the Department Chair where the proposed outcomes are discussed.  The Chair provides feedback based on the individual faculty member’s professional needs and the vision and outcomes of the Department, College, and University.
  3. The Department Chair and the faculty member sign the Annual Plan.
  4. At the end of the evaluation year, the faculty members prepare an Annual Report and meet with the academic administrator for their annual evaluations. Based on the comparison of Annual Plans and Annual Reports, the department chair prepares Evaluation Reports. These reports reflect an assessment of each faculty members teaching, research, and service performance level and associated scores.
  5. A mid-year review is held at the start of the fall semester where the faculty member reassesses her/his yearly objectives and progress to date. The Chair provides feedback on the faculty member’s accomplishments and recommendations as needed.
  6. The Department Chair makes merit raise recommendations to the Dean based on the Evaluation Reports. These are found in the chair’s office.

Personnel Evaluation Procedures

Teaching

A variety of measures and procedures are used to document the effectiveness of faculty teaching every year. This is a complex task that involves a number of assessment procedures. These include the following:

  1. University Student Evaluations are reviewed. Both the quantitative and qualitative data are read by the Department Chair.
  2. University Distance Learning Evaluations are reviewed by the Chair. The quantitative and qualitative data are assessed.
  3. The Department Chair observes each faculty teach one class each semester during the year. The faculty member selects the class, day, and time and personally invites the chair to observe the class. If the class is a distance learning class the chair will review the online course. 
  4. Course syllabi are reviewed by the Department Chair each semester for their completeness and adherence to College and Department standards.
  5. The Department Chair reviews the faculty member’s summaries of course evaluations for each class taught during the year where student feedback on course strengths, weaknesses (if any) and recommendations for change is provided. This includes both face-to-face, distance, and mixed classes.
  6. The faculty members' use of media and instructional technology is assessed by the Department Chair each year, as well as modeling effective technology practices during class.
  7. Effective planning, delivery of instruction, and course evaluation and revision are all important aspects in teaching assessment. All four areas are evaluated each year by the chair to ensure the faculty member is keeping each course up-to-date.

Research and Professional Development and Service

In the areas of research and professional development and service each faculty member documents their accomplishments for the year. This could include:

  1. Copies of articles and other published materials (i.e., books, chapters of books)
  2. Copies of research submitted for review
  3. Copies of papers presented during the year
  4. Copies of technology produced to enhance instruction (i.e. videotapes, CD’s, podcasts, vodcasts, Camtasia tutorials, impaticized PowerPoint presentations)
  5. Copies of research grant proposals
  6. A list of the types of service offered to professional groups on and off campus
  7. A list of the professional development activities attended during the year (i.e., name of session, location)
  8. A list of research published during the year

Both quality and quantity are assessed in the above areas.

Merit Pay Guidelines

Timeline

During the spring semester, each faculty member in the department submits his/her annual report to the Department Chair describing their contributions in teaching, professional development and service during the year. The period of this report is from April 1st to March 31st. In preparing this report  faculty should only include those accomplishments during this time frame.

The annual reports are due around March 15th. Any faculty who fails to submit an annual report by this deadline will not be recommended for a salary increase.

Merit Review Documents

The annual report will consist of the documents found as templates in the College of Education Faculty Handbook and the departmental forms for compiling numeric summaries in teaching, professional growth and development, and service.

Faculty must use the outline provided in the Faculty Handbook to generate a brief narrative summary that contains three major sub-sections; 1) teaching, 2) professional activities, and 3) service.

The remaining documents to be prepared are:

  1. Report of Instruction (found in the College of Education Handbook),
  2. Course Evaluation Summary,
  3. Media Faculty Assessments.
    1. The Report of Instruction and Course Evaluation Summary should include all courses taught during the period of the report.
  4. Updated curriculum vita with activities for the period of time under consideration highlighted in boldface type
  5. Copy of faculty member’s most recent annual goals statement
    1. After each goal statement progress made should be indicated

Merit Determination Process

The Chair will review the reports and meet with faculty during March to discuss the faculty member’s contributions during the time under consideration.

Prior to each review meeting, the Department Chair will rate each faculty member on a 40 point continuum in each of the areas of teaching, professional development and service. Prior to his/ her meeting each faculty member will determine a weight for each of the three areas that reflects the faculty member’s allocation of time and effort across the areas and rate him/ herself on this same 40 point continuum in each area. The Chair and faculty member will then compare and discuss their respective ratings. Each party may change his or her ratings as a result of the discussion but the ratings must be finalized prior to the end of the review meeting.

The Chair and the faculty member’s rating for each area will be averaged and then adjusted by the weighting factor. These weighted averages will then be summed to produce a merit rating (in range of 0-40) for each faculty member. This merit rating will guide the Department Chair in determining the final merit rating for each faculty member.

Note: For tenure track faculty, the allocation of effort for teaching must range between 33-50%, for full time instructor, 50-80%. For tenure track faculty, the minimum allocation of effort for professional development is 25%.

Allocation of Funds for Merit Raises

The MIT Department will be allocated a “pool” of funds to be used for merit-based salary increased. This pool is generated as a percentage of the total of all the salaries of departmental faculty. Based on discussions with departmental faculty, this pool will be allocated by faculty performance. 

All salary increases must be merit-based. Thus, in the judgment of the Department Chair, any faculty member who is not making meritorious contributions to the Department, College, or University, will not be recommended for a proportionately smaller increase.