September 26, 1997

KPI costs add up

The University has no choice but to spend between $42,000 and $52,000 per year collecting data for performance indicators, says Doug Owram, vice-president (academic).

In answer to a question raised by the AAS:UA in June, Owram told General Faculties Council (GFC) Monday, that Maclean's, Alberta Education and Career Development (AECD) and the U of A's own internal measures all cost money.

Gathering data for the Macleans' survey costs an estimated $17,000 to $20,000 per year. Does Macleans pay for that data? No, says Owram. And where other universities have tried to pull out of the survey, the negative publicity has quickly changed their minds. "Whether we like it or not, we're stuck with Macleans."

AECD gave the University a grant of $85,000 to develop the system for KPI collection, but development costs are estimated at between $86,000 and $90,000. Ongoing costs are estimated at $15,000 to $20,000.

Internal performance measures cost least, between $10,000 and $12,000 for development and roughly $1,000 ongoing expenses.

Reuben Kaufman, AAS:UA past president, said manpower costs must be added to these figures. He estimates those would equal the costs in Owram's report. "We are still dealing in a cost of somewhere around $100,000 for data which many have said is questionable at best. "Nobody disagrees with the concept," he says, "the issue is cost for value."

Kaufman noted that the annual budget for University Teaching Services is only $120,000 per year. He says that should be compared to the cost of KPI data collection and this year's $60,000 budgeted cost for administration of GFC's Teaching Evaluation Policy.

"We know the value of that body [UTS]," he says. "We're spending a significant per cent of our budget to improve teaching on stuff that's in fact quite peripheral to it."

President Rod Fraser noted the University would have put $15 to $16 million in jeopardy had it not invested in gathering KPI data for AECD.

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