establishing criteria for measuring faculty members' workload

purpose: this article presents the results of study aimed at devising comprehensive, standard and objective criteria for measuring faculty members' workload. material & method: the indicators for measuring faculty members' workload were collected through a comprehensive review of the literature, a survey of the available documents and methods for measuring workload in the country, and faculty members. in all, 81 indicators were identified which fell under 5 categories: instruction; research; consultancy and academic services; administrative and managerial services; and personal and professional development. a questionnaire using these 81 indicators was designed and randomly mailed 10 120 faculty members of iran university of medical sciences and health services working in six faculties. they were asked to rate each question using a seven scale response, from complete disagreement to complete agreement. 98 faculty members responded, that is, 15% of all the faculty members of the university. all the indicators were ranked according to the scores received in the questionnaires. results: 81 indicators were identified and weighted. the faculty members suggested that 25 more indicators needed to be added to the list. the category of instruction, with 32 indicators, was regarded as the most important category. teaching a new course, preparation time for class and number of students in the class, were considered to be as important as the other instructional indicators. the weighting given to each indicator was influenced by the specialty of the rater. faculty members believe the workload data should be reported by themselves preferably at the end of every academic year or semester. discussion and conclusion: the criteria and the guidelines suggested in this study might be useful for evaluation, accreditation, ranking, promotion, tenure decisions, policy making and improving the quality of education in medical universities. each department or faculty needs to have their own specific indicators weighted by their faculty members. this provides consistency and stability in workload data collection. the indicators for professional development also need to be considered in measuring faculty workload.