All academic departments are surveyed periodically on a schedule designed by a University statistician to provide a representative sample of University activity as a whole. Whilst individual weeks may appear unrepresentative in themselves, in combination with the others they provide the comprehensive picture required.

If you’re included in the survey you’ll be contacted a few days before the start of a survey week, at the start of the week itself and again immediately after it ends.

The five weeks of the current two year cycle are as follows:

The Diary Exercise involves all academic staff completing a simple web-based form to allocate the percentage of time worked for specified recording weeks to teaching, research and other activities. The weeks are selected with the help of a statistician.

• When you follow the diary link you’ll be taken to your form for the open recording week (you might need to provide your normal university login and password).
• Activities are listed on the form and you should record the percentage of time spent on each in the corresponding box (there’s no need to record zeros – just leave blank the activities you don’t spend time on). You’ll have completed your diary when your entries total 100%. The progress bar at the bottom of the form keeps a running total of entries and you can see a full description of each activity by clicking on the information buttons.
• Even if you only worked part of the week, your entries should total 100%. So, if you were on leave for two days but spent three on undergraduate teaching, you should allocate 100% to undergraduate teaching.
• If you didn’t work at all in the recording week (for instance you were on leave or off sick) you should tick the ‘I did not work this week’ button at the top of the form. Ticking this box means you’ll not be able to make any other entries.
• By clicking ‘SAVE’ at the bottom of the form you can save your entries at any time but your diary won’t be classed as complete until the progress bar shows 100% (the form won’t let you save with the total at more than 100%).
• If you leave comments or queries in the box provided, the diary team will get back in touch where appropriate. If you’d rather contact us direct, you can e-mail diarysupport@ncl.ac.uk or telephone 85690 or 88215.

You should split your time between the three basic activities Teaching, Research and Other and then into sub categories within each of those. If you’re in doubt as to the most appropriate category please don’t hesitate to contact the diary team at diarysupport@ncl.ac.uk.

Why do I need to complete the Diary Exercises?

The Diary Exercise is a key component of the Transparent Approach to Costing TRAC, which has resulted in significant additional research funding for the sector annually. All UK universities are required to report annually to OfS the costs associated with Teaching, Research and Other activities. The methodology for doing this is set out in (TRAC) guidance which includes the requirements for the diary. Essentially, spend on salaries must be allocated to Teaching, Research and Other based on the analysis of how members of academic staff utilise their time and the diary is the prescribed method for doing so.

A robust Diary Exercise is essential in satisfying external TRAC audit requirements and ensuring confidence in TRAC results. Without it, there are risks to the level of public funding and of the imposition of further external accountability requirements. Failure to achieve minimum response rates for each academic department could result in us no longer being able to apply our own indirect and estates rates to research proposals - a set of reduced rates would be imposed on us and research income would suffer.

How do I differentiate between ‘Professional development and scholarship’ and ‘Institution own funded research’?

The key factor here is the expectation of the work producing a research output, this would be research (own funded if not linked to an external sponsor).

Maintenance and advancement of personal skills (without a research output) should be recorded under 'professional development and scholarship'.

 For further details please see Activity Descriptions.

Why am I asked about the source of my research funding?

TRAC requires that Research costs are sub-categorised between funder types. You can find out which category your research funder is allocated to by downloading the list of external research funders. If your funder is not on the list please contact diarysupport@ncl.ac.uk.

Will my line manager be informed of my responses?

No. Individual responses to the diary are confidential and cannot be seen by your line manager or anyone outside the diary team.

What if I'm on holiday or out of the office during my allocated diary week?

If you are away for the whole week, simply tick the 'I did not work this week' box. This covers annual leave, maternity/parental leave, sickness absence, jury service or some other form of absence.

If you are out of office for part of the week, e.g. two days annual leave, please do not tick the 'I did not work this week' box. Instead allocate your time based on the days you worked during the week. So if the three days you worked were spent teaching undergraduates, mark 100% against undergraduate teaching.

How can I tell when I've completed a week’s diary?

Once you save entries totalling 100% or if you have checked the 'I did not work this week' box a 'Complete' message will be displayed. Until the end of the recording week, you'll be able to return to the form and edit your allocations.

Can I swap my allocated Diary Exercise weeks to more convenient ones?

No. The schedule of survey weeks has been designed by a statistician to ensure a representative sample across all academic departments.

How can I tell which activity my work comes under?

When you click on an activity box in the diary form, a full description will be shown. Alternatively you can view the full list of activities at Activity Descriptions.

Who has to complete diaries?

We are required to survey all academic staff.

If I work part-time or under a certain amount of hours a week am I excluded from the Diary Exercise?

No. All academic staff should complete the Time Allocation Survey, regardless of the hours they are employed.

For example, if you work part time with an FTE of 0.5 and spent the whole week teaching undergraduates, you should allocate 100% to ‘Undergraduate Students’.

What if I'm on sabbatical when I'm meant to complete a diary?

If you are going to be on sabbatical for the whole year you can be excluded so please contact diarysupport@ncl.ac.uk.

What if I forget I need to complete a diary?

We won’t let you forget. You'll receive an e-mail before the start of each of your diary weeks, reminding you that it's coming up. You’ll then get another at the start of the week itself and another on the Monday after the week ends. If you've still forgotten and your school hasn't reached the minimum response rate, we'll continue to contact you until it does.

What if I've completed my diary but then realise that I've made a mistake?

Simply go back into the form, select edit and make your amendments.

Do I only record time worked when I am actually on campus?

No. You should record all work regardless of where you carried it out.

Where should I allocate travel time?

Time spent working whilst travelling should be classed as part of your working week and allocated to the activity on which you are working. .

What if I'm attending a conference?

If the conference you're attending is directly connected with a specific research project then the time should be allocated to the project funder's research category. If it doesn’t the time should be allocated to Professional Development/Scholarship.

One of the requirements for the Diary Exercise is that a satisfactory response rate is achieved. To ensure this, we require at least 75% of eligible staff in each academic unit to complete their form in each survey week. Executive Board has authorised the scheduling of additional survey weeks for any departments failing to achieve that rate.

In order to verify results, validation checks are run after each survey week. As well as a department level review by the head of unit, more detailed analysis of individual surveys is carried out in Finance by the diary team. This is kept behind the scenes as far as possible but may require some direct contact.

All personal details collected and held by University systems must comply with General Data Protection Regulations and the Diary Exercise system has been designed and is administered to do so. It can be noted in addition that; data is collected solely to satisfy the TRAC requirement for a robust Diary Exercise; it is not collected to determine individual effort and/or performance and will not form part of any performance appraisals/reviews; it is confidential and, once validated, is consolidated anonymously; only anonymised, summarised data is used to generate management information and; data is retained for the minimum time necessary to satisfy TRAC audit requirements.

The diary team can be contacted through diarysupport@ncl.ac.uk or on extension 85690 and will be happy to provide further information, explanations and clarifications and any help you might need.

The notes section of the survey form itself allows you to provide any additional details or explanations you wish on individual entries and can certainly also be used for comments and feedback. The TRAC team will review any notes as a matter of course so be assured that any you leave will be reviewed and answered where appropriate. Like the rest of the survey, your entries will be treated in full confidence.

In addition, the form at diary feedback is available for you to record your views and comments on your experience of the survey.