Overview & Importance
The effort reporting processes at GW take place several times a year. It is a required process whereby everyone whose effort is being charged in any way to externally sponsored projects is asked to certify the fraction of their GW-remunerated time they have expended on that project in the reporting period.
It is essential that labor certification is accurate: once you sign off on your effort report, it is used as the basis to bill the sponsor for your effort. If you sign off on an inaccurate effort report, GW will invoice your grant sponsor incorrectly. If such inaccuracy is later discovered, GW has to go back to the sponsor and alter the invoicing. In addition to the large administrative effort this entails, and the audit risk it poses, this can damage relationships with the sponsor making it harder for you and other PIs to gain funding from that source in the future. Thus, it is absolutely essential that you examine your effort report very carefully and ensure that the effort distribution given there accurately reflects the way you have spent your time.
Interpreting an Effort Report
Please note that the percentages given in your effort report refer to the percentage of your total time supported by GW via your institutional base salary, not to a concrete number of hours, a few examples could be:
- Someone working 3 days per week who spends 1.5 days (or 12 hours) on project A and 1.5 days (12 hours) on project B is accurately reported as 50% Project A, and 50% Project B.
- Someone working 60 hours per week, 30 hours on Project A, and 30 hours on Project B would also be accurately reported as 50% Project A, and 50% Project B.
- Someone working 40 hours per week, spending 30 hours of their time on Project A, and 10 hours of their time on Project B, would be accurately reported as 75% Project A and 25% Project B.
- Someone working 50 hours a week with an administrative stipend which supplies 20% of their regular income, and who then splits their non-administrative time equally between Project A and Project B would be recorded as 20% institutional support, 40% Project A, and 40% Project B.
- Someone teaching in the first summer session would receive compensation of 1/11th of their 9-month salary in June (0.82 months). Assuming they charged no other effort to grants and received no administrative stipends, for June their effort would be reported as 100% institutional support. In July and August, assuming they spent 0.5 months and 0.25 months on Project A, respectively, and did not have any other GW source of summer income, in both July and August their effort would be reported as 100% Project A. For their total summer effort, however, their effort report would record 52% institutional support and 48% Project A as that is the division of the total charged effort across the three summer months.
It is important to understand that the effort report does not correspond directly to the absolute number of hours you work, but instead to the fraction of your effort remunerated via GW which is invested in efforts related to a given project.
Adjusting Effort in an Inaccurate Report
In the new electronic effort reporting system, it appears as though you can directly request changes if you see mistakes in your effort report, but please do not make use of this function at this time. If you need any effort changes to be made before you can certify your report, or if you are at all confused, or unclear about your report, please reach out to the SRA responsible for post-award support of your department or program.
Technical Assistance for Effort Reporting
Effort reporting support can be found in the following places:
- A video demonstration of effort certification.
- An overview of effort reporting for certifiers, with screenshots of the various stages.
- A full user guide of the new effort certification process.
If you have any questions, reach out to the SRA responsible for your portfolio.
University Policies Relevant to Effort Reporting
Reviewing Effort in PI Dashboard
Please note that you do not have to wait until the Effort Report season to check that the effort being charged to your grants is accurate. There is a function in PI dashboard which allows you to produce reports on the effort of all of those whose effort is charged to any of your grants.
- PI Dashboard access
- PI Dashboard Labor Effort User Guide
Please note, that you have to be on campus, or logged into the VPN in order to access PI dashboard. If you have any problems achieving this, reach out to the local school / IT POD technical support staff.
