Accountability Frequently Asked Questions

What type of involvement should I report?

  • Undergraduate research experiences refers to student research (“research” as defined by your discipline to include scholarship, creative work, community-based research and applied research and design) closely guided by faculty, staff, or graduate students. The research may be done as part of the work of a course, team, faculty research group, or independently with guidance. The measure is intended to capture the number of students engaged in work that is considered to enhance student learning and contribute new ideas, perspectives, designs, methods, data, scholarship, or creative works to a discipline or body of work.
  • Public service involvement refers to undergraduate participation in UW-sponsored service learning, volunteer experiences, or public service internships sustained for at least one quarter. The measure is intended to capture the number of students involved in these activities as part of their undergraduate learning, either through a course, an academic department, or an official UW program or connection.
  • Internships refers to opportunities for students to explore and develop their career goals through supervised practical training that is sustained for at least one quarter. The measure is intended to capture the number of students who participate in an internship as part of their undergraduate learning that is primarily aimed at helping them to develop skills, knowledge and experience that prepare them for work and careers. Students may be earning academic credit or being paid for an internship experience connected to their UW undergraduate experience.

There are undergraduates and graduates in the same class. Can I report that course?

Yes. Our system will automatically remove graduate students when the final statistics are tallied. As long as the undergraduates in the class are engaged in university-sponsored public service, internships, or research, you can report that course.

My department collaborates with another department on a program/project. Who should report that involvement?

Both departments should report the students separately so that both departments are credited with the involvement. Our system will automatically eliminate the duplicate entries for that student when calculating the overall statistics for the entire UW.

What happens if a student is reported more than once per quarter?

Our system will only count one activity in each category per student per quarter. If a student is reported as having multiple activities in a certain quarter, our system will only count the activity with the higher number of hours when calculating UW-wide statistics. Additionally, when calculating department-specific aggregates, the system uses the same duplicate processing at a department level.

I am having trouble uploading the spreadsheet for individual involvement.

  • Please make sure to input below columns in the template for each row/record:
    • Student number or UW Net ID (UW email address without the @u extension)
    • Project title (either a research or service project title or theme, or host organization name)
    • Type of activity (Enter the words exactly “Undergraduate Research” or “Public Service” or “Internship” without quote marks)
    • Faculty UW Net ID (UW email address without the @u extension, e.g., “jdecosmo”)
    • Faculty Name
    • Hours per week for Summer 2023
    • Hours per week for Autumn 2023
    • Hours per week for Winter 2024
    • Hours per week for Spring 2024
  • Check if input valid student number or UW Net ID.
  • Check if there are invalid characters or format in the cell such as single quotes or double quotes, especially for the first column (student number).

Additional questions should be sent to acctblty@uw.edu.