Remote Work for Academic Appointees

Scope

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Policy Statement

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Reason for Policy

Indiana University’s excellence in its missions of education, research, and engagement is founded on the strength of our academic community. The university is committed to continuing its tradition as a community of scholars that attracts and retains an excellent faculty and fostering a culture that promotes a scholarly community on all IU campuses and across the arc of the careers of its faculty and librarians, including support for mentoring, active engagement with colleagues and students, and opportunities for professional development.

The physical presence of faculty and librarians advances an academic community, encourages vital campus life, makes use of extensive physical infrastructure inclusive of lab-based equipment for groundbreaking clinical training and developments, and supports a culture of opportunity, inclusion, and equity; all which undergirds institutional loyalty.

The post-pandemic period offers opportunities to explore flexible working conditions, novel ways of using technology to accomplish our academic missions, gains in increasing job satisfaction and productivity, and more effective ways for instruction. In exploring these opportunities, we must protect what has served us well for the last two centuries: student experiences, faculty presence and engagement, intellectual community of scholars, and our impact and interaction in our local communities.

As we move forward to a near-normal campus life in fall 2021, the following principles should guide decisions about remote academic work:

1. Indiana University’s fundamental character is an in-person institution and an engaged academic community for teaching, learning, service, research, creative activity, and librarianship anchored by full-time faculty members and librarians who are physically present on campus regularly.
2. Full-time academic appointees are expected to participate fully in the life of the intellectual community of the campus and to fulfill assigned teaching, research, clinical, librarianship, and service obligations. Substantial remote work by full-time academic appointees is only rarely permitted, and must be expressly approved by the appointee’s Chancellor or Provost or, if delegated, dean or program director. Even when remote work is permitted, the academic appointee must be able to perform all aspects of their responsibilities with integrity, excellence, responsiveness, and timeliness. Requests for remote work as an accommodation for a disability will be addressed through the university’s accommodations request process: https://iuoie-fireform.eas.iu.edu/online/form/index/Accomform.
3. In making teaching and other assignments, including location and mode of instruction, department chairs, deans, and other academic leaders should advance the above principles. Likewise, in deciding about instruction, research, service, creative activity, or librarianship, individual academic appointees should be mindful of and support the continuing vitality of IU’s academic community.
4. This policy is not intended to affect academic travel and absences from campus for normal research, professional service, or off-campus instructional activities.

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Procedures

1. DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY
   1. Senior Executive Officers (the president, chancellors, and provost, and the executive vice president for university clinical affairs/dean of the School of Medicine) make the overall decision as to whether and to what extent remote work is an option for their respective campuses or programs. Senior Executive Officers provide implementation guidance to their campus chief official for academic affairs, deans and program directors.
   2. A Senior Executive Officer may delegate the authority to implement remote work arrangements to the campus chief official for academic affairs, dean(s), or program director(s).
   3. Senior Executive Officers (or delegates) may begin analysis, decision-making, and where remote work is authorized, documentation as of the effective date of this policy; however, this process does not alter or supersede the university’s restart guidance.
   4. Only a Senior Executive Officer, in consultation with the university counsel, is authorized to approve out-of-country remote work, and only if it is mission-critical. If approved, the unit must process an eDoc to ensure that the remote work arrangement will be implemented in compliance with the applicable tax and labor laws, etc.
   5. Only a Senior Executive Officer, or that official’s delegate, in consultation with the Office of the Vice President and University Counsel and the Office of the University Controller, is authorized to approve out-of-state remote work. If approved, the unit must process an eDoc to ensure that the remote work arrangement will be implemented in compliance with the applicable tax and labor laws, etc.
   6. A remote work arrangement is an exception to the university’s expectation that faculty and librarians will be regularly available on campus, as described in the Reason for the Policy, above. Remote work is not a right of an academic appointment and will not be available to all appointees, either across the board or within a School or program (“unit”); rather, a remote work arrangement is at the discretion of the appointee’s Senior Executive Officer or that official’s designee.
   7. Assignment of an academic appointee to a remote work arrangement does not set a precedent that the appointee will always be remote. Academic appointees cannot premise a request for a remote work assignment on a comparison of how other units implement remote work arrangements or on a remote assignment of a colleague within their own unit.
   8. The university retains the authority to modify or discontinue a remote work arrangement.
   9. Requests for remote work as an accommodation for a disability will be addressed through the university’s accommodations request process: 
      https://iuoie-fireform.eas.iu.edu/online/form/index/Accomform
2. CONSIDERATIONS FOR DECISION-MAKERS
   Before the implementation of a remote work arrangement requested by an academic appointee, the decision-maker must consider the following, as well as any aspects of remote work that are unique to the relevant School or program:
   1. Suitability of Position for Remote Work: The decision-maker must determine that academic appointee can fully meet the instructional duties, research, service, creative activities, or librarianship required by the appointment. The needs of students and colleagues for ready access to an academic appointee, in formal and informal settings, are paramount considerations. Remote work is not a substitute for child or other dependent care, and a remote academic appointee must make or maintain childcare, adult care, or similar personal arrangements to enable them to fully perform their responsibilities.
   2. Equipment: The unit must decide what university equipment will be provided to the remote academic appointee within these parameters:  
      1. Only equipment necessary to enable an academic appointee (whose remote work has been approved) to fully perform their duties will be provided by the university. Typically, this will include only a laptop computer and a standard monitor. IU will not fully replicate space and equipment at on-campus and off-campus work spaces.
      2. Units and remote appointees should utilize the following resources to identify and provide the most appropriate IT equipment to meet university standards for the particular remote work arrangement (Standardized Computer Configurations at IU) and to ensure that the remote appointee is informed about the broadband and other resources needed to work from off-campus locations.  (Keep Working During Prolonged Campus or Building Closures and Tips for Accessing the Internet from Home for Remote Work or Learning. 
      3. Remote academic appointees should use only IU-owned IT devices that have been reviewed by departmental IT support staff for compliance with IT policies and standards (including Security of Information Technology Resources IT-12 and IT-12.1 Mobile Device Security Standard) and have an Endpoint Management tool installed.  If IU-owned IT devices are not available, users must exclusively use remote access tools such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (IUanyware) or Remote Desktop, etc. Keep Working provides guidance on these topics.
      4. Remote academic appointees are responsible for ensuring that their data plan is adequate to support remote work and for any cost incurred for that data plan.  Unless required by the state law in which the remote appointee works, IU will not provide or reimburse a phone (landline or cell) or data plan.
      5. Specialized or high-value equipment may not be appropriate for a remote work arrangement.
      6. Basic office supplies will be provided by IU as approved by the unit fiscal officer or designee.
      7. Units must comply with capital asset inventory requirements for any equipment that is removed from the campus location.FIN-ACC-140, Off-Premise Capital Equipment Control. 
      8. The unit must plan for servicing, repair, and replacement of university-owned equipment.
      9. Unit leaders will make arrangements for the return of equipment upon the separation of a remote academic appointee. 
   3. Space: The unit must identify appropriate on-campus space within these parameters:
      1. Remote academic appointees will not be assigned private offices on campus. Instead, hoteling or designated co-working workspaces will be provided, if feasible.
      2. A unit’s deployment of a significant number of remote academic appointees may be reflected in reduced on-campus space utilization. Units will be required to report the percentage of their appointees who are working remotely to their Senior Executive Officer and the Office of Capital Planning and Facilities regularly for space-planning purposes.
   4. Expense Reimbursement: The unit must identify what, if any, expenses will be reimbursed to the remote academic appointee within these parameters:
      1. Mileage to or from campus will not be reimbursed, unless required by the state law where the appointee works.
      2. All other travel reimbursement will be addressed in accordance with FIN-TRV-01, Travel.
      3. IU will not reimburse and units may not provide a subsidy for a remote appointee’s utilities, phone (cell or land line), or data plans, except in accordance with the applicable state law for remote appointees who work outside the state of Indiana.
      4. IU will not reimburse and units may not provide a subsidy for a remote appointee’s parking expenses. See campus-specific parking operations websites for options.
3. DOCUMENTATION
   Remote work arrangements must be memorialized with a document that includes the following aspects of each remote work arrangement:  
   1. Expectations as to the availability of academic appointees to students (for example, office hours) and colleagues (for example, committee and faculty meetings).
   2. Identification with specificity the equipment that IU will provide.
   3. Management of institutional data: To ensure the availability and security of institutional data, IU-approved storage solutions should be used as appropriate for the relevant data classification.  When hard copy material cannot be kept on campus, those materials should be stored in a location that has acceptable access control measures, such as a locked cabinet or locked office.  NOTE:  A locked car is not considered a secured location.
   4. The provisions of ACA-47 and ACA-51 apply to remote academic appointees.
   5. IU will not reimburse or provide a subsidy for a remote appointee’s utilities, broadband service, or parking except as required by the applicable state law for remote academic appointees who work outside the state of Indiana.
   6. A remote work arrangement is an exception to the university’s expectation that faculty and librarians will be regularly available on campus. The shared governance processes within each unit or school is in the best position to more clearly and precisely define regular availability on campus. Remote work is not a right of an academic appointment, and the university retains the authority to modify or terminate any remote work arrangement.
   7. Units that had academic appointees working remotely prior to March 2020 should create or update documentation that reflects the requirements in this policy.
   8. Units may use a standard university-wide form or develop their own standard form to memorialize these aspects of the remote work arrangement.
4. PERIODIC REVIEW OF REMOTE WORK ARRANGEMENTS
   1. Remote work arrangements must be reviewed each academic year.
   2. Any modifications to a remote work arrangement must be documented.
   3. The unit has the discretion to terminate the remote work assignment and reassign the academic appointee to work on-campus in the upcoming academic term.
   4. A remote academic appointee may request to return to on-campus work for the upcoming academic term; however, a unit may not be able to immediately provide a private office based on the unit’s available on-campus space.
5. POLICY REVIEW
   This policy will be assessed during its first year of operation, and may be revised or rescinded; however, it will remain in effect until revised or rescinded.

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Definitions

Academic Appointee(s) or Appointee(s):  Includes faculty and librarians.

Off-Campus:  A place (such as an academic appointee’s home) that is not located  on property owned or controlled by Indiana University, or that is not the appointee’s regularly assigned work location.

 Remote Work:  Performing assigned duties entirely remotely from an academic appointee’s campus or other designated workplace, including instruction, office hours, meetings, and other duties that would ordinarily be carried out in person, for a semester or longer. Remote work does not include occasional off-campus work, such as a temporary assignment (less than 90 days in a calendar year), nor to sabbatical and other leaves of absence.

Senior Executive Officer(s):  The president, a chancellor, or the provost.

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History

This policy was adopted on June 4, 2021.

On February 10, 2023, the Responsible University Office and Administrator were updated to reflect organizational restructuring.

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