The committee starts with that assumption, and adjusts upward if meritorious performance is documented, or downwards if either the quantity or quality of the individual's performance does not seem to match baseline expectations. Each primary reviewer spends 1-2 hours reviewing each packet and each committee member reviews approximately twelve portfolios. This is followed by a series of MRC meetings during which each portfolio is presented by the primary reviewers. After the primary reviewers' presentations, other members of the MRC cross check the materials with the scale anchors. Typically, the committee, as a group, spends approximately 45 minutes reviewing each portfolio.
Discussion continues for each area of effort until a consensus on a rating is met.
In addition to the enclosed rating scales, the committee considers the following information in their deliberations. A baseline of 44 weeks per year is used in deriving the appropriate expectation for percent time reported for each area. Also, in the area of Citizenship, the Intelligent Consensus report is most often the only piece of information the MRC has to review, so it is often the sole determinant of a person's score. For the area of Institutional Administration, the Intelligent Consensus report is generally one of several pieces of information provided by the faculty member to describe his or her performance, so it is only a part of what the MRC considers when assigning a rating. Finally, the merit rating for citizenship is calculated as for the other areas and added to the adjusted total score to obtain the final merit score.