Development of a Faculty Information Tool to:

Collect academic human resource (AHR) data– data not currently collected electronically

Replace the current Administrator’s Assistant for reporting AHR data from the new Enterprise Business System Data warehouse and other data systems

Background regarding development of a “Faculty Information Tool”

  • The NSF-funded ADVANCE project had, as one of its goals, to improve the clarity, transparency and objectivity of academic human resource (AHR) management processes including faculty hiring, performance evaluation and advancement.
  • It was anticipated that the new Enterprise Business Systems Project would capture critical AHR data in ways that would help achieve these goals

In reviewing the EBSP reports and data systems, there was concern that certain AHR transactional data and forms/reports would be out of scope in the initial EBSP system implementations, e.g..

-Detailed faculty effort data for annual performance review

-Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure materials

-Academic Hiring Report Form –to include information about startup packages, space assigned, other data related to the position offer.

As a result, a proposal was developed tocreate a Faculty Information Tool –a web based tool that would collect AHR data and present reports of data critical for AHR processes and for unit and college level planning. This approach is intended to (a) bring this capability to end users sooner than could be achieved in the EBSP implementation scope, and (b) provide an understanding of data needs, sources, structures and workflow that would inform and streamline potential later efforts to integrate these functions more tightly into EBSP systems. In this proposal, some data would be submitted by Faculty and chairs/directors as part of hiring, annual review, and reappointment/promotion processes. The proposal included restructuring the existing Administrator’s Assistant tool to allow for the current reporting functions of this tool but from the new data warehouse.

This proposal was presented to the Executive Committee of the Enterprise Business Systems Project and was approved. A major part of the funding to develop this tool would come from the NSF grant.

The Faculty Information Tool is expected to capture data maintained in the EBSP systems, serve as a portal for capturing additional data that are not currently in scope of the EBSP systems, and generate unique reports related to academic personnel. The unique data to be collected and reports to be generated will be refined and prioritized by anadvisory group to include representatives from across the university and from different academic personnel groups. The data models of two systems, Digital Measures used in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the Faculty Activity Information System, developed and used in the College of Engineering, will be models in the design.

A development team is being constituted to include Marsh Hestenes (has worked on aspects of EBSP), Rochele Cotter (also working on aspects of the EBSP data warehouse structure), Mary Black from the Office of Planning and Budgets, Jennifer Sweet (data analyst for the ADVANCE project), Becky Hallisy (on the EBSP HR team), and Don Ries, Director of Enterprise Information Systems. Additional IT staff will be hired as the data requirements and project scope are defined.

The development team will work with the advisory group to define the data elements to be collected using the FIT portal and the structure of the reporting systems. Issues related to the validation of the data anddata security will be addressed. The system will also be presented to the University Committee on Faculty Affairs for input and advice regarding the tool’s impact on personnel policies.

The initial work plan for development of the Faculty Information Tool has been drafted and is being refined. This work plan provides a time line for completion of four phases of the project and is very tight. There is a commitment to complete the replication of the Administrators Assistant by January 1, 2011 (Phase IB). The data elements contained in other systems that will be collected as a part of the replication of the current Administrator’s Assistant has been outlined. Completion of this phase requires that the structure of the EBSP Data warehouse is completed – and that will occur this summer.

Phase IA, the development of the FIT logical data model and physical data model design and application, requires defining the unique data set to be collected by the FIT portal and data to be collected from other data sets (e.g. CLIFMS, FAMIS). The data analysis is to be completed by the first of April and requires the constitution of the advisory group who will help with this. Phase 1A propose to complete by June 1, 2010.

Phase 1C is to designing the physical data model of FIT for elements not maintained in the EBSP data warehouse or FIT

We propose August 31, 2011 as the target date for completion of this project.