Implementation

In January 2013, a project team and review committee was formed to evaluate the use of electronic portfolio software options to help manage faculty activities and accomplishments. The committee was charged with evaluating, identifying, and implementing a new product (software), process, and procedures for an electronic faculty data repository, providing faculty with a single location to store, maintain, and manage their professional work, while allowing administrators the ability to evaluate, report against, and benchmark their faculty’s activities. The data collected and stored in this repository will be used for publicizing the accomplishments of faculty, departmental and college annual reports, biennial reviews, performance evaluation, accreditation reporting and other reporting as needed by the University and colleges.

This charge is in concert with the Goal Six Initiative Two’s objective regarding reporting of faculty accomplishments.

The review committee consisted of faculty representatives from across all colleges, including Faculty Senate, Academic Affairs, and the Office of Information Technology. A Request for Proposal (RFP) was sent out in April 2013 to solicit proposals from software vendors. Two vendors were evaluated and asked to provide on-campus presentations to members of the review committee. After careful evaluation and research a contract was signed for the purchase of a three-year agreement for the product Activity Insight, provided by Digital Measures. This has been rebranded and will now be referred to as the Faculty Activity Database (FAD). The implementation and support team, led by Susan Powers, Associate VP Academic Affairs, was formed and consists of a dedicated project manager and faculty fellow, OIT personnel, and faculty/college representatives.

During the Fall 2013 semester, the implementation team worked to configure the Faculty Activity Database specifically to fit the needs of ISU and worked hard to automatically feed as much data into the system to help alleviate the task of faculty needing to manually enter all activities and accomplishments. Data that will be automatically loaded into the Faculty Activity Database consists of teaching schedules, faculty contact and prole information, rank and status, academic advising, and university/college committees. The implementation team also worked with Digital Measures to migrate faculty data from the previous use of the tool, before 2010.
 

Major Milestones:

• Fall 2013 – Configuration and data loads into the Faculty Activity Database
• January 15-17, 2014 - Once the configuration and data loads were successfully entered into the Faculty Activity Database, faculty representatives from across all colleges were asked to beta test the system and input activities. Feedback from this group and report testing was important in making revisions and assessing ease of use and the accuracy of data.
• March 2014 – Go-live date to entire campus
• March – April 2014 – Campus-wide faculty training sessions begin, along with training sessions for chairs, administrative support, and department-specific training
• May 2014 - Training sessions for deans and FAD college admins for assistance using FAD for their college annual report. All department chairs and deans are expected to enter major accomplishments into FAD for their college and/or department by May 15.  FAD OUTPUT: The Board of Trustees asked that all departments build and report advisory board committees by May 1.
• Summer 2014 training schedule = Training for administrative accounts and college/department-specific training
• Fall 2014 – Faculty training will resume and open sessions will be available for campus throughout the semester. Targeting training for administrators on reporting capabilities will also be covered.
• May 2015 - 2nd year for college annual reports to be generated via FAD
• Fall 2015 - First year for biennial review to be conducted using FAD

Communications

November 2013 Letter to Faculty

February 2014 Letter to Faculty

March 2014 Academic Affairs Newsletter