A Web-based Faculty Activity

Reporting and Evaluation System

EDUCAUSE SERC 2007
Navigating the Rapids of Campus Technology

Veena Mantena
MK Smith
Jie Tang
Copyright The University of Mississippi 2007. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be
shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is
given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

Background
About the University
Need for Online Faculty Activity Report
The idea of moving to online faculty activity reports was
in discussion for several years.
The paper process required faculty members to provide
information already available to the university.
There were severe limitations to accessing information
embedded in paper reports.

Project Timeline
Phase I - Development
October 2005 to March 2006

Phase II - Revisions
June to December 2006

Faculty Evaluations
January to March 2007

Requirements
What goes into a faculty
activity report?
What type of research and
creative activities are
reported?
What information is
required for institutional
reporting purposes?

Sources
SAP Campus Management
Courses, advisees, dissertations, standing committees

Research and Creative Activities

Entered by faculty into system
Unique activities for art, music, theater arts

Self-Reported Information
Clinical activities, service, professional development,
plans for the coming year, narrative, etc.

Faculty Activity Report Sections

1. TEACHING
System-generated and self-reported

2. OTHER SERVICES TO
STUDENTS
System-generated and self-reported

3. RESEARCH
System-generated and self-reported

4. PERFORMING ARTS
System-generated and self-reported

5. VISUAL ARTS
System-generated and self-reported

6. LIBRARIANSHIP
Self-reported

7. CLINICAL ACTIVITIES
Self-reported

8. SERVICE
System-generated and self-reported

9. PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT AND
ACTIVITIES
System-generated* and self-reported

10. PLANS FOR THE COMING

YEAR
Self-reported

11. NARRATIVE
Self-reported
*Added in Phase II

Fields customized for

different activity types.

Are you sure prompt when

deleting activity; e-mail goes
to all participants.

Note there are fewer options

when user is not a participant.

Phase I - User Experience

Focus group during
development
On-screen instructions
and definitions
Optional training sessions
for faculty
Special sessions for
music, art, theatre arts
On demand help through the Faculty Technology
Development Center

Phase I - User Issues

One format where there had been many
Too many clicks to enter information
Too many dates, time-consuming to enter
Too many e-mails
HTML markup tags hard to use
Some didnt like sharing activities
Confusion about refreshing activities in report
Wanted to be able to attach files

Phase I - Results
Application went live on
March 6, 2006
623 reports were created
for reporting year 2006
IT compiled a spreadsheet
of 130+ suggestions for
enhancements

Technology Utilized
SAP XI
JAVA, XML Beans
Form designed using SAP SFP transaction
On submit, XML only sent to SAP
Customer functions to get and post PDF
XML stored in BDS
Customer table to store form meta-data

Faculty Member

Web Application
Server
XML Faculty Activity
Report

Service,
Plans,
Goals, etc.

Roll Forward
Last Years Report

Process
Integrator
(XI)
Office of
Research and
Sponsored
Programs
Grants Data

Courses
Taught

Students
Advised

Theses /
Dissertations

Faculty Activity
Report
Metadata

SAP
Campus Management / HR
Creative and
Research
Activities

University
Org
Structure

Committees
(Customer
Object)

Employee
Data

Phase II - Changes
Functionality
Roll forward
Attachment
Duplicate activity
Streamline date entry
Ability to add individual
notes
Customized roles and
statuses

Layout
Design
Grants
Integration between ORSP
and SAP
Faculty Evaluations

Faculty Evaluations - Overview

Uses new interactive form technology from Adobe and SAP
Form can be completed offline and submitted later.
Form is customized depending on the characteristics of the
person being evaluated.
For example, forms for non-tenured tenure-track faculty members
include a meeting date field that is not present otherwise.

Certain fields are enabled/disabled for input depending on the

view.
For example, the text boxes that describe teaching, research and
service are view-only except in Chair Edit/Create mode.

Other Notes
The FTDC has a tool that can reset a form.
Late evaluations report sends e-mail reminders to
chairs.
Unacknowledged forms are automatically moved
to a complete status.
Evaluations will be archived in UMs digital
imaging.

Faculty Evaluations - Benefits

Streamline the process
Minimize or eliminate the need to submit paper
through administrative channels
Provide long-term digital archiving of evaluation
results
Prepare the University for demonstrating to SACS
that we have a systematic process for evaluating
faculty

Phase II - User Experience

Positive response to the new design and many
elements incorporated from suggestions
Some issues still exist
Primary one being the need to refresh activityrelated information in the report

Use of Faculty Evaluations very smooth

Phase II - Results
Phase II activity report went
live December 25, 2006.
870 activity reports were
created for reporting year
2007.
Faculty evaluations went live
March 31, 2007.
629 evaluations were created
for reporting year 2007.

Phase III?
After last years experience, users knew we
were responsive to suggestions, so they
continued to offer those.
A spreadsheet of these has been compiled and
considered.
A solution for the refresh issue seems key.

Questions?
Veena Mantena
vmantena@olemiss.edu

M.K. Smith
mksmith5@olemiss.edu

Jie Tang
jietang@olemiss.edu