December 7, 2018
Dear Deans, Department Heads, and Academic Leaders,
I’m writing to let you know of an exciting project the Office of the Provost is working on that will help streamline faculty review processes and ease the burden of faculty members around information gathering when they come up for review in their units, beginning in 2020.
The project, called Faculty Insights, will result in a sophisticated online system that enhances our ability to capture the wide range of research and creative activities that our faculty do. The primary purpose of the system will be to manage the faculty review process university-wide – including promotion, tenure, and post-tenure review – more efficiently and effectively. Introducing a Faculty Insights system at UO will enhance our ability to streamline faculty personnel processes and make the achievements and instructional activities of faculty in all the schools and colleges more visible, within the campus community and to the broader public. The system will also support the local metrics process and the production of annual unit-level research reports.
Currently, the information-gathering and work-flow mechanisms we depend on for faculty evaluation are antiquated, labor intensive, and don’t take full advantage of technology. The new system will allow for input and timely updates on faculty work to be included in the review process, thus making the scholarship, creative practices, performances, and other activities more accessible to those conducting reviews. It will also speed up the review process, and save faculty and staff time.
Bringing this type of system to our campus requires thoughtful discussion, sustained input from many stakeholders, and careful implementation. We want an outcome that will be easy to use and sensitive to the full spectrum of research and creative activities that are valued locally within the diverse fields that UO faculty represent. To identify and implement such a system is a huge endeavor, and the Office of the Provost has put together two committees that include a range of stakeholders in order to make project implementation successful.
- The steering committee (see below for member list) is led by Ellen Herman, vice provost for academic affairs and professor of history, who is overseeing the Faculty Insights project. This oversight committee first met in November and is charged with setting direction, making decisions about the overall scope, and providing oversight of this transformative project as it progresses.
- The technical review committee (see below for member list) is led by Paul Taylor, enterprise IT project manager for Information Services, who is the project manager for Faculty Insights. This group is responsible for refining the project’s technical requirements, evaluating and selecting potential vendors, and making recommendations to the steering committee.
The committees are in the midst of gathering information and getting feedback from schools, colleges, and operational units across campus. Heather Dean, IT business analyst from Information Services, will be reaching out to deans and unit heads in the coming weeks to gather further information about the varied considerations important at the unit level. Tentative plans call for a vendor to be selected roughly around February 2019 to April 2019, with system implementation taking place by December 2019. The system is scheduled to be operational in January 2020.
The Office of the Provost will continue to update faculty and staff about the project to share the progress, gather feedback from all stakeholders, and inform the campus community. If you have any questions, please contact Yvonne Braun, associate vice provost for academic affairs, at ybraun@uoregon.edu.
Sincerely,
Jayanth R. Banavar
Provost and Senior Vice President
Steering Committee
The members on the Steering Committee are:
- Ellen Herman, Committee Chair, Professor of History; Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Office of the Provost
- Bruce Blonigen, Dean for Faculty and Operations, College of Arts and Sciences
- Chris Chávez, Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication
- Erica Daley, Associate Dean of Finance and Operations, School of Law
- Noreen Hogan, Associate CIO for Applications and Middleware, Information Services
- Pauline Miller, Executive Assistant, College of Arts and Sciences
- Sonia Potter, Director, HR Operations, Human Resources
- Sonja Runberg, Associate Director of Operation, Office of the Provost
- Chris Sinclair, Associate Professor of Math; President, United Academics
- Elizabeth Skowron, Professor of Counseling Psychology, College of Education; Vice President and President Elect, UO Senate
Technical Review Committee
The members on the Technical Review Committee are:
- Paul Taylor, Committee Chair, Enterprise IT Project Manager, Information Services; Project Manager, Faculty Insights Project
- Heather Dean, IT Business Analyst, Information Services
- Loring Hummel, Team Lead Web Services, CASIT
- Sabrina Madison-Cannon, Dean, School of Music and Dance
- Cortney McIntyre-Trent, Project Manager, Lundquist College of Business
- Nancy Nieraeth, Director, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources
- Sonia Potter, Director, HR Operations, Human Resources
- Anna Shamble, Senior Project Manager, Office of the Provost
- Travis Shea, Team Lead, Business Intelligence, Information Services
- Roxi Thoren, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, College of Design
- Janet Woodruff-Borden, Dean, Graduate School