New Faculty Annual Report Pilot Begins With 9 Departments

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:44:44 -0500

To:Digital Measures Pilot Departments and Deans
From:Jack Suess, Michael Dillon, Arnold Foelster
Date: February 26, 2013
Re:Update on Digital Measures Implementation

Digital Measures is a commercial software product that will replace the Faculty Annual Report (FAR) in Calendar year 2014. Based on input from the Deans, we have decided to try a pilot implementation in 2013. As part of this pilot, there are nine departments using Digital Measures in lieu of the current FAR. The nine departments are Information Systems, Geography and Environmental Systems, Gender and Women’s Studies, JCET, and the five departments in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS).

This memo will outline the process for the pilot departments. ALL OTHER DEPARTMENTS WILL USE THE ORIGINAL myUMBC FAR. The due date for both Digital Measures reports and the FAR will be April 10, 2013.

The main difference between Digital Measures and the FAR is that we are loading data regarding individuals into Digital Measures. As a result, we will load teaching data, grants data, and demographic information on file into the system. If you notice an error, you will be asked to let us know by submitting an RT ticket, so that we can track and correct the problem using the current system of record.

During the pilot implementation, faculty (as they have done in the FAR) will be expected to enter into Digital Measures their scholarly and creative accomplishments, service work, and other activities that are not tracked by our official systems.

For support, we hired FosterKnowledge consultants Susan Dawson, sdawson@umbc.edu and Marni Blachowitz, marnibl@umbc.edu. Susan developed training for the UMBC SA project. Based on early feedback with some faculty that we have worked with, we believe most faculty will find this web-based package straightforward to use; however if any faculty member feels they need additional support we will be glad to provide assistance.

We will modify the start screen on the existing FAR so that faculty participating in the pilot implementation will be alerted to use the link specified for Digital Measures instead of the older FAR.

What follows is the timeline for the rollout this spring:

1. Week of March 4 -- we will have the system available for faculty to sign in and review basic demographic data. There will be some basic orientation videos available on how to sign in and interact with the software.

1. Week of March 11 - we will have all teaching data available.

2. During the month of March we will have support available to answer any questions and work with faculty one-on-one should they need help.

3. In early May we will issue a survey to faculty asking for feedback and ways that we can improve the process for next year.

Let me close by thanking all of the pilot departments. Through your assistance and cooperation we can make the transition to a new instrument much better for all faculty.