Browser: Please use an updated version of an Internet browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari and
Opera. Using Internet explorer may cause problems with AAMS.
Login: If an AAMS user loses their password the main page has a link titled, Did you forget your
password? Clicking on this link and entering their email address will reset the password for that user.
Text Boxes: When adding comments or text to any text box on the AA MS site there are two options.
First do the original text in a word processing document. Then select the text in your word processing
document and copy the text. Using the “Paste from Word” function within the text box menu “Paste”
the copied text in to the insertion box. Then use the insert button to insert the text in to the AAMS text
box. The second option is to type directly into the text box. Cutting and pasting from Word documents
without using the “Paste from Word” function will cause the PDF generator to malfunction.
Formatting: Some characters seem to cause problems for the AAMS text box editor. Bullet points in a
word document do not render correctly. Add in the bullet points in after you have entered the text
correctly into the text box. In addition single quotation marks will generate errors in the PDF document.
PDF Printing: To determine whether or not the PDF will print correctly have a faculty member
responsible for writing each standard use the quote PDF preview” feature at the top of each standard.
Using this feature for a specific standard will help you identify whether or not the text for that standard
has been entered correctly and will print correctly using the PDF generator. If there is any problem the
PDF will produce an error message. This will limit your focus to correcting only the text boxes within that
standard. The easiest fix would be to highlight all text in the text box and cut and paste the text into a
word processing document. Edit the text in the word processing document and then copy all text and
inserted into the text box using the “Paste from Word” function.
Faculty profiles set up: Before asking the faculty members to complete their profiles your self-study
administrator should complete the departmental/divisional structure and branch/distance campus areas
under the self-study tab. The data entered by the administrator will then be available for each faculty
member to correctly populate the drop-down menus that corresponds with the department or branch
campus to which they are assigned.
Faculty profile common error: if a faculty profile is showing as in process rather than completed it is
likely that an additional “degree” field has been opened. Please check the degrees area for this faculty
member. The circles in the header bar for this section indicate the number of degree fields open. If there
are more circles than are necessary please remove the extra fields and the profile should be ready to
submit as completed.
Benchmarking reports: any customized benchmarking reports require a minimum of five a maximum of
15 comparator schools. There is no way to preselect a group of schools to use on all reports. Only
schools that completed the AACP surveys are available for comparison and every school has not
completed every survey every year. If your school did not participate in a survey for the year in question
you will be unable to run benchmarking reports on that survey data.
PDF Report Common Error: when the self-study is completed and the final PDF is generated it creates
one master document in PDF format and then links to a document within a folder titled, “uploads”. The
actual uploads are retained in their original format such as Word.doc or Excel.xls. This file is downloaded
in a zip folder. Prior to sending these files electronically to your site team unzip the folder using WinZip
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or an equivalent file archive software. Do not change or relocate any files within the “uploads” folder.
The blue underlined links in the PDF document will be looking to find the “uploads” folder and the
relative position of the document within that folder to connect the correct document with the correct
link. To be certain that your file structure is correct test the links in your PDF document to make sure
they serve up the correct file before sending the complete package to your site team.
PDF report printing error: if the “Master PDF” or “Short version PDF” printers will not generate a
complete PDF report it is likely that you have hidden characters embedded in some text boxes under at
least one of the standards. Revert back to the standards page and test the PDF printer just for that
standard to identify which standard has the inadvertent characters.
AAMS Process Tip: when creating a draft PDF to proof and edit your commentary on each standard
navigate to the standard and click on the “PDF preview” or “PDF with attachments preview” button. The
PDF preview will create a PDF document of all commentary and the “PDF with attachments preview”
will create a PDF with the underlying uploaded attachments.
Site Team Access: Site visit team members should be granted access to your self-study information to
be able to login to the AAMS site and review your self-study electronically. If they did not receive or
have misplaced their login credentials in order to access your site you may add them as an external
reviewer and grant them access to all the standards by going to the “Staff” tab and manually entering
the site team member. Site team members will not be able to see progress notes or comments that are
for internal use by the faculty only. Currently Lindsay Antikainen at ACPE is responsible for granting
access to ACPE site reviewers.
Self-Study Tab Duration: Once the self-study is completed and the ACPE report has been submitted all
information on the self-study tab will be “viewable” but not” editable.” Once the ACPE board has taken
formal action on the self-study the self-study tab for the current submission will be archived and a new
blank self-study tab will be generated for the school to use on their next pending self-study. Archived
self-studies will be available for viewing only in read-only format.
Note: it is unclear at this point whether schools are to use the AAM and system solely for full self studies
or for interim reports as well.
Documentation Issue: Several standards seem to request very similar documentation. The way the PDF
generator creates the links to the uploaded documents it is best at this time to upload the same
document under each standard to which it applies so that the PDF will link to the correct source
document.
File open Errors: because the Master PDF report creates a folder for all the uploaded documents the
documents are kept in their original file format. They are not converted to PDF. The site reviewer must
be able to open your original document using software on their personal computer to access the files.
Because site reviewers may have older versions of Microsoft Word or Excel it may be advisable to save
your upload documents in older format. Do not include documents or files from programs that are not
widely used by all potential site team members. This would include special accounting software, Visio,
graphing software or statistical analysis software. If you create a piece of documentation with specialty
software converted to PDF before uploading it to the AAMS system.
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AAMS Process Issue 1: Typically self-study chairman assigned self-study standards to subcommittees.
Most users report that preparing commentary is most efficient when it can be drafted and edited in a
Word document or document sharing program. Once the draft comments have been thoroughly
reviewed they can then be cut and pasted into the appropriate AAMS text box. Because of the size of
the text box it is difficult to use text box to originate commentary for more than 250 words.
AAMS Process Issue 2: Another critical reason for performing all of your editing in a word document
rather than in the text box is the ability to duplicate and archive your commentary in a readily
retrievable format. At least one user reported losing all of their work when they experienced a computer
problem while entering in the text box.
AAMS Process Issue 3: Once you begin the process of completing the text boxes it is recommended to
limit the writing to one individual per standard. Because of the open nature of the AAMS system it is
possible for multiple editors to overwrite each other’s work.
AAMS Process Issue 4: The Self-Study process requires discipline and organization. Since 95% of all work
is completed just before it is due, the use of frequent small milestones steps with short duration time
targets tends to keep the process moving more smoothly.
AAMS Process Issue 5: If you have performed all of the AACP surveys the survey data will be preloaded
in your Self Study Tab for each standard. The self-study team may find it helpful to develop common
language for each sub-committee to use to comment on the survey data, Such as, “ the results of this
survey item show that we are performing above the average for our schools.”
AAMS Timing Issue: If your self-study process has responded to all of the survey items that AACP prepopulated on to your self-study tab you do not want the Tab to be updated with new survey data after
your commentary has been written. The AACP typically releases the new survey results in October. You
can request that these new results not be added until after your site visit if it would ruin the accuracy of
your report or require significant re-write activity. You should be prepared however to discuss the
results of the new surveys with your site team if they show improvement or degradation of performance
from the previously published results.
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