Applications should be submitted electronically to Yvonne Tevis. Direct questions to Yvonne Tevis or (510)
987-0638.
Project Title:
MyInfoVault (MIV)
Submitter’s Name,
Title and Contact
Information:
Maureen Stanton
Vice Provost, Academic Affairs
Professor, Evolution & Ecology
mstanton@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-2072
Project Leaders:
Kelly Anders, Director of Academic Personnel & Systems, Academic Affairs, University of
California, Davis
Prasant Mohapatra
Interim Vice Provost, Information &
Educational Technology
Professor, Computer Science
pmohapatra@ucdavis.edu
(530) 754-8380
Mark Thonen, Project Manager, Information & Educational Technology, University of
California, Davis
Team Members:
Crystal Tobias and Michelle Wallen (Academic Affairs)
Stephen Paulsen, Viji Kumar, Rick Hendricks, Mary Northup, Craig Gilmore, Nick Barbulesco,
Mark Dell’Erba (Information and Educational Technology)
Project Description:
The academic appointment and advancement review process is complex, confidential, labor-intensive, and prone
to errors. MyInfoVault (MIV) is a robust web-based (https://myinfovault.ucdavis.edu) data repository into which
academic employees or their delegates enter their scholarly/creative achievements, teaching and mentorship
record, and service activities. This information is used primarily to create electronic dossiers for academic
appointment and advancement actions, but can also be used to create curriculum vitae and biosketches for
National Institutes of Health grant applications using wizards built into MIV. With regards to academic reviews, the
dossier is created at the candidate’s location and routed electronically for all levels of review, including the
department, school/college dean’s office(s), and to the Vice Provost of Academic Affairs. Dossiers may also be
routed to central review committees in the Academic Senate Office from either the dean’s office or the Vice
Provost’s office.
Dossier reviewers are assigned by staff at all levels of review. Once the period of review is opened and reviewers
are assigned, the reviewers may log into MIV from anywhere at any time to review the electronic dossiers at their
convenience. This electronic process is a far cry from the former staff- and paper-intensive process, whereby
candidates would often do multiple hard copy drafts of their dossiers (sometimes over 100 pages) before they
were finalized, utilizing significant amounts of paper, printer resources, and staff time to produce, edit and
reproduce based on changes.
This program has also been shared from an informational/demonstration standpoint with the UC System-wide
Academic Personnel Directors, and an earlier version of the code was provided to UC San Diego. We have also held
informational meetings about MIV with the nation-wide Kuali Foundation, Iowa State University, State University
of New York, University of Washington, Harvard University, University of Arizona, and multiple UC campuses.
Additional features of the program include, but are not limited to, the following:
User Administration
 A new user is added simply by typing in their campus e-mail address and assigning their proper role and
department(s). Roles are also easily edited/changed and deactivated/reactivated.
 Staff roles include: Department Helper, Department Administrator, School/College Administrator, Senate
Administrator, and MIV Administrator.
o Joint assignments are easily assigned to a staff member’s role, which was required when the
campus implemented departmental clustering and shared services centers.


Academic roles include: Appointee (new hire), Candidate (Academic employee), Department Chair, Dean,
Vice Provost, Provost, and Chancellor. Both administrative assignments and the Candidate role can be held
by a single individual (e.g. a faculty member who is also a department chair). Any academic role can be
given an additional role as a Reviewer.
o Joint appointments are easily assigned to a candidate’s account.
The ability to create/manage groups of reviewers, so that it takes one keystroke to assign a large group of
reviewers to a dossier rather than having to assign reviewers individually.
Data Entry/Data Uses
 Continuous update of the data is allowed.
 Data are used for:
o Academic review dossiers.
o Customized curriculum vitae via a CV wizard in MIV.
o Biosketches for National Institutes of Health grant applications using a Biosketch wizard in MIV.
o Decision Support functions that allow queries of publication data entered in MIV.
 Users can download publication citations from PubMed or EndNote, which provides a link to the actual
article, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for manual data entry and hard copies of publications.
 Using Preferences, formatting (bold, underline, and italics) can be applied to specific data elements in the
dossier, such as author’s name, all journal titles, specific terminology or patterns, etc.
 A special character palette is provided that includes various symbols, accent marks such as tildes, umlauts,
and circumflexes, and the Greek alphabet, many of which are used in scientific literature.
 PDF uploads are available for specific documents in the file that are used only for that particular dossier
(such as candidate’s statements, position descriptions, letters obtained by the department, committee
recommendations, etc.)
Routing/workflow
 A snapshot of the dossier is retained at each location as the dossier moves through the workflow, reducing
the need to keep a digital or paper copy of what was submitted to the next location.
 Electronic signatures are obtained in MIV.
o Candidates sign a disclosure certificate electronically prior to the dossier leaving the department
location.
o Deans and the Vice Provost make their decisions electronically in the program, including electronic
signatures and comments.
o Signature validation and security is robust and the system will indicate if a signature is no longer
valid
 The dossier is easily returned to previous locations for corrections – a process in the paper world that
could take weeks now can take minutes.
 Dossiers can be cancelled if the candidate decides not to go forward with their action or an appointee
decides at an early date that they do not wish to join the campus.
 A post-audit/appeal location is available at the end of the workflow that puts dossiers out of the active
workflow so that a candidate can prepare a new action or appeal the previous action.
 The ability to archive dossiers with role-specific archive views in MIV. For example, a candidate’s archive is
limited to their own personal dossiers and those dossiers include redacted extramural letters and redacted
ad hoc/shadow committee comments. Other archive views have broader scope and also include
redacted/non-redacted versions of appropriate documents.
 As part of the archiving process, the dossier is automatically sent to the official personnel file in an
Electronic Document Management System in the Office of Academic Affairs.
Additional User Tools
 “How Do I Get Started” is a detailed user guide with links to pertinent Academic Personnel policies and
checklists.
 User Reports:
o List of users by department, school/college, or campus wide
o List of department chairs or deans by department, school/college or campus wide

Report functionality that provides information about the dossiers in progress, which allows staff to plan
and manage their workload:
o Actions at a specific location with an open review period (which means reviewers are still able to
review that action and the action cannot move forward).
o Actions awaiting a signed disclosure certificate from a candidate.
o Actions awaiting information from the joint appointment department(s).
o Actions released to the Dean or the Vice Provost without a final decision.
o Open actions that are complete at a specific location that are ready to forward to the next location.
Technology utilized in the project:
Academic personnel actions are complex, highly individual, and extremely sensitive. Applying a technology
solution involves multiple technologies and approaches, as well as close collaboration between the technical team
and the administrative team. Additionally, timing on actions can be critical, requiring a flexible system and
responsive support structure to address changes or issues while meeting faculty expectation and policy timelines.
The MIV team has applied a variety of technologies to allow rapid development, system stability, low cost and
inherent flexibility.
Technologies:
 Development and Code Management
o Git/Bit-Bucket
o Bamboo
o Maven
o Apache/Tomcat
o Java and Java Servlets
o JSP
o XML and XSLT
o Spring/Web Flow
o MySQL databases
o Server Virtualization
o HTML5
o CSS
o Java Script - jQuery
o AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and
XML)
o JSON (Javascript Object Notation)


Project Management and QA
o JUnit
o Selenium/TestNG
o Confluence Wikis
o Jira/ Customized Jira Agile Board
o Javadoc
User Support:
o ServiceNow
Agile/Scrum Methodology: The MIV team has embraced the Agile/Scrum methodology. Each system enhancement
is prioritized, broken down into discrete, buildable increments, and then scoped into 3-week development sprints.
This method provides greater focus, faster user feedback, and greater collaboration between the Academic Affairs
business representatives and the Information & Educational Technology development team.
Timeframe of Implementation:
MIV began as a pilot project in 2004-05, with three Schools/Colleges volunteering to participate (School of
Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and College of Biological Science). MIV was initially developed for merit
and promotion actions, which constitutes the greatest number of academic actions. However, it was not until the
2012-2013 academic year that all merit and promotion actions at the Assistant and Associate ranks were required
to be prepared in MIV. This soft roll out allowed the campus to utilize MIV program resources to have student
employees enter candidate data to support departments as they transitioned to the program. Additionally, the MIV
team continues to develop and deploy new program enhancements. In the 2012-2013 academic year, eighteen
additional advancement actions were released to the campus, and in February 2014, a long-awaited enhancement
was deployed that allowed new appointments for individuals not associated with the campus to be processed in
the program.
Future Enhancements: Over the next two academic years, the IET team will develop and implement the following
enhancements to the program:

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




Provost and Chancellor recommendation, final decision and signature functionalities
API to allow MIV to collect data from other systems on campus, such as DESII (teaching), ACE (Automatic
Course Evaluations), Kuali Coeus (grant proposals)
Dual Dossier Workflow, to allow merits and appraisals, or merits/promotions and career equity reviews, to
be processed simultaneously
On-line Document Storage for supporting documents
On-line extramural letter component
Voting Module
Smaller, fine-tuning enhancements that are identified by MIV users and the MIV team
Relevant URLs:
http://myinfovault.ucdavis.edu (production site for users only)
http://academicaffairs.ucdavis.edu/tools/miv-information/index.html
Objective Customer Satisfaction Data:
Effective with the 2012-2013 actions, all merit and promotion actions at the Assistant and Associate ranks were
required to be submitted in MIV. Furthermore, 2012-2013 was the last cycle in which paper dossiers were
accepted at the Full ranks. Due to the phased mandate, all academic titles are required to use MIV. The percentage
of merit and promotion actions completed using paper, rather than MIV, is illustrated below. As can be seen, the
percent of actions completed via paper has dramatically decreased over the past three years.
Figure 1: Percentage of
merit and promotion
actions completed entirely
using paper.
Redelegated = Dean makes
final decision
Non-Redelegated = Vice
Provost, Provost, or
Chancellor makes final
decision
Testimonials:
“In my 18 years at UC Davis, I have seen the rollout of a number of new systems that were meant to
streamline processes. Unfortunately many of these systems have been clunky and actually made things more
difficult. MIV, on the other hand, is a success and should be held as the standard for which all current and
future UC systems be developed. It is intuitive, and proven to be a time and paper saver. Further, the
modules have all been developed with the end user in mind, are well tested prior to rollout, and are
continually improved to meet ongoing needs. This approach has resulted in happier administrative staff,
happier faculty, and a noticeable increase in efficiency.”
Ernie Hoftyzer – Management Services Officer (MSO), Institute for Transportation Studies
“Since Myinfovault (MIV) has replaced the hardcopy trail of submitting merits and promotions, the
differences I’ve noticed are many and I might add all for the better. Simply put, MIV is a smart way to work.
MIV has significantly reduced the amount of copying a department has to do and I expect copying will soon
be extinct; there is a reduction in prompting the faculty member to submit materials; there is no such thing
as a “lost dossier;” since all of the dossiers are created online they are always accessible. There is no need to
use campus mail or personally walk a dossier to the department for a correction; you simply click a button
and it is back at the department level. Once the correction is made the department clicks and it is back at the
college level. The ease of review for the reviewing committees, personnel analyst, and the dean is not to be
underestimated. This process saves everyone a huge amount of time and I have often heard from FPC chairs
how easy the system is to use. I revere the talented people that created this system and I am constantly
impressed by their willingness to add or create features that continue to keep MIV relevant, accurate,
effective and efficient.”
Sally V. DiVecchia – Personnel Analyst, Dean's Office, College of Biological Sciences
“Perhaps the biggest issue with personnel actions is efficiency, and this is the primary advantage of MIV.
Information can easily be added and once there it can easily be accessed electronically by others without
printing. MIV makes file preparation and review easy and minimizes time investment once the file is set-up.
Time is money and time is productivity. Saving everyone time is incredibly valuable given that personnel
actions are such a big part of life at UC Davis.”
Peter Wainwright – Executive Associate Dean, College of Biological Sciences
“The development of the My Info Vault system has streamlined processes for both faculty and staff in our
unit. It has become a useful tool for faculty who need information for various grant and fellowship
applications, as well as a simplified way to prepare to go up for merits and promotions. The amount of time
this system has saved staff members is incredible. The recent enhancement to be able to enter appointment
actions for someone who is not yet an academic employee is a great example of the ongoing enrichment this
system provides. Not only has this enhancement made the initial appointment process much faster, but it will
save a tremendous amount of time and effort when the new employee goes up for their first action because
all of the information will already be there. While there are several great enhancements coming in the
future, the two we are most excited about are the online storage of publication/creative activities and the
ability for other campus systems to share information with MIV. These would allow us to have the entire
merit/promotion packet online and further streamline the process for both faculty and staff during the
review process. Having everything accessible online would make it easier for our faculty to review the actions
in a much more timely manner. The MIV team has done an incredible job with the system thus far, while
continuing to provide valuable training throughout the entire process. We look forward to their ongoing
efforts to enhance the system in the future.”
Jessica Lewis – Academic Personnel Specialist, Department of Economics
Kathy Miner – Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Department of Economics
Ann Stevens – Professor and Department Chair, Department of Economics