DECIPHERING THE CODE:
ENTERING FACULTY DATA FROM
NON-STANDARD CURRICULUM
VITAE AND RESUMES
Mauricia Blackwell, PHR
Manager, Faculty Data Research
American Public University System
Faculty Human Resources
Linda Mannering
Senior Principal Analyst and Project Manager
University of Kansas
Professional Record Online (PRO)
Office of Institutional Research and Planning
Agenda
• Our Schools / Backgrounds
• End Goals
• Project Structure and Communications
• Detailed Issues / Approaches
• Faculty Response
• Future Direction
University of Kansas
• 1100 faculty + 400 research faculty equivalents
• 9 Schools + College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Comprehensive and complete load of CV’s
• 24 months into the project (Dec, 2013)
• 85% loaded, 75% faculty trained/using
PRO: Professional Record Online
American Public University System
• 2100+ faculty
• 6 Schools
• 2-5 years of activity data (dependent on accreditation needs)
• 100% complete for all active faculty
• Historically collected activity data in HRIS system
• Very limited!!
End Goals of Implementing Activity InsightTM
American Public University System
• University wide access to information
• HLC Accreditation reporting
standards
• Several Program Specific reporting
standards
• Stakeholders - assume ownership
and implement additional phases
University of Kansas
• Paperless – professional-looking
documents/CVs
• Leverage - expand
• Faculty collaborations/research
initiatives
• Partnerships
• Engaged Scholarship
• Productivity Metrics
Gain Confidence of Faculty
• Turn around top-notch CVs
• Connect with individual faculty during training
• Encourage questions, emails, feedback
• Helpdesk (phone & email) service
• Keep reminding them: it’s a work in progress
Project Structure and Communications
• Implementation
• Data Entry
• Data Feeds and Extracts
• Dean and Department interactions
Implementation
First we established:
• Short term and long term goals
• Faculty requirements
• Report needs
• Required data for reports
Implementation
Second we determined:
• Data that we had in a format that could be imported
• Internal Faculty Development
• Internal Service Activities
• Data that would sync from other systems
• Demographic Information
• Education / Professional Certifications
• Courses Taught / Student Information
• Data that had to be manually entered
• Faculty activities only captured on Vitae and Resumes
Data Entry
• Standardizing that which is not standard….
• Began formulating generalized rules about which activities
belonged on which screens
• Created initial Data Entry guide – skeleton
• Weekly one on one meetings with Data entry staff (3 part-
time temporary employees, 2 of which were remote) to
review questions and concerns (KU had a team of 4-5 full
and 6 part-time)
Data Entry (cont’d)
• From those meetings patterns of common areas of
concern / confusion began to emerge
• Weekly email updates to group based on learning’s for the
week; updated Data Entry Guide
• Guide became ‘holy grail’ for the data entry rules, and
those exceptions to those rules.
• Weekly QA check – 100% QA for first few weeks (APUS);
continued 100% QA for KU
• email team members with corrections; logic
Data Entry (cont’d)
• Over time the process became more stable and less
questions / concerns surfaced
• The sheer difference in the level of detail and the various
disciplines account for great variation among faculty
submitted CVs.
Standardizing the non-standard was not a perfect science
for us, but more of an evolution of learning and becoming
more comfortable with the information provided by faculty
Data Feeds and Extracts
Patents
(KU)
Internal
Grants
(limited)
Courses
(KU)
Faculty
Appt Info
Activity
Insight TM
Warehouse
feed
Publications
Library: open access
feed (KU)
Webpage
feed
Deans’ Interactions
Introductory
Meeting
Discuss desired outcomes, key
staff to be involved
Create timeline discuss
Timelines &
Communication communication that has been
effective with other units
Charter document
/ Action Plan
agreed to by Dean
Dean
communicates
with unit heads
and faculty that
process has
begun
Unit/Department Interactions
Introductory
Meeting
Review process and outcomes
with team leads, quick demo
CV’s provided
Data Entry team
analysis/problem identification
Interprets/provides
direction
Data Entry team loads
CVs
Unit heads signsoff on
CVs/attends
training with
faculty
Detailed Issues / Approaches
• Sticky-wickets
• Dates
• Missing Information
• Appropriate Names
• Name Changes
• Complete Information for Promotion / Tenure purposes
• Citations / Publications / Presentations
• Long Narrative to Short concise database entry
• User Interface
• Sticky-wickets Solutions
Dates
Reporting: keying full CVs results in many
undated entries
User Interface Issue: Undated items rise to the
top in summary of items display – many will
never be retro-dated.
User Interface Issue: Date of Publication –faculty
will miss 10-15% of the time when at the bottom
of the ‘intellectual contributions’ screen
Service activities with intermittent dates
User Interface Issue: Date limitations for
entry/printing. Publications may cross years
(1996-97). Faculty dislike the (printed) universal
date style and ask for a variety of date print
options (masks).
Must address undated entries throughout logic in reports
Sort capability in Summary of Items display needed
Moved dates to the top of screen so they are difficult to
miss. Monitor
Made rules about repeating similar entries with different
dates.
Start and End Date fields offer 3 defaults (x-present), a
range (x-x), or single date (x). Manipulate print blocks,
citation style. Multiple years for publications do not print –
use most recent year. Added as many variations for
month/season combinations as were encountered.
Appropriate Names
Unique entry of
publications
Faculty change names
Faculty vary use of full
names or initials
Faculty omit names with
citations / may care
about author order (or
not)
Faculty do not participate in ‘linking’ of publications (at KU)
Faculty insist upon name used at the time of publication. Scan for name changes and
confirm by email – faculty have provided date spans for different names. No names on
CV? Do sample searches on Internet, etc.
Follow names/abbreviations provided in the original CV
When faculty don’t list their own names, they often list co-authors in a (with…) clause,
and author order is unclear. Generally, we list the faculty name first – and they must edit
/ re-order. Some disciplines don’t care about name order. In humanities CVs, faculty
seldom give their own name (few multi-authored publications.) Rules – vary by
discipline, school, and individual. In the sciences, social sciences, education and the
professional schools (not law,) first author (often) implies most effort. Editors nearly
always listed alphabetically.
Appropriate Names (cont’d)
Extensive lists of authors
NSF/NIH Biosketch format
In sciences, all authors are to be listed. Exception: faculty publishing in
collaboration groups (1,000+members), where we may opt to use
name of the collaboration group +KU author name. Varies by discipline.
Note: some online bibliographic tools truncate the list of authors, some
return a full list (e.g., EndNote)
APA style – abbreviated first, middle name; full last name.
Punctuation
Key ‘.’ with initials in the data entry for consistent citation formatting
User Interface Issue:
(Re)arranging authors is burdensome if more than 4 names.
Associate with name field: student
contributors/faculty collaborators
Flag. Useful for collaboration analysis. Important to faculty who include
‘*’ and other symbols in citations to denote student level or student
contributions.
Field/Flag. Faculty collaborators home institution required on NSF/NIH
form
How to approach a new vitae…
Oftentimes, activities are intermingled on a vitae
• Professional, University, Public Service
• Academic/Scholarly vs. Service
• Awards, Honors, Grants
• Publications
This requires data entry workers to determine the appropriate activity type
before beginning any data entry work! Additionally, the following must be
considered:
1. Difficult publication citations
2. Oddball information (or what appears to be)
3. Assigning ‘Peer-Reviewed’ status to publications/presentations
varies by discipline, within disciplines
How to approach a new vitae…(cont’d)
Activity Roles (ex. chair-section head, adjudicator, judge, external
evaluator, external review, reviewer)
5.
University vs. College vs. Department Service
6.
Activity while a Graduate Student
7.
Extensive formatting rules
8.
Googling for Information
9.
Work History
10. Decide on capitalization style before loading/keying
11. Directed Student Learning Headings - ferret out what they mean
12. Not sure where something goes? Drop in Misc. screen – move later
4.
Overall process items to consider:
• Using .pdf docs or .pdf docs converted to WORD
• Difficulties as information and CVs age
• User Interface/Training
Sticky-wickets Solutions
Deans/Sponsors
• Description of General Categories for reporting
Department Chairs
•
•
•
•
•
Interpretations
Standardization Decisions
Citation Styles
Annual Report Formats
Additional Data Fields
Faculty
• Details, Instructions, Examples
• Screen (user interface) improvements
• User Documentation from comments
Faculty Deliverables
What faculty receive:
o Numerous report/CV templates
o Web page control
o Annual Reports/P&T documents
o NSF/NIH Biosketches, other award templates
o Storage of syllabi, documents, and artifacts
o Portal access compatible with different platforms
Future Direction
• KU Data entry completed 2014. Continued training and
faculty support. Ongoing operations will require direct
support of 2.5 to 3.0 FTE + minimal IR and IT staff
support.
• APUS Webpage and data warehouse feeds
Questions?
Contact Information
Name:
Enterprise:
Address:
Work:
E-mail:
Web:
Name:
Enterprise:
Address:
Work:
E-mail:
Web:
Linda Mannering, Senior Principal Analyst and Project
Manager, Office of Institutional Research and Planning
University of Kansas, OIRP
1246 West Campus Road, Rm 339
Lawrence, KS 66045
(785) 864-4412
lmannering@ku.edu
http://www.oirp.ku.edu
Mauricia Blackwell, Manager, Faculty Data Research
Faculty Human Resources and Administration
American Public University System
111 W. Congress Street
Charles Town, WV 25414
(304) 724-2853
mblackwell@apus.edu
http://www.apus.edu