New approach will streamline the faculty review process

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The Office of the Provost is in the beginning stages of a project that will streamline faculty review processes and save time for faculty members who are up for promotion, tenure and post-tenure review.

Dubbed Faculty Insights, the project will replace the way those up for review gather information about their work with a sophisticated online system that captures more of the research, teaching and creative activities.

Provost Jayanth Banavar said the new system will be ready for use in 2020.

“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,” Banavar said in an email to academic leadership. “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 for faculty evaluation are antiquated, labor intensive and don’t take full advantage of new technology. The new system will allow for input and timely updates on faculty members’ work. It will also allow review panels better access to scholarly work, creative practices, books, performances and other written materials.

Two committees that include a range of UO stakeholders have been assembled by the provost in order to make project implementation successful. They are:

  • The steering committee, led by Ellen Herman, vice provost for academic affairs and professor of history. The committee first met last month 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, led by Paul Taylor, enterprise IT project manager for Information Services. This group is responsible for refining the project’s technical requirements, evaluating and selecting potential vendors, and making recommendations to the steering committee.

Tentative plans call for a vendor to be selected by April 2019, with system implementation taking place by December 2019. The system is scheduled to be operational in January 2020.

To see the membership list for each committee and to read the email from the provost, go to the provost’s website.