Paperwork. It's a way of life, both personally and professionally. For university faculty, a group you might think immune to such things, it takes on a seriousness many outside academia may not fully recognize. Everyone recognizes the college professor's role as researcher and teacher -- offices full of books and stacks of notes on every flat surface, and often portrayed as a bit forgetful. Unfortunately, the cost of forgetting for modern faculty can be devastating. Part of the privilege of working for a major research institution is dependant on professional productivity, and, today, keeping detailed records of it.

The College of Education has developed a system that should offer some relief to tenure track faculty, beginning immediately. The new Online Annual Reporting system was created to centralize and to facilitate faculty service, teaching and research activity reporting into a single online database. The new system is up and running and will be used for the 2002-2003 annual report process. (See it here)

"Everything from raises to promotion to committee appointments is determined in some part from our faculty members' annual evaluations -- what we call their annual report," says Molly Tracy, Associate Dean for Administration.

The College of Education faculty annual report hasn't been so much a single report, as it is a compilation of everything from lists of publications and courses taught to personal teaching statements.

"While it's a great evaluation tool, it really can be a burden to compile, both for the faculty themselves and for the administrative people in every unit. It tended to involve a lot of duplication of effort -- pulling numbers or data from an existing source and then copying them also into the annual report. What we wanted to do with the new system was to quickly and automatically pull together all of the existing information for the faculty. We don't want our faculty to be spending their time on paperwork. We want them to be working with their students and continuing their research."

"It was a great idea," agrees Eric Ohlsson, the Office of Educational Technology project manager for the effort. "The problem was one of actual implementation. We have about two dozen different sources of annual report information throughout the College and University, in addition to the records the faculty members themselves keep. And, some were electronic, some weren't. Some were in formats that would "talk" together, others weren't. The challenge with projects like these is to really integrate all of it together, and put it in a format that people will be able and willing to use," he says.

"We can put together the best, most comprehensive database in the world, but if it's hard to understand for the average person, they're going to say, 'forget this,' and go right back to keeping notes in shoeboxes and then, when the deadline for the annual reports rolls around in March, it will be the same old scramble for time and the same duplication of effort and wasted energy."

Ohlsson said one of the key considerations in the system from the beginning (back in May of 2002), was not just gathering the information, but working with faculty members to create a system that made sense and would help them track their activities throughout the year. "We didn't want to simply translate the old way of doing things onto a computer, we set out to improve the annual reporting system."

"I think the concept is great," says Lizanne DeStefano, (Educational Psychology, Bureau of Educational Research) one of the faculty involved in the six month design and testing process. "It provides a chance to integrate and validate existing data in a way we have never been able to do before. It will also make it much easier to prepare bio sketches and other information for grants and reports."

The new online reporting system, from the viewpoint of the user, will look very much like web browsing -- using Netscape or Internet Explorer to access and to update individual profiles. Pointing and clicking on annual report brings up a request for a password and things are underway. Obviously, there is a bit of a learning curve involved, but the design group feels that, with the faculty testing feedback, it will be minimal, and DeStefano agreed.

"It was a challenge to sit down in front of the computer and begin the task, but once I got started it was quite easy and I began to see the advantages to faculty, departments and the dean's office. I hope we will get a good response this year and work to refine it for future use," she said.

"The nice thing about this is, right off the bat, faculty will see an improvement. When they pull up their annual report profile for the first time, they'll see a lot of the basic information is already filled in. And, if something is missing or incorrect, they can just click on "edit" and make quick changes. In the past, everything started with a blank form and you had to hunt down and copy a lot of general information, just to get going," says Ohlsson.

Some of the data consolidation includes pulling grant data and course teaching records directly from University of Illinois databases and pulling publication, advising and honors and awards information from internal College resources. "Faculty will still certainly want to review everything to look for accuracy or possible omissions, but it should still be a huge savings in time and effort all across the board," Ohlsson says.

Because they system is located on one of the College's central servers, faculty will have total access to their record at any time and from any place with an internet connection. Annual reports will remain fully editable up until they choose to submit it to department heads for review. Submissions can be either in electronic format entirely, or, faculty may choose to output the report to paper and deliver it this way. Cynthia Carter Ching (Educational Psychology) notes the value of this 'anytime access.'

"The fact that I can update my file, whenever, throughout the year is great. Now if something comes up, I can just put it on the report right then and there. I'm less likely to forget something this way. Of course we still have to submit hard copies of all the supporting documents, so I can't get rid of that "annual report" pile of paper in my office yet," she said.

With the technological components of the system in place and online, the focus turns to training and education, says Ohlsson. OET staff has initially organized four formal training sessions for February, and will be available for personal tutorials during the entire spring semester.

"Call us," says Ohlsson. "We'll come to your office. We'll do whatever it takes to help make using the Online Annual Report a positive experience for faculty. This is supposed to make things easier for everyone and we're going to do everything we can to make that happen." (View training dates)

The new annual reporting system goes live on January 28, 2003. Tracy notes that there is no "transition" period -- the new system is the only one this year. "We needed to avoid having parallel reporting systems going on. It really has to be an all-or-nothing switchover. Otherwise, what we end up with in May is a mix of paper and electronic files and most certainly, important information would end up lost in the shuffle."

The deadline for 2002-2003 annual report submissions to the dean's office by department heads is May 1, 2003.

To log on to the Online Annual Reporting system: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/intranet

To read the Frequently Asked Questions about the Online Annual Report:
https://www-s.ed.uiuc.edu/intranet/annualreport/facultyfaq.asp

February Training Schedule

(OET staff will be on hand in Room 28 to answer questions,
demonstrate the software or to help you begin entering your information)

Wednesday, February 5, 2003, 1:00 -- 4:00pm
Thursday, February 6, 2003, 8:00am -- 12:00pm
Monday, February 17, 2003, 1:00 -- 4:00pm
Tuesday, February 18, 2003, 8:00am -- 4:00pm

For questions about training or the system, contact OET:
244-7005, or oet@mail.ed.uiuc.edu