Summary:
What is the Faculty Activity Report?
The Faculty Activity Report (FAR) is an online tool used to track the accomplishments of ASU faculty for evaluation and informational purposes.
What is being done in FAR Version 2?
The product that is currently in production at the site http://far.asu.edu is powered by a 3rd party provider. Far Version 2 will not be powered by a 3rd party provider in preparation for the 2009 evaluation cycle. Version 2 will include only services and capabilities available prior to 2008.
Why are you moving away from the 3rd party provider?
The UTO met with several colleges to find out what changes ASU could make to increase the usability of FAR to our customers. Nearly every meeting resulted in a single fact: ASU faculty found the older version more usable than the tool deployed for the 2008 cycle.
Who are you talking with over the course of this project?
We are speaking with a number of college representatives, Deans, Chairs, and faculty who have expressed interest in the success of this product. We formed a focus group dedicated to the successful deployment of a product that can be expanded in future revisions tomeet the needs of their groups.
What can I expect during this migration?
There will be a data entry freeze as of December 19th, 2008 at 5:00 PM, which will be in effect until the replacement application is launched on January 5th, 2009. This new application will include the data that was entered for prior years, and the respective evaluations. Your data will be read only once the freeze is in place, but not editable.
What is this Uncategorized Data?
As part of the project to move from Digital Measures FAR (DM) back to our original FAR system, we are converting data from DM back into our original system. Since the data fields from Digital Measures do not always map cleanly to the fields in the replacement system (the FAR available prior to 2008), we've had to make some assumptions for the location of some data. With the help of several faculty and staff from the many colleges, we're confident that these assumptions will be correct. In some cases, there will be no logical place to move DM data. In these cases this uncategorized data is being migrated and stored in a location where faculty who have entered the data into DM can still access it to copy and paste it into the appropriate FAR fields.
What are the plans for FAR and the Directory?
With the short amount of time provided to bring this application back, there are some "post production" tasks that the UTO will be completing in the first quarter of 2009. The ASU Directory will be among those tasks. The directory will include any information provided prior to the freeze, but that information will not be updated with new FAR information until the 3rd week in February.
Where was my data migrated to?
- Personal Contact Information and Profile Information will no longer be entered into FAR, but will be made available through the Uncategorized Data pages to copy and paste into the Directory.
- Education will also no longer be entered into FAR, but will be made available through the Uncategorized Data pages should you wish to copy and paste them into Directory.
- Book Sections have been migrated to Book Chapters
- Books Reviewed have been migrated to Books Reviewed
- Books Authored have been migrated to Books Authored
- Invited Commentaries have been migrated to Commentaries
- Community Service has been migrated to Community Service
- Conference Proceedings has been migrated to Conference Proceedings
- Performing Art has been migrated to Creative Activities
- Play writes have been migrated to Creative Activities
- Visual Art has been migrated to Creative Activites
- Encyclopedia Articles have been migrated to Encyclopedia Articles
- Patents have been migrated to Patents
- Awards and Honors will be migrated to Honors
- Law Review Articles will be entered into Law Review Articles
- Mentoring will be migrated into Mentoring
- Professional Service have been migrated to Professional service
- Abstracts have been migrated to either Refereed or Non Refereed Articles as they were noted in the record
- Journal Articles have been migrated to either Refereed or Non Refereed Articles as they were noted in the record
- Magazine Articles have been migrated to either Refereed or Non Refereed Articles as they were noted in the record
- Newspaper Articles have been migrated to either Refereed or Non Refereed Articles as they were noted in the record
- Technical and Research Reports have been migrated to either Refereed or Non Refereed Articles as they were noted in the record
- Monetary Awards have been migrated to Service Monetary Awards
- Short Stories and Poetry have been migrated to Short Stories/Poetry/Novels/and Creative Non-Fiction
- Special Issues have been migrated to Special Issues
- Collaborative Activities have been migrated to Collaborative Activities
- Presentations have been migrated to Scholarly Conference Presentations/Exhibitions/Colloquia
- University Service has been migrated to University Service
As we stated above, in some cases there was no logical place for the record to be migrated to. In these cases the records are being displayed in the Uncategorized Data pages so that the faculty might migrate the data to the appropriate places. The following Digital Measures categories were not migrated to a category in FAR, and are being stored in the Uncategorized Data pages.
- Broadcast Media
- Creative Writing
- Education
- Government Publications
- Instructors Manuals
- Interviews
- Licensures and Certifications
- Manuscripts
- Measurement Instruments
- Media Art
- New Course Materials
- Newsletters
- Non-Credit Instruction
- Notification of Consulting
- Pamphlets
- Positions Held
- Professional Development
- Professional Memberships
- Published Projects
- Research in Progress
- Software
- Study Guides
- Web Publications
- Websites
- Works in Progress
- Working Papers
Who can I contact to find out more information on FAR?
For support or access to the current system, please email far@asu.edu. Please include your full name, your ASURITE UserID, and your college or department name.
For more information on the FAR 2.0 project or future revisions, please email the FAR Project Manager, Noel Lindner, at noel@asu.edu.
JANUARY 5TH UPDATE -
Technical difficulties have prevented the deployment of the new web interface for FAR. The application will launch on January 7th, 2009.
February 27th Update -
The completion of the Directory updates has been delayed by 2 weeks. This update is due to be released the week of March 8th, 2009.
March 11th Update -
The remaining tasks, including Directory and My Profile functinality have been been rescheduled due to resource and time constraints. Please note these changes in the Project Schedule and Milestones.
April 10th Update -
Development tasks have been completed, but the web services for the data links between FAR and My profile/Directory are delayed by 1.5 weeks. These will be available by April 21st.
