fars quick start guide final - western michigan … · for professional recognition and how to...

Office of Institutional Research, Western Michigan University 09/25/2017 of 13

A Quick Start Guide to

Faculty Activity Reporting System

Contents

1. What is Faculty Activity Reporting System?........................................................................ 22. FARS features ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 23. How to log into WMU Faculty Activity Reporting System (FARS) ...………………………………… 34. Dashboard functions …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 45. How to edit or add information in the Profile section ……………………………………………........ 56. How to edit or add information in the Activities section ………………………………………………. 77. How to complete a Faculty Professional Activities Report …………………………………………….. 10


1.WhatisFacultyActivityReportingSystem?The Faculty Activity Reporting System is a powerful vita‐oriented database. Like many of our peer

institutions, Western Michigan University is implementing Faculty180 from Interfolio, a software system

designed to enable faculty to organize, manage, and report on their annual professional activities as well

as to manage their curriculum vitae (CV) and biographies in multiple forms.

WMU FARS provides a wide range of benefits to faculty and staff by creating an online storehouse for

data of faculty achievements. As such, this will save time as it makes faculty data available for

accreditation reports, program reviews, and other purposes. Relatedly, faculty can use this information

to generate curriculum vitae (CVs) and biographies in multiple formats.

For more information about FARS, please follow the link: https://wmich.edu/institutionalresearch/fars

2.FARSfeaturesFARS is a system that contains six sections: Dashboard, Profile,

Activities, Evaluations, Forms & Reports, and Vitas & Biosketches.

‐ Dashboard posts all the links to the other sections. It includes extra

links for To Do list, Announcement, and tutorial Videos. The To Do list

may post a link to a Faculty Professional Activities Report.

‐ Profile contains personal information and information about your

education, employment, professional membership, and other.

‐ Activities section contains information related to your professorship,

which includes courses taught, course development activities,

committees, professional recognition (faculty publications), research,

services, and other.

The information in this section (i.e. Courses, Course Development Activities, etc) is retrieved to generate

a Faculty Professional Activities Report (PAR). When faculty make changes to their PAR, the information

will be stored in the Activities section as well.

‐ Forms & Reports section consists of forms and reporting features. Reporting features allow faculty to

create a report about their teaching activities (i.e. My Activities Reports).

‐ Vitas & Biosketches: This section allows faculty to generate and print a curriculum vitae in a variety of

formats with the information they have entered into their Profile and Activities sections.

https://wmich.edu/institutionalresearch/fars


3.HowtologintoFacultyActivityReportingSystem(FARS)1. Navigate to GoWMU login page and sign in with your Bronco NetID and password. 2. Once you are signed in, click on the arrow sign for “All LINKS” under “My Work” to expand/collapse the menu items.

Then, click on Faculty Activity Reporting System.

3. After you click on the link, the system will bring you to the Faculty Activity Reporting System

homepage as shown in the picture below.


4.DashboardFunctionsThe Dashboard is a useful place as it can show you many items at a glance. It contains links to your To Do list items and their due dates. It also presents quick links to other areas such as the Profile, Activities, Evaluations, and Vitas & Biosketches. Additionally, you can find tutorial videos on your Dashboard page.

Important Note: To access your 2016‐17 PAR, navigate to the Dashboard and click on the “Faculty Professional Activities Report 2016‐17” link in the “To Do” list. Some of the functionalities (e.g., “Submit for Review”) are not available elsewhere.


5.HowtoeditoraddinformationintheProfilesectionClick on Profile in the left menu. Alternatively, click on the Update Profile Form reminder that will

appear in the Dashboard.

The Profile contains various

biographical information for

faculty to fill. The Personal

Information, Contact

Information, and Current

Position sections are

automatically uploaded

from PeopleSoft. The

Interests and Biography

sections provide faculty the

opportunity to describe

themselves and their work in

their own words. The

Degrees, Professional

Licensures & Certifications,

Awards and Honors, Outside

Employment /consultation, Membership and Graduate Faculty Status sections contain important

information about a faculty member’s credentials and professional recognition.

To add new information

to a section, click on the

items under your Profile,

followed by clicking the

corresponding Add

button.

Click the Add button to

enter your information.


Each data entry section looks

very similar.

Once you are finished with

this section, Click on the “Save

and Add Another” or “Save

and Go Back” buttons

found at the bottom

of the page.

Note: Fields with an * next to

the name are required to be

completed in order to save the

form.

To Edit an existing degree or other information, click on the pencil shaped icon next to added degree or

other information.


6.HowtoeditoraddinformationintheActivitiessectionThe Activities section contains information about faculty professional activities. Activities are grouped

into different categories as seen in the picture below.

Some information under different categories in the Activities section is retrieved by the system to

generate a Faculty Professional Activities Report for an academic year. Thus, the report only contains

available information entered by you or pre‐uploaded by the system. This means that faculty members

need to enter more information to generate a complete report on their professional activities. The

information entered in the report (i.e. “Faculty Professional Activities Report 2016‐17”) will feed into

the corresponding categories in the Activities section.

Any section that does not apply to you or your department may be ignored and left blank.

In order to add information to each item shown in the picture above, you can click on “Dashboard”.

Under the “To Do” list, click on “Faculty Professional Activities Report 2016‐17”. Then, a page

containing all items will appear. You can scroll down to see the items you wish to add or make change.


6.1. To add or edit a course taught: please navigate to or click 7. How to complete a Faculty Professional

Activities Report.

Please note that only by accessing the report link under the “To Do” list in the Dashboard tab

does the system allow you to submit the report and edit courses.

6.2. Editing or adding information to Course Development Activities

These activities refer to the courses you have developed or redesigned, pedagogy, or innovations in

instruction you have contributed. This may be in the areas of academic, clinical, creative/artistic, or

research teaching. It may include emerging pedagogy or technologies, experiential learning, lifelong

learning, applied learning, online learning, or other experiences.

‐ On the Faculty Professional Activities Report 2016‐17, scroll down to “Course Development

Activities”.

‐ click “Add”.

‐ An input form will appear. Please enter information to all the fields.

‐ When you are finished, you can attach a file. Please see Illustration 1.


Illustration1:Addinganattachment‐ Adding an attachment: First, you need to click “Choose File” in order to select an attachment

file on your computer. Then, specify the type of attachment—whether it is “Transcript” or”

Other”.

6.3. To add information to Institutional Services/Committee, please navigate to or click 7.4. Adding

Information to Institutional Services/Committees.

6.4. For Professional Recognition and how to import faculty publications to FARS, please download

the instructions on https://wmich.edu/institutionalresearch/fars/resources .

If you tick this Lock box, faculty will

not be able to delete it.

If you click Add Another, it allows you to add another

attachment. The changes you made have not been saved yet.

Cancel button will clear the

information you have not saved,

and return to previous page.

Save and Go Back button will save the

information you have entered, and

return to previous page.

Save and Add Another will save the information regarding the

degree you have entered and open another form for you to

add information about another degree.

Save button will save the

information you have

entered.


7.HowtocompleteaFacultyProfessionalActivitiesReport

7.1. Navigate to Dashboard and click on the “Faculty Professional Activities Report 2016‐17” link found in the “To Do” section. FARS will then pull data from the faculty member’s Profile and Activities to generate their PAR.

7.2. Adding courses: These courses are the courses you are teaching in a given semester. The courses have been uploaded for you. However, you should review the courses taught and information in other sections before submitting the report. If a course is missing, follow the instructions below.


‐ Click “Add Courses Taught” under a semester and year to which you wish to add a course.

‐ Enter course information in all the

fields. Please scroll down to see more

data fields.

‐ When you are finished, click Save.

‐ If you get an error message while

adding a course, please send an email

to wmu‐[email protected] so that a

staff person from the Office of

Institutional Research will be able to

add the course for you. Please be

aware that only credit generating

courses are uploaded.

7.3. Editing courses

‐ If for some reason you didn’t teach that course, please check the box “Course Not Taught”.

‐ Additional Course Data: If you see “Required” in red in the picture shown below, it means

course attribute information is needed. So, click Add.

‐


‐ Then, please tick an appropriate

attribute and click Save. If a course

doesn't have a special attribute, please

leave the boxes unchecked and click

Save in the top right corner. Once you

have clicked Save, the status

“Required” will be changed to

“Complete|Edit”

‐ Course Attachments: Select the course to which you wish to add an attachment.

‐ In the Attachment Type box, you have the option to either attach a file or provide a URL. So,

select either File or URL, and then in the Attachment box, you have the option to provide a

file or URL. In the Type box, select a kind of file (i.e. Syllabus, Course Evaluation, etc). Then,

click Upload.

7.4. Adding Information to Institutional Services/Committees

‐ Click Add. Then, an input form will show up (see below). For “Start Semester”, select

semester and year for your involvement in the institutional services or committee. For “End

Semester”, select semester and year that it ended. If it is ongoing, leave the default choice

“ongoing” in the semester and year boxes.


‐ For “Unit*”, it displays

“Western Michigan

University” by default.

You will need to change

it to your department

by clicking “Change”.

‐ All colleges and units will appear. Click

the “+” sign next to the name of the

college (Ex. College of Arts and Sciences),

and the list of departments will be

populated underneath it. Then, click on

the name of your department (Ex.

English).

‐ For “Committee*” box,

click on “Select” to find the

institutional service or

committee in which you

are involved. Then, select

the option you need to

find.

‐ Please note that the names

of institutional services

and committees vary

among departments.

‐ Under “Activity

Classifications”, click

“Select” and choose a role.

fars quick start guide final - western michigan … · for professional recognition and how to...

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