Applications Should Be Submitted Electronically to Yvonne Tevis. Direct Questions to Yvonne

Applications should be submitted electronically to Yvonne Tevis. Direct questions to Yvonne Tevis or (510) 987-0638.

Project Title: MyInfoVault (MIV) Project Leaders: Kelly Anders, Director of Academic Personnel & Systems, Academic Affairs, University of California, Davis

Mark Thonen, Project Manager, Information & Educational Technology, University of California, Davis

Team Members: Crystal Tobias and Michelle Wallen (Academic Affairs)

Stephen Paulsen, Viji Kumar, Rick Hendricks, Mary Northup, Craig Gilmore, Nick Barbulesco, Mark Dell’Erba (Information and Educational Technology)

Project Description: The academic appointment and advancement review process is complex, confidential, labor-intensive, and prone to errors. MyInfoVault (MIV) is a robust web-based (https://myinfovault.ucdavis.edu) data repository into which academic employees or their delegates enter their scholarly/creative achievements, teaching and mentorship record, and service activities. This information is used primarily to create electronic dossiers for academic appointment and advancement actions, but can also be used to create curriculum vitae and biosketches for National Institutes of Health grant applications using wizards built into MIV. With regards to academic reviews, the dossier is created at the candidate’s location and routed electronically for all levels of review, including the department, school/college dean’s office(s), and to the Vice Provost of Academic Affairs. Dossiers may also be routed to central review committees in the Academic Senate Office from either the dean’s office or the Vice Provost’s office.

Dossier reviewers are assigned by staff at all levels of review. Once the period of review is opened and reviewers are assigned, the reviewers may log into MIV from anywhere at any time to review the electronic dossiers at their convenience. This electronic process is a far cry from the former staff- and paper-intensive process, whereby candidates would often do multiple hard copy drafts of their dossiers (sometimes over 100 pages) before they were finalized, utilizing significant amounts of paper, printer resources, and staff time to produce, edit and reproduce based on changes.

This program has also been shared from an informational/demonstration standpoint with the UC System-wide Academic Personnel Directors, and an earlier version of the code was provided to UC San Diego. We have also held informational meetings about MIV with the nation-wide Kuali Foundation, Iowa State University, State University of New York, University of Washington, Harvard University, University of Arizona, and multiple UC campuses.

Additional features of the program include, but are not limited to, the following: User Administration  A new user is added simply by typing in their campus e-mail address and assigning their proper role and department(s). Roles are also easily edited/changed and deactivated/reactivated.  Staff roles include: Department Helper, Department Administrator, School/College Administrator, Senate Administrator, and MIV Administrator. o Joint assignments are easily assigned to a staff member’s role, which was required when the campus implemented departmental clustering and shared services centers.  Academic roles include: Appointee (new hire), Candidate (Academic employee), Department Chair, Dean, Vice Provost, Provost, and Chancellor. Both administrative assignments and the Candidate role can be held by a single individual (e.g. a faculty member who is also a department chair). Any academic role can be given an additional role as a Reviewer. o Joint appointments are easily assigned to a candidate’s account.  The ability to create/manage groups of reviewers, so that it takes one keystroke to assign a large group of reviewers to a dossier rather than having to assign reviewers individually.

Data Entry/Data Uses  Continuous update of the data is allowed.  Data are used for: o Academic review dossiers. o Customized curriculum vitae via a CV wizard in MIV. o Biosketches for National Institutes of Health grant applications using a Biosketch wizard in MIV. o Decision Support functions that allow queries of publication data entered in MIV.  Users can download publication citations from PubMed or EndNote, which provides a link to the actual article, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for manual data entry and hard copies of publications.  Using Preferences, formatting (bold, underline, and italics) can be applied to specific data elements in the dossier, such as author’s name, all journal titles, specific terminology or patterns, etc.  A special character palette is provided that includes various symbols, accent marks such as tildes, umlauts, and circumflexes, and the Greek alphabet, many of which are used in scientific literature.  PDF uploads are available for specific documents in the file that are used only for that particular dossier (such as candidate’s statements, position descriptions, letters obtained by the department, committee recommendations, etc.)

Routing/workflow  A snapshot of the dossier is retained at each location as the dossier moves through the workflow, reducing the need to keep a digital or paper copy of what was submitted to the next location.  Electronic signatures are obtained in MIV. o Candidates sign a disclosure certificate electronically prior to the dossier leaving the department location. o Deans and the Vice Provost make their decisions electronically in the program, including electronic signatures and comments. o Signature validation and security is robust and the system will indicate if a signature is no longer valid  The dossier is easily returned to previous locations for corrections – a process in the paper world that could take weeks now can take minutes.  Dossiers can be cancelled if the candidate decides not to go forward with their action or an appointee decides at an early date that they do not wish to join the campus.  A post-audit/appeal location is available at the end of the workflow that puts dossiers out of the active workflow so that a candidate can prepare a new action or appeal the previous action.  The ability to archive dossiers with role-specific archive views in MIV. For example, a candidate’s archive is limited to their own personal dossiers and those dossiers include redacted extramural letters and redacted ad hoc/shadow committee comments. Other archive views have broader scope and also include redacted/non-redacted versions of appropriate documents.  As part of the archiving process, the dossier is automatically sent to the official personnel file in an Electronic Document Management System in the Office of Academic Affairs.

Additional User Tools  “How Do I Get Started” is a detailed user guide with links to pertinent Academic Personnel policies and checklists.  User Reports: o List of users by department, school/college, or campus wide o List of department chairs or deans by department, school/college or campus wide  Report functionality that provides information about the dossiers in progress, which allows staff to plan and manage their workload: o Actions at a specific location with an open review period (which means reviewers are still able to review that action and the action cannot move forward). o Actions awaiting a signed disclosure certificate from a candidate. o Actions awaiting information from the joint appointment department(s). o Actions released to the Dean or the Vice Provost without a final decision. o Open actions that are complete at a specific location that are ready to forward to the next location.

Technology utilized in the project: Academic personnel actions are complex, highly individual, and extremely sensitive. Applying a technology solution involves multiple technologies and approaches, as well as close collaboration between the technical team and the administrative team. Additionally, timing on actions can be critical, requiring a flexible system and responsive support structure to address changes or issues while meeting faculty expectation and policy timelines. The MIV team has applied a variety of technologies to allow rapid development, system stability, low cost and inherent flexibility.

Technologies:  Development and Code Management  Project Management and QA o Git/Bit-Bucket o JUnit o Bamboo o Selenium/TestNG o Maven o Confluence Wikis o Apache/Tomcat o Jira/ Customized Jira Agile Board o Java and Java Servlets o Javadoc o JSP  User Support: o XML and XSLT o ServiceNow o Spring/Web Flow o MySQL databases o Server Virtualization o HTML5 o CSS o Java Script - jQuery o AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) o JSON (Javascript Object Notation)   Agile/Scrum Methodology: The MIV team has embraced the Agile/Scrum methodology. Each system enhancement is prioritized, broken down into discrete, buildable increments, and then scoped into 3-week development sprints. This method provides greater focus, faster user feedback, and greater collaboration between the Academic Affairs business representatives and the Information & Educational Technology development team.   Timeframe of Implementation:  MIV began as a pilot project in 2004-05, with three Schools/Colleges volunteering to participate (School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and College of Biological Science). MIV was initially developed for merit and promotion actions, which constitutes the greatest number of academic actions. However, it was not until the 2012-2013 academic year that all merit and promotion actions at the Assistant and Associate ranks were required to be prepared in MIV. This soft roll out allowed the campus to utilize MIV program resources to have student employees enter candidate data to support departments as they transitioned to the program. Additionally, the MIV team continues to develop and deploy new program enhancements. In the 2012-2013 academic year, eighteen additional advancement actions were released to the campus, and in February 2014, a long-awaited enhancement was deployed that allowed new appointments for individuals not associated with the campus to be processed in the program.   Future Enhancements: Over the next two academic years, the IET team will develop and implement the following enhancements to the program:  Provost and Chancellor recommendation, final decision and signature functionalities  API to allow MIV to collect data from other systems on campus, such as DESII (teaching), ACE (Automatic Course Evaluations), Kuali Coeus (grant proposals)  Dual Dossier Workflow, to allow merits and appraisals, or merits/promotions and career equity reviews, to be processed simultaneously  On-line Document Storage for supporting documents  On-line extramural letter component  Voting Module  Smaller, fine-tuning enhancements that are identified by MIV users and the MIV team   Relevant URLs:  http://myinfovault.ucdavis.edu (production site for users only)  http://academicaffairs.ucdavis.edu/tools/miv-information/index.html   Objective Customer Satisfaction Data:  Effective with the 2012-2013 actions, all merit and promotion actions at the Assistant and Associate ranks were required to be submitted in MIV. Furthermore, 2012-2013 was the last cycle in which paper dossiers were accepted at the Full ranks. Due to the phased mandate, all academic titles are required to use MIV. The percentage of merit and promotion actions completed using paper, rather than MIV, is illustrated below. As can be seen, the percent of actions completed via paper has dramatically decreased over the past three years.   Figure 1: Percentage of merit and promotion actions completed entirely using paper. Redelegated = Dean makes final decision Non-Redelegated = Vice Provost, Provost, or Chancellor makes final decision       Testimonials:  “In my 18 years at UC Davis, I have seen the rollout of a number of new systems that were meant to streamline processes. Unfortunately many of these systems have been clunky and actually made things more difficult. MIV, on the other hand, is a success and should be held as the standard for which all current and future UC systems be developed. It is intuitive, and proven to be a time and paper saver. Further, the modules have all been developed with the end user in mind, are well tested prior to rollout, and are continually improved to meet ongoing needs. This approach has resulted in happier administrative staff, happier faculty, and a noticeable increase in efficiency.”  Ernie Hoftyzer – Management Services Officer (MSO), Institute for Transportation Studies   “Since Myinfovault (MIV) has replaced the hardcopy trail of submitting merits and promotions, the differences I’ve noticed are many and I might add all for the better. Simply put, MIV is a smart way to work. MIV has significantly reduced the amount of copying a department has to do and I expect copying will soon be extinct; there is a reduction in prompting the faculty member to submit materials; there is no such thing as a “lost dossier;” since all of the dossiers are created online they are always accessible. There is no need to use campus mail or personally walk a dossier to the department for a correction; you simply click a button and it is back at the department level. Once the correction is made the department clicks and it is back at the college level. The ease of review for the reviewing committees, personnel analyst, and the dean is not to be underestimated. This process saves everyone a huge amount of time and I have often heard from FPC chairs how easy the system is to use. I revere the talented people that created this system and I am constantly impressed by their willingness to add or create features that continue to keep MIV relevant, accurate, effective and efficient.”  Sally V. DiVecchia – Personnel Analyst, Dean's Office, College of Biological Sciences   “Perhaps the biggest issue with personnel actions is efficiency, and this is the primary advantage of MIV. Information can easily be added and once there it can easily be accessed electronically by others without printing. MIV makes file preparation and review easy and minimizes time investment once the file is set-up. Time is money and time is productivity. Saving everyone time is incredibly valuable given that personnel actions are such a big part of life at UC Davis.”  Peter Wainwright – Executive Associate Dean, College of Biological Sciences   “The development of the My Info Vault system has streamlined processes for both faculty and staff in our unit. It has become a useful tool for faculty who need information for various grant and fellowship applications, as well as a simplified way to prepare to go up for merits and promotions. The amount of time this system has saved staff members is incredible. The recent enhancement to be able to enter appointment actions for someone who is not yet an academic employee is a great example of the ongoing enrichment this system provides. Not only has this enhancement made the initial appointment process much faster, but it will save a tremendous amount of time and effort when the new employee goes up for their first action because all of the information will already be there. While there are several great enhancements coming in the future, the two we are most excited about are the online storage of publication/creative activities and the ability for other campus systems to share information with MIV. These would allow us to have the entire merit/promotion packet online and further streamline the process for both faculty and staff during the review process. Having everything accessible online would make it easier for our faculty to review the actions in a much more timely manner. The MIV team has done an incredible job with the system thus far, while continuing to provide valuable training throughout the entire process. We look forward to their ongoing efforts to enhance the system in the future.”  Jessica Lewis – Academic Personnel Specialist, Department of Economics  Kathy Miner – Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Department of Economics  Ann Stevens – Professor and Department Chair, Department of Economics 