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Set Up Institution Details

The Details page in Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR, Faculty180) contains details about the institution, such as the institution's name, logo, term designations, faculty ranks, announcements, and more. This article will go over how administrators, with the necessary permissions, can set up the Details page. 

 

Set up prior to the Details page

Set up the institution prior to any of the other details on this page. Various details related to the institution, including the institution name, term designations, unit designations, faculty ranks, and academic terms, must be set up first in FAR. Your project manager will help to predefine unit designations and academic terms.

 

Organizational Structure

Users must set up the hierarchical structure of their institution in FAR by adding units by level, from highest to lowest. For example, a university may be the top level, with colleges beneath the university that in turn contain schools, and schools that contain departments, and departments that contain disciplines, and so on. 

 

Check out this article on how to Set Up or Edit the Organizational Structure for more information.

 

Configurations at the highest level (level 1) will flow down to all levels below. For reference, see the unit designation that has been created in the demo database (Demo University).

  • In Demo University, Level 1 = University, Level 2 = College, Level 3 = Department, Level 4 = Discipline.

Interfolio currently supports an organizational hierarchy that is 9 levels deep including a base level that is reserved for faculty within our system. This means a maximum of 8 levels can be added to the list of unit designations for a total of 9 levels.

 
 
 

Academic Terms

Academic Terms will be set up with help from the Interfolio Project Manager. This is a critical item intended to be set up once and not be changed.

 

Typical academic terms are Fall, Spring, and Summer; however, some institutions choose to use months (Jan, Feb, Mar, etc.).

 

Requirements

  • Must be concurrent and have assigned start and end dates by month.
  • Are added in the order they occur during an academic year, with Term Number 1 being the first term in the academic year.
  • Must span a complete calendar year.
  • Academic terms cannot overlap.
 
 

What Academic Terms support within the Interfolio FAR system

  • Faculty input (such as indicating a faculty member served on a committee from the Fall semester of 2020 to the Spring semester of 2022)
  • Data storage and organization within the database
  • Reporting (specifically, how data is pulled for reporting)
  • Base data loads (such as assigning uploaded faculty activities to the Fall Semester of 2021)
 
 
 
 

Set up Details Page

1. Navigate to Details under Setup

Navigation: Administration > Setup > Details

  1. Click Setup under the Administration section of the navigation menu.
    Administration section with Setup highlighted
  2. Click Details under the School section.
    School section with Details underlined
 
 

2. Fill out information

  1. Fill out information on Details page. 
    -  Check out the chart below for detailed information on the subcategories that fall under the Form Details section.
  2. Click Save when finished.
 
 
Field Description
General Information

Confirm that the following information is accurate:

  • University name
  • Logo
  • Term Designation (Quarter, Semester, Term, Other)
  • Login Note (applicable if not using login authentication)
Login Authentication

Login authentication is performed after the first faculty file is uploaded to FAR and is managed by IT resources from Interfolio and each institution. Interfolio supports direct login and several single sign-on authentication systems which are listed below:

  • FAR direct authentication (not recommended)
  • Active Directory via LDAP
  • Shibboleth or other SAML-based authentication systems
  • Campus Cruiser
  • CAS, Token, WIND, or similar token-based authentication systems
  • Login scripts for access behind the clients secured faculty portal page (for example, PHP and ASP scripts can be provided)

Contact your Interfolio Project Manager if your institution would like to consider other login options or would like documentation for implementing login authentication.

 
Faculty Ranks Clients can add faculty ranks or provide a list to Interfolio to be added to FAR. This list can be expanded based on the needs of the institution. Example faculty ranks include professor, associate professor, and more. This list of faculty ranks must match the rank field in the faculty file. Check out our article on how to configure Bulk Data Uploads for more information.
Miscellaneous

Configurable Options

Section Details
Faculty Input Form Title Institutions can change the name of the Activity Input Form in this screen.The Activity Input Form is used by faculty members to manage their activities that tend to change each academic term, such as teaching, scholarly and creative contributions, and service. This form is used during formal input periods, in which all faculty members participate.
Default Organizational Unit Display

Specify if the institution would like the abbreviation or the full name of organizational units to display on forms.

Note that additional information about uploading unit names and abbreviations is provided in the Upload Base Data section.

 
Default Faculty Status Filter Specify the default faculty employment status, such as full time or part time, when selecting faculty.
Force Chronological Completion

Determine if formal input forms, such as Activity Input Forms, must be completed in the chronological order in situations where multiple academic terms are included within a given formal input process. Check out our article on how to Initiate Faculty Input Workflow for more information.

  • No: Faculty can submit Activity Input Forms in any order
  • Yes: Faculty must submit Activity Input Forms in chronological order
Committees

Faculty members enter committee activities in the institutional committee input section. Choose from the following methods to input committees:

  • Controlled: Faculty selects from a list of administratively-created committee names. Each institution can upload a list of committees which are related to each unit.
    • Check out our article on how to configure Bulk Data Uploads for information on the upload process.
  • Uncontrolled: Faculty enters committee name in an open text box.
  • Both: (recommended) Faculty selects from a list, or select other and type a committee name if the appropriate name is not on the list. Each institution can upload a list of standing committees related to each unit.
    • Check out our article on how to configure Bulk Data Uploads for information on the upload process.
Faculty Training URL Add the URL for the institution's training website. This URL is included in e-mail messages to new users. If no URL is specified, the default Interfolio URL is used.
Years in Dropdowns Select the number of prior years (up to 100) in all dropdowns that contain the year field.
Future Years in Dropdowns Select the number of years going forward from the current year (up to five years) in all dropdowns containing the year field
FAR Administrator Name/Email Specify an administrators name and e-mail address to be included in outgoing email messages. This is the individual who users will be referred to for primary support and questions. It is recommend that a generic name and email address be created for this purpose, such as support@institutionname.edu.
Send System Emails Using FAR Administrator Name/Email Specify if e-mail messages sent from FAR via the Communication screen should be sent from the FAR administrator's account, based on the unit level. Otherwise, all e-mail messages sent via the Communication screen will be sent from the account of the FAR user who is creating the message.The default text in the From field is FAR.
Time Zone Select the most appropriate time zone for the institution. This selection will affect the start and due dates for faculty performance evaluations, such as annual reviews, promotion and tenure evaluations.
Course Attachment Reminder Click Yes if the institution wants a pop-up box to display a reminder message to faculty members to upload course attachments before submitting the Activity Input Form as part of the formal input process. Note that by default, attachments are not required.
Allow Emails To Be Sent

Select to allow or not allow e-mail notifications to be sent to faculty members.

Note that it is recommend to turn this feature off during implementation so messages are not sent to faculty from the system.

 
Autoload Reports Specify if reports should be automatically loaded each time a report is generated. If reports are not automatically loaded, then various report filters display, allowing administrators to select the type of report data to view. This is helpful if a report contains a large amount of data, causing the report to load slowly.
 
 
Announcements

Administrators can create custom announcements for their institution. Announcements display in the Announcements & Help page. Examples of announcements are upcoming events and deadlines and links to training documents.

  1. In the Announcements section, make sure the Show button is selected. Use the Hide option to hide existing announcements that are no longer applicable.
  2. Type the announcement and apply any desired formatting. Note that images and hyperlinks to URLs can also be included in the announcement.
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