Setup Academic Terms in FAR
Academic terms are the foundation of FAR’s data model. They provide the framework for recording faculty activities, generating reports, and supporting institutional processes like accreditation and annual reviews. Typical terms include Fall, Spring, and Summer, though some institutions use semesters, quarters, or trimesters. Academic terms in FAR have two identifiers:
- Term Name: The user-facing label (e.g., Fall, Spring, Summer) seen by faculty and administrators in profiles, forms, CVs, and reports.
- Term Abbreviation: The internal code used for data mapping (e.g., 01 for Fall). FAR uses this to match activities to the correct term.
This article covers how to configure academic terms and abbreviations.
Most institutions keep Term Name and Term Abbreviation the same for simplicity, but abbreviations can be customized as needed.
Configure Academic Terms
Academic terms are configured during implementation with your Interfolio Project Manager (PM) and managed exclusively by Interfolio. Once set, terms should remain unchanged.
Requirements
- Client provide a mapping of current to future term as a two-column CSV.
- Terms must be consecutive, span a full academic year, and cannot overlap.
- Add terms in chronological order, beginning with Term 1.
Terms are required because they provide a consistent framework for recording faculty activities accurately, generating clear, institution-wide reports, and supporting accreditation, planning, and review processes.
Use Cases
Change from months to semesters.
In this example, February will be split in two. The first half of February will become part of Fall (new term), the second will become part of Spring (new term). Likewise, the first half of June will be Spring (new term); the second will be Summer (new term). They are repeated twice to make this mapping explicit, as they should be for Engineering.
Engineering will need to know which term split-month data should migrate to. In this example, you’d note (for instance) to default all February data to Fall, or to Spring. Since the term is not already divided in half, there’s no way to ‘untangle’ the data and migrate some to fall and some to spring. Likewise with June.
The final semesters will be Fall (9/1 - 2/15), Spring (2/16-6/15), and Summer (6/16-8/31).
Split a semester or more
In this example, Winter is getting split into two – Winter I and Winter II. As with the example above, the Engineering ticket should include what term to default current Winter data to: Winter I or Winter II, since it cannot be split (that level of granularity doesn’t exist).
Change term order
In this example, the only thing that is changing is the term number, so Summer is 1 instead of Fall. June is treated the same way here.
Change from semester to months
In this example, Fall will run from the first of September to mid month, February. As you’ll see, I’ve repeated February twice in this mapping to make explicit that ‘half’ of it will go to Fall and half to Spring. As with previous examples, you’d have to specify that current “February” data will map to Fall, or to Spring (not both).
FAQs
Why are Academic Terms required in FAR?
Academic terms are a required component in Interfolio’s FAR software because they serve as the time-based structure that organizes all faculty activity data within the system. Here’s why they’re essential:
- Contextualizing Activities: Faculty work (teaching, research, service, etc.) needs to be tied to a specific time frame. Terms (e.g., Fall 2024, Spring 2025) provide the structure so that activities are accurately recorded and later retrieved for reporting.
- Standardizing Data Entry: Without terms, users might enter dates inconsistently. Defining academic terms ensures data entry follows a consistent framework, which makes reporting cleaner and more reliable.
- Reporting & Analysis: Many reports such as teaching load, research output by year/term, or service contributions depend on filtering and aggregating activity by term. Having this structure is what allows FAR to generate accurate institutional reports.
- Alignment with Institutional Calendars: Academic institutions don’t always operate strictly on calendar years; semesters, trimesters, or quarters often define the rhythm of academic work. FAR requires academic terms to reflect the institution’s real-world schedule.
- Downstream Integrations: If FAR data is used for accreditation, annual reviews, or institutional research, those systems often expect information organized by academic term.