Can I upload my CV to Activity Insight?
Unfortunately, no, there isn't a way to upload your CV and have the activities ingested into the Activity Insight data screens. You can, however, open your CV in a word processor and use the PasteBoard feature to draw information from your CV and add/edit activities in Activity Insight.
What data am I required to enter?
Your first order of business in terms of data entry will be to enter everything that you would normally include for the 2020 annual reporting cycle. After that you can begin to curate or back-fill your historical data that may be used in other reports.
When do I need to get my data in the system?
Activity Insight will be used for the Spring 2020 annual reporting cycle, but you should start this process as soon as possible to give yourself ample time to acclimate to the platform and work out any questions you may have, as well as ensuring plenty of time to enter your information.
What do I do if I see incorrect information on a screen?
Some screens' data is populated through integrations with other campus systems - PHR, SIS, CourseEvalUM and Kuali Research. Data from those systems cannot be edited on the data screen.
Do I have to fill in all fields on every screen?
Only the fields with a red asterisk are required.
How do dates work?
For reporting to work properly, and for activities to be properly organized on reports, entries must have dates. For most screens you will see two spaces for each date, one for month and one for year. The day is very rarely asked for. For activities that are ongoing, only enter the start date, and leave the end date blank, to indicate it is ongoing. If the activity was only one day, or a period of time within the same month, you can enter the end date and leave the start date blank.
How do I decide which dropdown options best fit my activities?
When in doubt about which dropdown option best fits your activity, you should think about how you have reported these items in the past and how your department usually reports these types of activities. If you are still unsure, you discuss the options with department heads and/or contact the Activity Insight team for further guidance.
How do I add collaborators? Why do collaborators sections ask me to enter two names on one line? (See: External, Community, and Other Service)
For the collaborators sections you have two options: 1) you can select a name from the dropdown if your collaborator is someone at the University of Maryland who is already an active member in Activity Insight (in the beginning this dropdown will include Tenured and Tenure Track faculty; 2) if your collaborator is not a UMD faculty member in Activity Insight, you can enter their name in the spaces to the right of the dropdown.
I just completed an activity. Where do I enter information about it?
You can use the Annual Report Crosswalk to help you determine where to put each of your activities.
What is meant by "Supporting Documentation?"
This is an optional file upload area that is available with many of the data screens. It gives you the option of uploading any files - videos, Word documents, PDFs, etc. - related to this activity that you would like available in Activity Insight for this activity.
Why does this screen ask if my activity was compensated or pro bono?
We have designed these screens to be used by faculty from all disciplines across campus, so some screens may have fields that don't pertain to you. You can either leave those fields blank, or if the field is required, fill it in with the most logical option for your department. For example, "Was this compensated or pro bono?" may not make sense to you, and that is ok. For most departments the selection here should be "Pro Bono," so we have set this to default to that option. For those of you in departments with different requirements for this data, you may need to change this selection to "Compensated."
How do I put in grant panel/review activities?
Grant panel/review activities should be entered in the Editorships, Editorial Boards, and Reviewing Activities screen. For Contribution Type choose Reviewing Activity for Agencies and Foundation; for Position/Role choose Reviewer.
Where do I find more help and who do I contact with issues?
Our portal at faculty.umd.edu/data contains how-to videos, frequently asked questions, and a faculty user guide. You can also click the question mark symbol at the top of the screen to email a question to UMD's Activity Insight team if you cannot find the answer on the portal.
How will my data be used?
There is already data in Activity Insight. Where did it come from?
Some screens' data is populated through integrations with other campus systems - PHR, SIS, CourseEvalUM and Kuali Research. You may also see data that was pulled from the Lyterati system and loaded into Activity Insight. Data populated from campus integrations cannot be edited on the data screen. Check below to see how to get changes made, if needed:
Other screens may have data that was pulled from the Lyterati system. Every effort was made to bring this data in cleanly and to populate the correct set of fields. However, you should review the data loaded on these screens to make sure that the information has been correctly mapped and that the data for your activities is accurate.
Can I pull data from Activity Insight into my web profile page?
At this time you cannot pull your data from Activity Insight into your web profile page, but this is a capability of the platform and the university is discussing potentially implementing this feature in the future.
I have financial awards but they aren't managed through Kuali Research. Where do they go?
These awards, gifts, and grants can be entered on the Other Awards screen.
My proposal was funded but I don't see it listed on the ORA Managed Awards screen. Why is it missing?
Data on the ORA Managed Awards screen are provided through the Office of Research Administration (ORA) from the Kuali Research system, and were current as of the end of the calendar year indicated with each record. The data pull includes all proposals that had activity in the calendar year, regardless of outcome. Proposals without any activity during the calendar year will not be included. If there seems to be an error, requests for corrections to Kuali Research for any active projects can be made through your department's business administrator.
There are duplicate listings of my award. How can the duplicates be removed?
It is possible to see a project or award listed multiple times on the ORA Managed Awards summary screen, if you are listed as an investigator on more than one account for the award. If there seems to be an error, requests for corrections to Kuali Research for any active projects can be made through your department's business administrator.
One or more of my awards is missing from the ORA Managed Awards screen. How did it get missed?
Data on this screen are provided through the Office of Research Administration (ORA) from the Kuali Research system, and were current as of the end of the calendar year indicated with each record. The data pull includes all award accounts that had activity in the calendar year. Award accounts without any activity during the calendar year will not be included. You can check the Active ORA-Managed Awards screen to see all awards that were current as of the end of the calendar year indicated with each record. If there seems to be an error, requests for corrections to Kuali Research for any active projects can be made through your department's business administrator.
How is Research Advising different from Curricular Advising and Mentorship?
The Research Advising screen is to list specific students or post-docs you have advised or mentored. The Curricular Advising screen is where you enter the number of students advised each year on curriculum/academics. The Mentorship screen is for your mentoring of junior faculty, visiting faculty, and other professional-level mentoring.
Can I list all of my students for the year in one Research Advising record?
No. The Research Advising data screen captures information for one student per data screen. The Duplicate feature can help reduce the data entry burden. On the Research Advising summary screen, click the checkbox to the right of an entry that is similar to the student you need to add. Then use the Duplicate button to create a copy. Edit that copy, updating the fields as needed to describe the research advising activity.
Which option do I select for Advisee Level if my advisee is in a terminal Master's degree program?
For terminal master's degrees (e.g. MBA or MFA) please select Master's.
Why do I see courses listed where I was a secondary or co-instructor?
In order to ensure everyone receives credit for all of their activities, courses are listed here in the same way they are listed in the SIS system.
Where can I find my students' course evaluation comments?
Please use CourseEvalUM for a more detailed view of your course evaluations and to view college averages and student comments. If you have questions about the data on this screen, contact the CourseEvalUM Help Center.
Will I be able to see a comparison to university averages with my course evaluation data?
Please use CourseEvalUM for a more detailed view of your course evaluations and to view college averages and student comments. If you have questions about the data on this screen, contact the CourseEvalUM Help Center.
Why do I only see these six data points on the Course Evaluations screen?
In order to support various faculty review processes, Activity Insight includes results for university-level course evaluation items that are available to administrators. Faculty members can view their course evaluation results for all items (including department/college and student-interest items) directly through CourseEvalUM.
Why weren't my publications imported from Lyterati?
Throughout the course of customizing the platform for UMD, pilot testers and the advisory group have overwhelmingly responded that, rather than the implementation team loading the “messy” data pulled from Lyterati, they would prefer to use import options built into the platform to manually upload publications. This allows for cleaner, more personally curated records. For help with importing or manually adding publications, you may refer to the portal for a guide[[hyperlink “guide”]] to importing publications into the publications screen or refer to our LibGuide.
Do I have to manually enter all of my publications one by one?
Manually entering publications is an option, but to save time we recommend using one of the publication import options built into the platform. For help with importing or manually adding publications, you may refer to the portal for a guide[[hyperlink “guide”]] to importing publications into the publications screen or refer to our LibGuide.
All of my publications are showing up in the “Other” section of my report. How can that be fixed?
This happens when the Contribution Type field for the publication has not been set, or is set to “Other.” To correct this and ensure your publications are routed to the correct sections of your report, you will need to curate those records. To do this, navigate to the summary screen for your publications. You will notice that each record will display, from top to bottom: the publication type, the title, the current status, and the date published. Any records that list only the title, status, and date, are the records that do not have a publication type selected. You can go into these records individually, select the correct Publication Type from the dropdown, and then save the record by clicking “Save” in the upper right. If you have already ensured that all of your publications have a Publication Type selected, but you still have publications showing up in the “Other” section of your report, those publications have “Other” selected for the publication type, and are displaying the “Explanation of Other” on the summary screen. If you would like to make sure that these publications are routed to a particular section of your report, rather than “Other Publications,” you will need to go into those records individually and select a Publication Type other than “Other,” and delete the information in “Explanation of Other,” and then save the record.
What is the difference between “Rapid Reports” and “Reports”?
These two options are very similar. With either option you can run your Faculty Annual Activity Report with the ability to customize the report dates and file format. The difference is that, with the Reports button, you also have the option to select Create a New Report (in the upper right of the Reports screen) to create a new blank report or a custom Vita. Once you have selected one of these options you can build a report to your own requirements and save it so that you can run the same report repeatedly in the future.
Old activities are showing up in my annual report that shouldn't be there. Why is that and how do I fix that?
Most likely this is occurring because the activities are missing date information. In order to correct this issue you will need to go to the screen for that activity type and ensure there are no records that are missing dates. To do this, go to the main menu, click on the link for the screen you want, and then look at the summary screen for records that do not show dates. You can click on those records to open them up and update the date information. Once all of your records have dates, you can run your report again and those old activities will no longer be listed.
Do we use this system for OPA (outside professional activity reporting)?
No. At this point, faculty will continue to submit OPA reports through the ARES system.
All of my publications are showing up in the “Other” section of my report. How can that be fixed?
This happens when the Contribution Type field for the publication has not been set, or is set to “Other.” To correct this and ensure your publications are routed to the correct sections of your report, you will need to curate those records. To do this, navigate to the summary screen for your publications. You will notice that each record will display, from top to bottom: the publication type, the title, the current status, and the date published. Any records that list only the title, status, and date, are the records that do not have a publication type selected. You can go into these records individually, select the correct Publication Type from the dropdown, and then save the record by clicking “Save” in the upper right. If you have already ensured that all of your publications have a Publication Type selected, but you still have publications showing up in the “Other” section of your report, those publications have “Other” selected for the publication type, and are displaying the “Explanation of Other” on the summary screen. If you would like to make sure that these publications are routed to a particular section of your report, rather than “Other Publications,” you will need to go into those records individually and select a Publication Type other than “Other,” and delete the information in “Explanation of Other,” and then save the record.
Why are some of my appointments only one day?
If an appointment was terminated and replaced with another appointment, the appointment duration may only be one day. Another reason may be that the appointment was for a Non-Standard Payment and was for a lump sum, causing it to have a duration of only one day.
Why do some appointments look like duplicates?
Tenure track and tenured faculty should always have an appointment in their tenure home. When the faculty member's paid appointment is in a unit other than their tenure home, a non-paid appointment should be in place in the tenure home unit. This might result in what appears to be duplicate appointments, but they each have their purpose. Alternatively, if an appointment is continuing, but a change that cannot be made on the existing appointment is necessary, the faculty member may have two appointments that appear on the surface to be duplicates, but at the detailed level are not.
Why does it say I have an appointment in a department I have never worked for?
Overloads are processed by the unit paying for the overload, not necessarily the primary appointment unit. The faculty member may or may not be aware of the specific unit name. Also, unit names change over time and the unit name could be different now than it was at the time of the appointment.