Faculty Activity Reporting

Faculty Activity Reporting
Under construction! Please excuse our appearance! The Tufts Elements Faculty Information System will be going through a planned upgrade on January 17th, 2021 to version 6.0! This upgrade will bring a new look and feel to the Elements site, including the Faculty Activity Reporting feature. In order to prepare, the pages of this Tufts FIS User Guide are being updated to reflect this upgrade. Thank you for your patience.
The faculty activity reporting feature is currently only used by the Tufts University School of Engineering and the School of Dental Medicine.

Overview

A Faculty Activity Report (FAR) is a comprehensive summary of a faculty member’s activities and accomplishments from the previous year. Once complete, it is submitted to their supervisor for review. The form is confidential and can only be edited/viewed by the faculty member and their supervisor.

Each form contains several sections, with the number of sections and content varying on a school-by-school basis. To fill out the form, faculty members complete each section by providing supporting information and linking items from their profile (publications, grants, etc.).

It is important to keep in mind that an item must already be located in a faculty member’s profile before it can be linked to their FAR.

Information for Faculty

This section is intended for Tufts faculty members who need to complete a Faculty Activity Reporting review. A video overview of the activity reporting process is also available.

Note: If you are a member of the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, the activity reporting workflow is a little different than what is outlined below. For directions, please view this document about the Dental faculty workflow.

If you have been identified as someone who needs to complete an activity review form, it will appear as an item in the My Actions section of the home page once the review period has started. Click on Start or Continue to work on your review.

Accessing FAR from the My Actions dashboard

You can also access your activity form by clicking on the Menu tab and looking under the Build menu. Click on the name of the form (e.g. 2018 Engineering Faculty Activity Reporting) to begin.

Accessing FAR from the Menu

 

Each activity report form will differ depending on the school and the year. However, they can all be navigated and completed in the same way. The 2018 School of Engineering FAR is shown below as an example.

Guidance text is located in a blue box at the top of the page. Each section of the form is located in a different block, with a summary of the sections located in a navigation menu to the right. The Summary window also contains options for exporting and submitting the form. Save your changes to each section as complete the form.

Example of a faculty activity report form

Click on the title of a form section to edit it. Depending on the section, you will be asked to add supporting information, link items from your profile, or both.

Selecting a FAR section to work on

Adding Supporting Information to a Section

  1. Click on the Add supporting information button.Add supporting information button
  2. Use the text boxes to provide the requested information. For some questions, more guidance text is available by moving your mouse over the ? icon.adding supporting information
  3. Click Save and exit when you are done.

Adding Profile Items to a Section

  1. Click on the Select items button.Select items button
  2. Elements will give you a list of all of the items from your profile that can be linked to this section.
    Note: Profile items will only appear if they are “eligible” for selection, meaning that they fall within the specified date range and are one of the allowed item types for the section. For this reason, it is important that when you add items to your profile you label them as the correct type based on the What Goes Where guide.Selecting items to add to a FAR section
  3. To add an item to this section of the activity form, click on the Select button. If you have a large number of items available within a particular section, you can use the filters on the right to narrow them down.
  4. When you are ready, click Done.

When all of the sections of your activity form are complete, you will want to review it. This should be done before you submit your form. Once a form it submitted, you can no longer edit it unless your supervisor moves it back to the draft stage.

Note: The PDF/Word version of your review form will contain extra information that is not viewable in your profile because it is considered private. For example, the monetary value of a grant will not be viewable in your profile, but will be included in the PDF version of your review form and will be viewable by your supervisor during the review process.

  1. Open your activity review form and scroll down to the bottom of the Summary window on the right.
  2. Click Export to Word or PDF.Export button
  3. Click one of the available Download buttons.  A PDF/Word version of your review form will be generated.Download button
  4. Save the file. (Depending on how your internet browser is set up, the form may automatically go to the Downloads folder on your computer.)
  5. Open the PDF version of your form and review it. If there are any errors or missing items, go back to the electronic form in Elements and make corrections. Save an updated version of the PDF/Word file after making corrections to the form.
  6. When you are sure your activity form is complete, click on Move to ‘Department Chair Review’ in the Summary window of the activity review form.Move to Department Chair Review button
  7. A confirmation window will appear. Scroll to the bottom and click Move to ‘Department Chair Review’.Confirming move to department chair review

Information for Reviewers

This section is intended for those individuals who have been designated as “reviewers” of the Faculty Activity Reporting review (i.e. department chairs, supervisors).

Note: If you are a member of the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, the reviewer workflow is a little different than what is outlined below. For directions, please view this document about the Dental reviewer workflow.

  1. Log in to faculty.tufts.edu with your Tufts username (e.g. jjumbo01) and password.
  2. Click the Menu tab to open it.
  3. If the Review menu, select Review Processes.Review Processes option in the main Menu
  4. A new page will load that lists faculty review processes for which you are a reviewer (e.g. 2018 Engineering Faculty Activity Reporting). Click Review review processes.Review review processes button
  5. A list of faculty reviews will load. Reviews that have been assigned to you as a supervisor/department chair and have been submitted by the faculty member for review will appear here. Reviews in Draft stage will appear here as well, but you will not be able to access them. The filters on the right-hand of the page can be used to find faculty review processes.Sample list of review processes
  6. Click Start/Continue Review to work on a faculty member’s review.Start review button
  1. Use the directions in the previous section to find and open a faculty member’s review process.
  2. A page will load that contains a review checklist and a summary of the faculty member’s form.
  3. Click on the Review of … text.opening a FAR form by clicking the "Review of..." text
  4. In the right-hand Summary section, click Export to Word or PDF. Save the export file to your computer.Export button
  5. Open the exported form and review it. (As a reviewer, always review the exported PDF/Word report as the file may include data not displayed in the Elements system. This include sensitive data such as course or instructor evaluation scores or grants proposal data.)
  6. If you need to send the form back to the faculty member for additional work, click Move to ‘Draft’ in the Summary window. The faculty member will NOT be notified. You must send them an email and include a reason for why the form was sent back to them.
  7. If you are ready to complete your review, scroll down to the bottom of review form. Use the text box to leave comments. (Note: Depending on your school's form, you may also need to click into individual sections of the form and leave comments.)Leaving a review comment
  8. Click Save your review.
  9. Click Back to review overview in the Summary section.Back to review overview button
  10. Click Mark my review as complete.Mark my review as complete button
  11. A confirmation window will appear. Click Mark as complete.Mark as complete button
    To revisit reviews that have been marked as complete, set the Reviewer status filter to All reviews.Using the Reviewer status filter to see all reviews

Information for Assessment Managers

This section is intended for individuals who have been granted the “Assessment Manager” role in the Tufts Elements system.  This access is typically granted only to school administrators who will be managing the assessment (Faculty Activity Reporting) process for a school. Assessment managers have the ability to monitor the status of self-assessments, move them between stages, lock/unlock them, and export them as PDF/Word files.

This access is also granted to the Dean of a school, who can review assessments.

  1. Go to faculty.tufts.edu and log in with your Tufts username (e.g. jjumbo01) and password. You may need to complete DUO two-factor authentication.
  2. Click on the Research Admin tab toward the top of the page.
  3. Under the Assessment Module menu, select the review process you want to manage (e.g. 2020 School of Dental Medicine Faculty Self Assessment).selecting a review process
  4. A page will load with a list of the faculty members who have been assigned to complete the review process. For each assessment, the list will display its current status, current stage, available actions, and more.Assessment Management page
    The filters on the right-hand side of the page can be used to find faculty review processes that meet specific criteria.review filters

From the Assessment Management Page, faculty members’ self-assessments can be modified individually or in bulk.
 

user status table on the assessment management page
  • User – Includes faculty member’s name, username (e.g. jjumbo1), and information about when they have started and last worked on their self-assessment.
  • User Status – Indicates the faculty member’s progress on their self-assessment.
    • Not started – Faculty member has not begun working on their self-assessment.
    • In progress – Faculty member has begun working on their self-assessment, but has not finished/submitted it yet.
    • Needs attention – Faculty member has completed their self-assessment and submitted it for the next stage.
    • Marked done – Faculty member’s self-assessment has been marked as complete within its current stage.
    • Blank – The self-assessment has been completed.
  • Locked? – Indicates whether the self-assessment is locked (lock symbol) or unlocked (unlocked symbol). If an assessment is locked, the faculty member cannot make changes to it. Click on the lock icon to make changes.
  • Status – Indicates whether there are any apparent issues with the faculty member’s self-assessment.
    • Blank circle (blank circle) – Self-assessment has not been started.
    • Yellow Info icon (info icon) – The self-assessment needs attention, likely because files have not been attached to the activity yet or certain sections are not complete.
    • Red triangle (warning icon) – The self-assessment needs attention, likely because too many items were added to one or more sections.
    • Green checkmark (checkmark icon) – Self-assessment appears to be complete without any issues.
  • PaperclipIndicates whether the exercise has attachments and the number underneath indicates how many. To view the attachments, go into the individual’s self-assessment.
  • Stage – Indicates the self-assessment’s current stage – Faculty Draft, Supervisor Review, Department Chair Review. A blank indicates that the self-assessment has not been started.
  • RsIndicates the number of reviewers who have been defined for a stage. Clicking the number will show the reviewers’ names, the status of the review, and the date of the most recent update.
  • Actions - Gives the Assessment Manager the ability to progress the exercise in a variety of ways.
    • Move to - Move the exercise to a different stage.
    • Trashcan (trashcan icon) - Delete the exercise. 
    • Export (export icon) - Export a summary of all the information entered to date in PDF or Word format.