The vendor is required to provide to replace the existing annual review platform, prism, (performance management in the school of medicine) and the school’s faculty database, FIMS (faculty information management system), with the goal of modernizing and centralizing the data management system for faculty lifecycle processes.
- The primary objective is to consolidate and automate faculty performance reviews, promotion processes, and reporting functions while enabling flexibility, customization, and seamless integration with existing systems.
- This updated system will streamline workflows, improve data management, and provide a more efficient review process for faculty, administrators, and staff.
- Challenges with current solutions
a. Manual data entry:
• The office for faculty affairs (OFA) is currently relying on a combination of in-house developed solutions (FIMS & prism) and other solutions to manage faculty data.
• However, these tools, as currently programmed and configured, require significant manual data input.
• The current systems lead to inefficiencies and increase the chance of human error.
b. Negative feedback from users:
• The current systems and processes have received negative feedback from faculty and departmental end-users.
• These issues stem from the cumbersome data entry and management process, the lack of dynamic reporting, and the rigid structure that does not easily allow for unique data fields depending on the type of work faculty perform.
• The issues make it difficult for users to efficiently interact with the system and obtain necessary information.
c. Lack of longitudinal database:
• There is no centralized, reliable, and comprehensive longitudinal database capable of tracking faculty professional characteristics or activity metrics.
• This gap in data management makes it difficult to generate meaningful reports without extensive manual effort, which is both time-consuming and prone to errors and delays.
d. Challenges in reporting:
• Report generation is a manual and painstaking task, requiring significant data reconciliation with additional sources.
• Faculty data must be manually compiled before it can be published, which leads to delays and inconsistency in reporting.
e. Inability to track faculty activities:
• There is a gap in tracking the broader range of faculty activities, such as national presentations, leadership roles, and contributions to academic endeavors.
• The lack of tracking makes it challenging for the OFA and departmental leaders to track faculty accomplishments and monitor their professional development over time.
f. Disconnected data:
• currently, there is no linkage between data entered for annual review and promotion processes.
• This disconnect adds clerical burden and makes it challenging to manage faculty evaluation in a holistic manner, as key performance metrics and feedback from one process may not be easily accessible during another.
g. Complexity of the academic promotion process:
• The academic promotion process is vital for the institution's operations and is a priority for the dean.
• However, the existing solution is cumbersome, requiring significant clerical workload, which delays decision making and adds unnecessary complexity to the process
- Current hardware and software details
• Existing systems: the OFA currently uses a combination of FIMS, prism, and Inter folio.
• Hardware: servers and infrastructure supporting the current systems.
• Software: legacy systems for data entry, faculty roster management, and reporting, which may not be optimized for scalability or integration with modern platforms.
- Opportunities for improvement
a. Streamlining business processes:
• There is a significant opportunity to streamline and modernize the business processes associated with faculty data management, academic promotions, and other faculty activities.
• By eliminating manual data entry and reducing reliance on legacy systems, the OFA could improve efficiency, reduce errors, and create a smoother experience for all stakeholders.
b. Reducing administrative workload:
• Automating faculty data management and integrating various business processes would reduce the administrative burden.
• This would allow administrative staff to focus on higher-value tasks, such as supporting faculty development or addressing faculty needs in a timelier manner.
c. Enhancing faculty experience:
• By creating a more user-friendly and efficient system, the OFA can improve the overall experience for faculty members.
• They will have better access to the data needed for their annual reviews, promotions, and other evaluations, resulting in more transparency and satisfaction with the process.
• faculty will have greater ability to tailor their performance reviews and promotion materials to their Unique job circumstances to better communicate their activities and achievements during the annual review and promotion processes.
d. Leveraging cutting-edge technology:
• The OFA has the opportunity to adopt modern, scalable technologies that can address the needs of the rapidly growing faculty community.
• Implementing a comprehensive, customizable solution will not only reduce clerical workload but also enhance the institution’s capacity to handle complex data and processes moving forward.
e. Customization for school needs:
• A vendor with the ability to provide a solution tailored to the unique needs of the school of medicine is crucial.
• this would ensure that the system is aligned with the specific requirements of the academic, research, administrative, and clinical roles that faculty members play.
• However, this needs to be done without creating “technical debt”, or a hard-to-maintain system that is quite different from other instances of the system in production at like institutions.
f. Benefiting from industry standards and domain expertise:
• School would like to ensure that the system is developed, maintained and continually improved with the technology sector’s best practices in mind.
• School would also like to ensure that product implementation, roadmap and support are benefiting from the domain expertise of the vendor, in the higher education sector, and specifically in the large medical school subcategory.
- Project objectives
• Develop a comprehensive solution: create a robust, centralized system that consolidates faculty data and streamlines business processes, including appointments, annual reviews, promotions, and tenure awards.
• Automate data management: minimize manual data entry and reporting by automating the collection, maintenance, and reporting of faculty data, allowing for better data accuracy and timeliness.
• Enable holistic faculty tracking: implement a system that can track a wide range of faculty activities and achievements (e.g., research, teaching, clinical work, presentations, leadership roles) to provide a holistic view of faculty performance.
• Integrate review and promotion data: link the data from annual reviews and promotions to allow for a more seamless and cohesive process.
• Improve reporting capabilities: establish a system that can easily generate reports on faculty demographics, activities, and performance metrics without extensive manual effort.
• Enhance user experience: improve the experience for both faculty and administrative staff by providing a more intuitive, user-friendly interface for managing and accessing faculty data.
• Prepare for scaling: design the system to be flexible and scalable, allowing future adjustments, including those align with changes in operating models, faculty management practices, university policy, and law, without requiring significant code changes.
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Pre-Proposal Bid Conference Date: April 21, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: May 2, 2025