What is Faculty Profile?
Faculty Profile is an on-line, secure database where faculty members can record all of their professional activities. This data can then be used by faculty for their own uses and also by departments, colleges, and the universities for a variety of authorized uses.
(BYU does not own this database system. It is a product called “Digital Measures” which BYU licenses from a company called Watermark. It is used by many other universities and colleges. “Faculty Profile” is the name BYU uses for the database system. BYU is able to customize the screens, fields, and reports used in our system.)
Who can see and use the data in Faculty Profile?
Only BYU administrators and other authorized individuals at the university who have a need to access this data can access it. Access to Faculty Profile is strictly controlled by the university at the university level and by the college/department at the college level. Faculty data is not accessible to anyone who has not been specifically granted security access to it.
How is the data in Faculty Profile used?
Both administrators and faculty draw on the data in Faculty Profile for a wide variety of uses. The following are the most common, but there are many other possible uses.
- Annual stewardship interview
- Rank and status review
- Faculty websites
- Discipline-specific and university accreditation
- Reporting on faculty scholarly work and productivity
- Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Time Commitment report
- Creating, storing and accessing vitas
Is Faculty Profile required?
The university requires every faculty member to complete the Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Time Commitment screen every year. Most colleges and departments require faculty to use Faculty Profile to record their activities and complete their annual stewardship interview.
Effective use of Faculty Profile can save faculty time and effort over the long run by making it easier to gather and report on data for Rank & Status and other purposes. The key to using the program is simple: be consistent, accurate, and complete.
What type of data is stored in Faculty Profile?
Everything a faculty member does as part of his/her professional work can be added to Faculty Profile. Below are the categories/screens used in Faculty Profile:
General Information
- Non-BYU Employment History
- BYU Administrative Positions (e.g. dean, chair, director)
- Licenses and Certifications
- Professional Memberships
- Awards and Honors
- Consulting
- International Expertise
Teaching
- Scheduled Courses
- Directed Student Learning (e.g., theses, dissertations, mentored students)
- Other Teaching (any teaching not reported elsewhere)
Scholarship
- Publications
- Creative Works (performances, exhibitions, and productions)
- Presentations
- Patents
- Funding-External Grants (University Entered)
- Funding (College Entered)
- Funding (Faculty Entered)
Citizenship
- BYU Citizenship (e.g., committees, informal mentoring)
- Professional/Public Citizenship (e.g. elected officer, conference organizer, editor)
Annual Review
- Annual Review Preparation and Documents Archive (Add Vita)
- Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Time Commitment
While there may be activities a faculty member is involved in that do not conveniently fit into one of these screens, most faculty will be able to find a way to create a complete record of their professional work by finding the screen(s) that best suit each of their professional activities.
What else can be stored in Faculty Profile?
- You can add data for your website profile (see related question below)
- Add more details about your Scheduled Courses and your course syllabi into Scheduled Courses (all optional)
- Add your CV to the Annual Review screen
- If you do much informal mentoring this is important work that is often not rewarded because it is invisible. You can add this work on the BYU Citizenship screen. Be sure to give a rough estimate of how much time you spend doing this each year. You can also add a brief description in that same area of the screen.
How often do I need to update Faculty Profile?
Ideally, you would try to update Faculty Profile regularly (once a month, quarter or semester), so it is kept up-to-date (and you don’t forget important activities). Because this data is used annually during the Annual Stewardship Interview period (January-March), it is critical that you at least update your data as part of this review process.
What are some best practices or effective strategies for keeping the data up-to-date?
We recommend you have a physical (and/or digital) folder in your office marked "Add to Faculty Profile" where you can add a note or put materials related to each professional activity that eventually needs to go into Faculty Profile.
Once a month, quarter, or semester, go into Faculty Profile and record all of the information about activities you have saved in the folder(s). Calendar the dates for updating Faculty Profile so you are reminded when the time arrives.
Other options:
- Record activities in Faculty Profile as soon as you remember they need to be added, whether or not you have all the information. Later when you have more data, you can update these records.
- Record each activity as soon as it is officially begun or completed and you have all the information needed by Faculty Profile. This way you only need to handle each record just once.
How can I import my publications into Faculty Profile?
You can directly import publications from Crossref, ORCID, PubMed, Scopus, or Web of Science. You can also use databases such as EndNote, Google Scholar, Mendeley, RefWorks, Scopus, Web of Science and Zotero to create a BibTeX file that you can then import into Faculty Profile. Here are the instructions.
How can I use Faculty Profile to determine what activities appear on my college website?
Some, but not all colleges use Faculty Profile to maintain faculty websites for their college (you can ask your department secretary).
—Go to the Personal and Contact Information screen to enter the following information for your website: Brief Bio, Teaching Interests, Research Interests, and Photo.
—Go to the Annual Review screen to add your Vita to the latest year.
—Each college determines which of the following other screens they will draw data from:
- Education
- Non-BYU Employment History
- BYU Administrative Positions
- Licenses and Certifications
- Professional Memberships
- Awards and Honors
- Consulting
- Publications
- Creative Works (performances, exhibitions, and productions)
- Presentations
- BYU Citizenship
- Professional/Public Citizenship
When you enter any of these screens, you’ll see a list of all your records. On the far right-hand side you’ll see a switch called “Allow Sharing” (see below). Move the switch to “Yes” to indicate you want that record to appear on your professional website. It takes a day or two for your page to update on your college webpage.
How can I use Faculty Profile for the Rank and Status Process?
Some colleges and departments use Faculty Profile-generated reports for the rank and status process, but even if they do not, Faculty Profile is an excellent place to keep a complete record of all your activities so that you can access it to create your file. Here are some reminders:
- Make sure the data you enter is accurate and complete.
- Use the Brief Description field to add additional information about your activities (including relevant context) that you want to remember or include in your file.
- Make sure the data entered by the university on the following screens is accurate and complete: Scheduled Courses, Patents, Funding (University Entered), Funding (College Entered)
What are some useful tips and tricks that are not immediately apparent?
Importing Publications. You can import your publications from either a BibTeX file or from various online sources. See instructions.
BYU Collaborators. Be sure to coordinate on activities you do with co-collaborators at BYU. Only one of you needs to enter the activity into Faculty Profile and crosslink it to the other(s).
Expanding Text Boxes. Where you see the icon below, you can click on it to expand the text box to full screen, which can make it easier to view extended text. (Collapse the text box using the same icon.)
PasteBoard. PasteBoard is a time-saving feature. It allows you to copy text from another document, such as a vita in Microsoft Word, and paste it into the PasteBoard. After you have pasted text into the PasteBoard, you can then select text from it and then either copy it or click-and-hold on the text you selected and drag it into a field in your profile. To access the PasteBoard, click the PasteBoard button in upper right-hand corner of any screen. The PasteBoard will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and can be dragged anywhere on the screen as needed. Any text in the PasteBoard upon logging out will remain in the PasteBoard for future sessions.
Rapid Reports. While you are managing your activities, you can run quick reports to see how your data looks on the report. See the “Rapid Reports” button in the upper right hand corner when you are inside a particular screen.