Higher education institutions of all sizes can benefit from a unified platform for all members of faculty and staff to view (and where relevant, analyze) crucial data. The traditional — in other words, antiquated — procedure for meeting these communication needs involved storing information in spreadsheets and documents, which staff and faculty would have to regularly send back and forth, or even print as hard copies. In order to avoid a large number of files on various computer databases, as well as clunky filing cabinets, many colleges and universities have adopted online faculty management software to store their important information in a productive format. Find out more about how your institution can use this technology to help faculty and staff reach their full potential.
What is Online Faculty Management Software?
Faculty management software can help academic institutions more efficiently and effectively manage their faculty and staff in a wide variety of different areas, from faculty search to communication to review and promotion, to activity reporting.
While many of these areas may already have a process and system in place, an online software can automate these processes, make it easier to store and track related data or information, and remove some of the common pain points across the faculty management lifecycle.
Learn the features of online faculty management software
When you adopt any new technology into your day-to-day functions, it’s essential that your staff and faculty know some best practices for working with it in order to gain the most value. Although educational management software isn’t overly complicated, it can still be helpful to provide your teams with training sessions on how to use this technology to their advantage.
Some features that are worth noting for your faculty and staff include:
- Ability to make changes to information in real time
- Transparent communication across different teams and departments, bridging the gap between staff and faculty
- Faculty workload management
- Report generation to support accreditation
- Seamless data migration capabilities
- Regularly updated information to support faculty evaluations
Leverage online faculty management software for faculty hiring
The human resources departments at higher education institutions are tasked with a significant challenge: finding high-quality talent while having to go through applications from hundreds of candidates. Faculty positions — especially tenure-track ones — are in high demand.
HR professionals and hiring committees need to find the most productive way to view many candidate files quickly. With a faculty management system in play, faculty and administrators can save time through digitizing processes that were previously done manually, such as organizing and distributing application materials.
In addition, faculty management systems allow faculty members to recruit peers from their own network more easily than ever before. Through an automated system, staff and faculty can refer candidates in ways that are equitable and simple.
Encourage faculty communication
One of the most valuable assets higher ed institutions can gain from adopting a comprehensive faculty management system is the ability for employees to interact consistently. it’s crucial that you inform your staff and faculty of the benefits of collaborating and communicating with their peers on a regular basis.
Get the most ROI from your spending
We’re sure you’ve heard the phrase, “You need to spend money to make money.” This is true of faculty management systems, as institutions that adopt these platforms can gain significant ROI. Institutions have seen increased ROI in terms of grant dollars uncovered and time saved by faculty and administrative staff.
With streamlined processes for these complex workflows, faculty will have more time for teaching and research, and administrative staff will have more time to support faculty, strategic initiatives, and the institution at large. If your university is motivated to migrate to a single centralized platform to manage and store important staff and faculty data, consider investing in Interfolio’s faculty management system.
Our top-of-the-line technology can be seamlessly migrated into your current systems to help provide increased transparency across departments and teams. Get in touch with us to learn how our faculty management system fits into your current model and how you can use our technology to gain the most value from your faculty and staff members.