For many medical schools, effectively managing thousands of faculty members depends upon having good processes in place.
At the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), which has more than 1,800 faculty members across six colleges, administrators have found that Interfolio enables the efficiency they need to effectively support so many scholars. With Interfolio, MUSC has achieved a centralized, scalable, and customizable approach to managing academic reviews and a single source of truth for internal dashboards and reporting, accreditation reporting, and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys.
Themes Discussed
- A Centralized, Scalable, and Customizable Platform for Academic Reviews
- A Single, Reliable Source of Truth for Faculty Activities Serves Multiple Purposes
- Internal Faculty Data Dashboards Help Administrators Provide Personalized Support
A Centralized, Scalable, and Customizable Platform for Academic Reviews
MUSC adopted Interfolio Review, Promotion & Tenure (RPT) in 2020 because the University’s Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost wanted three specific benefits.
“Our Provost wanted a centralized faculty evaluation system that was also scalable and customizable across our six colleges,” explained J. Michael McGinnis, the Assistant Provost for Finance and Administration at MUSC. “Because each of our six colleges has their own approach to faculty evaluations, having a customizable platform was essential.”
A Single, Reliable Source of Truth for Faculty Activities Serves Multiple Purposes
Interfolio RPT was just the beginning of the partnership. “As we got into our relationship with Interfolio, we realized we can accomplish so much more than just evaluations. And the FAR module has been a very helpful tool for us,” said McGinnis.
MUSC uses Interfolio Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR) as a single, reliable source of truth about faculty activities, using data for IPEDS surveys, accreditation, and internal reporting. “It’s been very impactful for all of us, whether deans, provosts, departments, or the University President, to be pulling from the same data source,” McGinnis said. “That has saved us a tremendous amount of time and made us significantly more efficient.”
Internal Faculty Data Dashboards Help Administrators Provide Personalized Support
MUSC has also used Interfolio to create faculty activity dashboards at each of its six colleges. These dashboards enable administrators to stay up to date with faculty accomplishments and have personalized conversations with individual faculty members.
“When each college has so many faculty, like here at MUSC, you risk losing track of what everyone is working on,” explained McGinnis. “With these dashboards, the deans can see the latest publications or grant activities for a faculty member and provide the kind of personalized support and acknowledgment that really benefits not only the faculty themselves but also the institution as a whole.”
“We have a requirement from the state of South Carolina that faculty have an annual evaluation. Before we adopted Interfolio RPT, our proof of that was just on paper, but with RPT, we can definitively show that we have completed our evaluations. And while we’re in the midst of reviews, it’s very easy to see—at a department, college, or provost level—the status of reviews, where each review is at.”
J. Michael McGinnis
Assistant Provost for Finance and Administration
The Medical University of South Carolina
About Interfolio
Empowering scholars worldwide, Interfolio from Elsevier is an education technology company trusted by more than 500 colleges and universities across 20 countries since 1999. With innovative products designed to support major milestones in the faculty lifecycle, Interfolio’s technology enables academic leaders to effectively advance institutions and their academic staff.
The most comprehensive platform of its kind, the Interfolio Faculty Information System streamlines processes for faculty hiring and recruitment, academic appointments and timelines, activity data reporting, and reviews and promotions. In addition, millions of scholars have used the Interfolio Dossier service to pursue academic programs and positions.
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