Ohio State  Enhances Faculty Information Systems to Streamline Academic Success

Beth Varcho | November 1, 2024

The Office of Technology and Digital Innovation has been on a journey with the Office of Faculty Affairs team within the Office of Academic affairs to revolutionize the way Ohio State faculty members track and showcase their achievements using Interfolio, our Faculty Information Systems (FIS). Interfolio supports faculty throughout their entire lifecycle as they seek grants, submit journal articles, apply for awards, manage promotion and tenure materials, and share their contributions to the university and beyond.

Ohio State uses two primary Interfolio tools. The first is the Review, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) that went live in August 2023. This year OTDI was able to help launch the Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR) in July 2024.

  • Faculty Activity Reports (FAR) highlight faculty contributions and promote active collaboration between academic leaders. These reports capture essential data, enabling seamless communication and coordination across departments, ensuring that faculty excellence is both recognized and utilized. This includes generating reports that support the accreditation process.
  • Review, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) tools that went live in August 2023 offer faculty a highly efficient, timesaving solution. Its digital evaluation system features automated processes with defined workflows, ensuring that data collection and review are consistent and reliable.

OTDI and the Office of Faculty Affairs teams are grateful to distributed Interfolio Coordinators for their amazing work helping faculty transition into using this new service. Deputy CIO and Interim CIO Ginger Breon was part of rolling out a similar system at Penn State, which enabled her to offer essential insights and lessons learned to the purchasing committee. She continues to be a pivotal part of the project, working with Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Patrick Louchouarn and Vice Provost for Academic Policy and Faculty Resources Helen Malone on the steering committee. This group, comprised of Associate Deans, OAA leaders, and the OTDI FIS team, chose the tool and then led implementation efforts.

Going forward, the OTDI FIS team will focus on integration, configuration, and supporting the distributed coordinators of the system. OTDI's FIS team maintains the system by:

  • Managing Integrations that are critically important and enable Interfolio to interface with our Identity Management System (IdM), Workday, the Student Information System (SIS), and other critical sources of information.
  • Creating and configuring workflows and templates to align with defined university processes and standards.
  • Working with Faculty Affairs to evaluate additional modules that add new functionality.
  • Overseeing the Interfolio enhancement roadmap.
  • Looking for new partnership opportunities.

With these upgrades, Ohio State is ensuring that faculty accomplishments are front and center, while providing the tools needed to advance academic careers through streamlined and efficient processes.