Faculty Activity Report Frequently Asked Questions

Reminders

The Digital Measures (DM) FAR does not automatically save your entries. You must click “SAVE” at the bottom of each page to ensure all of the information you enter is retained.
To add additional information in most sections, click on “Save and Add Another” as many times as necessary to complete your entries.
In the section “General Information- Yearly Data” there is a pull-down menu for the read-only “college” field. For all faculty members on the 14 campuses of University College the code should be “CC” for University College. This college designation is used for administrative purposes. If the college field is not “CC,” please ask the staff assistant assigned to work with faculty on their FARs to correct it..
The use of “CC” to indicate the college is not intended to identify the tenure home of faculty. A field called “Tenure Home” is used instead. It can be changed as needed.
The section “Administrative Data- Permanent Data” requests information about start dates and promotion dates. All faculty members with an instructor appointment should complete “Start Date at Penn State” and select your current title (“Instructor” or “Senior Instructor”) from the drop down menu.
If you are having trouble completing some portion of your FAR, first contact the staff member(s) in the Office of Academic Affairs assigned to help faculty members complete their FARs. If the staff member cannot answer your question, s/he will contact others for assistance.
If you cannot log in, and you have been recently hired, you may need to be added to the database. To be added to the database contact the staff assistant in the Office of Academic Affairs assigned to helping faculty members with their FARs.

General questions

How can I attach supplemental information?

First, go through the entire FAR and complete all of the sections that apply to you. Then, if you have information remaining that did not fit the FAR categories, (including the comment boxes in each section identified by the terms “description of,” “details,” or “comments”), to include information that cannot be reported elsewhere on the screen go to the “Personal and Contact Information” section.

To attach a file to the section “Personal and Contact Information,” scroll to the bottom of the screen. You will see “Supplemental documentation not included elsewhere;Description of Supplementary Material.” One or more files may be attached by clicking on “Store file.”
Where do I report information for which no specific place is provided in the FAR?

If there is no place provided to include an explanation of an activity that you think is important, or you do not know where to report some information, use the comment boxes included in each section of the FAR. These are identified by the terms “description of,” “details” or “comments” to include information that cannot be reported elsewhere on the screen.
How do I move activities from one screen to another, such as from College Service to University Service?

The easiest way to do this is to use the PasteBoard feature located at the bottom of screen. Go to the screen from which you want to copy data (e.g., College Service). You can highlight and drag text into the PasteBoard. The data will stay there until you clear it. When you have everything you want in the PasteBoard, go to the screen where you want to insert it (e.g., University Service). You then can drag the text from the PasteBoard into the screen. This procedure also is explained in the tutorial.
How do I submit my completed FAR to my DAA?

You must send an email informing your DAA that your FAR is completed and ready for review.
Which information should I delete from the information automatically transferred from my FAR from last year to the new FAR?

Activities from the FAR you submitted last year should be retained in the new FAR if you are still participating in them. In this case you will need to update the time period of your participation. However, any activity in which you are no longer participating must be deleted. (If an end date is added to an activity, it should then not be included in the next FAR.)
Do I always have to provide an end date for an activity, even if it is on-going?

No. If an activity such as a membership in a professional organization is on-going, only include the start date and leave the end date blank. This will ensure that the activity is carried over to the FAR in the next year. An end date is only needed when a reported activity ends.
When can I add updates to my FAR?

Faculty members have 24/7 access all year to the Digital Measures FAR. Go to http://activityinsight.psu.edu/ and log in.

Teaching Section: Questions

Which types of courses are included in the category “Resident Instruction (R.I.)”?

RI courses include all courses taught for academic credit, including credit courses taught for Continuing Education (CE) and World Campus.
When will the course information and SRTEs be included in the DM FAR?

The list of courses taught and the SRTE data will be automatically added to the FAR from the University databases. A faculty member therefore does not have to add this information manually.

The SRTE results will not be available until at least four weeks after the end of a semester. It takes the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence a few weeks to prepare the data after classes end, and then Digital Measures needs time to add it to the faculty activity database. Once the exact date is known for the availability of the SRTEs, you will be notified.

If the SRTE data are needed sooner, the staff assistant at each campus assigned to work with faculty on the completion of their FARs may print a copy of the SRTEs for use during the review of the new FAR until the data is loaded into the FAR system.

Note that the SRTEs are available to faculty online within a week after grades are submitted at http://www.srte.psu.edu.
When will the Summer Semester course information and SRTEs be included in the DM FAR?

The SRTEs from summer teaching will be added to the DM FAR at the same time as Fall Semester SRTEs.
How can I remove SRTE information that should not have been reported, or make corrections to the reported SRTE data?

The most frequent problem is the reporting of SRTEs when the response rate is too low to be reported. Summary results for SRTEs should not be posted for courses with less than five student responses. That is, if there are four or fewer responses, the SRTEs should not be reported or used for evaluation. If there are five or more responses, the SRTEs should be reported. (See http://www.srte.psu.edu/pdf/Online_vs_Paper_Fall2010.pdf.)

Each faculty member is urged to check his or her SRTE data as loaded into the FAR for accuracy. A faculty member cannot correct the SRTE data included in his or her FAR. However, if reporting errors are found, the staff assistant at each campus assigned to work with faculty on their FARs can make the necessary corrections. The problem also should be reported to Mike Naputano (mjn10@psu.edu) so he can check the system and determine why the error(s) occurred.

The staff assistant can make corrections by using the “Manage Data” function in the FAR. The Staff assistant can determine the total number of students who completed the SRTE forms. With this information, the staff assistant can remove SRTEs from the FAR that should not have been reported.
How are World campus courses evaluated?

World Campus (online) students complete for all courses the same online SRTE that is completed by students enrolled in all Penn State courses regardless of the method of delivery. All BSBIC courses are evaluated using the online SRTE. (The only exceptions are a very few graduate courses and courses that do not use the 15-week semester.) The SRTEs for World Campus courses are added to the DM database when the other SRTEs are reported.

Research/Scholarship/Creative Accomplishments Section: Questions

How do I report (1) attendance at a conference, and (2) attendance at a conference where an active role also was taken, such as presenting a paper or workshop or participating on a panel discussion?

If you attend a profession conference but do not present or participate in some manner such as presenting a paper or serving on a discussion panel, this activity should be reported under General Information “Professional Development.”

If you presented and/or participated in a panel at a conference, the presentation would be reported in the Scholarship category under “Presentations, seminars and workshops.” Generally when there is such active participation in a scheduled event on the conference program, it is assumed that the faculty member also attended sessions scheduled at the conference. However, if you want to highlight particular sessions attended, OR if your DAA requests this information, it may be included under “Professional Development.”
When a publication is carried over from the prior year, is there a way to update its status without adding it as a new entry?

Yes. Just click on “edit” to go to the complete entry. Click on “status” and select the current status, and then update the date at the bottom of this screen.
Where should I list published poems?

Published poems should be reported in the Scholarship/Research section under “Publications.” One of the following entries may be selected: Poetry, Online Literary Journal or Poetry, or Print Literary Journal.

Goals and Objectives

In the Goals and Objectives screen, you can create entries for a calendar year when you click on Add a New Item.
The most important part of this screen is the instruction… State your goals for next year, the resources you will need and the expected measureable outcome(s). You are making an entry for NEXT year.
If you are in Calendar Year 2013 and enter Goals…these are for 2014 (next year), and they will display on your FAR under Future Goals. (Run your FAR with the

date range of Jan 1 2013-Dec 31 2013) DO NOT run your FAR for any other date range or else goals will not be in the proper position in the report!
To create an entry for further in the future, you can change the Calendar Year to the next year (2014). Enter your goal information as you did previously, but this goal would be for 2015, and will not appear on your 2013 FAR. However, the entry will be in the database.
To complete an objective for a goal listed last year, click “Edit” beside 2012; complete the Outcomes Attained section. This information will appear when you run your FAR for 2013.