[Faculty] Changes to UA Vitae

Mon Oct 7 06:17:19 MST 2019

Good morning, CALS faculty - with the onset of crisp autumn evenings comes the start of UA Vitae annual reporting! Over the past few months, CALS has been working very closely with the UA Vitae team to implement improvements to the UA Vitae system. This email will serve as a notice of the improvements and a reminder about some unique qualities of UA Vitae.

*       Upon receipt of this email, please log into UA Vitae at https://uavitae.arizona.edu/ to ensure that you have access. Those of you who are new to UA Vitae should have been granted access when your personnel information was entered into the University system - but you do NOT want to find out that you don't have access, due to some kind of oversight, in late January. If you cannot log in, please contact the UA Vitae support person in your unit and tell them that the 'UA Vitae flag needs to be checked' in your personnel information.

*       Within a month or so, you will receive notice from your unit head of the due date for your UA Vitae annual reporting. Due dates are generally in late January or early February, and change by unit. If you recall, this is because in years past the entire University had a due date of January 31st, which caused the system to crash on that date. Extension specialists - please note that you may have different due dates for your unit and for Extension. In that case, you must adhere to the EARLIER due date.

*       When you log into UA Vitae you will find a new feature under 'Activities' entitled 'Undergraduate Research Opportunities.' If you have research opportunities and enter them here, they will be added to the UA undergraduate jobs database - which will disseminate the opportunity far and wide to all UA undergraduates. Information entered into the 'Undergraduate Research Opportunities' site can include whether the opportunity is paid or volunteer, what kinds of prerequisites you require, and much more.

*       As you are aware, information on teaching (including TCE scores) is downloaded automatically into UA Vitae. If you are teaching this semester, please log into the Instructor Center in UAccess and make sure that the course information (number of students, percentage of responsibility for co-taught courses) is correct. Any changes to this information must be made BEFORE the end of the semester. Once it is downloaded into UAccess, it is extremely difficult to change this information. If you need changes to be made, please contact the person responsible for course scheduling in your unit.

*       Grants and contracts information is also downloaded automatically from Sponsored Projects. If you have a grant or contract that was not routed through Sponsored Projects, this can be entered manually. The information downloaded from Sponsored Projects cannot be changed once it's downloaded into UA Vitae - but to aid in communicating anything unique to those reviewing your annual report, we have added a box entitled 'Additional Information' into the Grants and Contracts input form. Here, you can enter anything additional - for example, if the closing date of a project has already passed but the grant is still active due to a no-cost extension, you can enter that information in this text box.

We have been working with CALS units to ensure that Peer Reviews of all faculty are performed within the UA Vitae system next spring. Traditionally, the peer review committees of some units have been creating Word files that are then downloaded into the system for view by the unit head - this creates additional work for support staff. In January, UA Vitae personnel will be offering training to CALS peer review committees and unit heads. If you are a member of a peer review committee, please look for an email announcement of these trainings.

UA Vitae reporting has taken on additional importance for two reasons - first, the University has just signed an additional 5-year contract with Interfolio 180, the UA Vitae developer (UA Vitae is NOT going away anytime soon). Second, the University will shortly (within a few years) be moving into the use of UA Vitae for assembly of promotion dossiers. So please make sure you are comfortable with UA Vitae and its special qualities. For the next few months, I will be working closely with the business officers and/or support staff of your units to ensure that UA Vitae reporting season proceeds smoothly. Do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or comments.

Jeannie

Jean E. McLain, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean for Faculty Advancement, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Science
Research Scientist, Water Resources Research Center
University of Arizona, Tucson

(520) 621-4084 [DIRECT LINE]
(520) 621-7292 [WRRC]
(520) 404-8793 [MOBILE]

[cid:image003.jpg at 01D57B7B.6938C660]

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/faculty/attachments/20191007/1e301b95/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 7865 bytes
Desc: image003.jpg
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/faculty/attachments/20191007/1e301b95/attachment.jpg>