Customize Activity Classifications
Activity Classifications (AC) in Faculty Activity Reporting (FAR, Faculty180) provide a basis for classifying faculty members into useful categories within FAR. They supplement the fields in a section and enable tracking of activity characteristics, such as the review type for a scholarly work (blind peer, editorially reviewed). ACs can be set by administrators and can be locked from faculty edits. They must be attached to a section and they can be set as required or optional. They can be used in multiple sections, and set to only show for particular units. You can attach an Activity Classification to a section when configuring the Activity Classification or when configuring a section.
Some benefits of using Activity Classifications instead of fields include:
- If different units need to collect different data on the same section
- If you need to use specific data as a grouping in a Vita output
- If you need to filter by specific data in reports
Setting up activity classifications is a critical step in preparing for accreditation reporting.
Manage Activity Classifications
Navigation: Administration > Setup > Activity Classifications > Select Unit > Create New or Edit Existing Activity Classification > Save
i. Click Setup under the Administration section of the navigation menu.
ii. Click Activity Classifications under the Customize section.
iii. Click the hyperlinked number for the unit corresponding to the activity to be added/changed. If necessary, click the plus sign to expand a unit.
iv. Select the desired tabs below to create a new AC or edit an existing AC.
Create New
- Scroll to the bottom and click Add.
- Click the Unit Change link to select a different unit or subunit, if necessary.
Once created, faculty members and their surrogates can enter activity classification data as activities that are input into FAR. The organizational unit that an activity classification is assigned to is important because it limits the visibility of that classification to the faculty members within that unit and to its sub-units.
After Activity Classification Data has been entered, they can be used to filter reports. For example, each institution can generate a report showing trends of faculty members’ scholarly activities and filter those activities by the review type options shown (blind peer-reviewed, editorially reviewed, invited, non-blind-peer reviewed, and not reviewed).
Edit Existing
- Click the Change link adjacent to the Exclude These Unit row to check the list of activity classifications that should be EXCLUDED.
- Click the Unit Usage dropdown to specify which activity classifications to display. The following options are available:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show All Used By This Unit | Shows all relevant activity classifications and hides all that are exclusions for my assigned unit |
| Show Non-Global Used By This Unit | Shows activity classifications that have exclusions, such as those that are not global and that assigned unit is not excluded from |
| Show Global | Shows all activity classifications that have not been excluded from any unit |
| Show Non-Global | Shows all activity classifications that are excluded from at least one unit |
| Show Global and Non-Global | Shows all activity classifications for all units |
When adding a new unit, Global Activity Classifications (Activity Classifications that have not been excluded from any unit) will be applied to the new unit. Administrators can change which activity classifications are assigned to the unit as necessary. FAR contains several options for displaying and managing activity classifications, based on which units the activity classifications are assigned to and excluded from within each institution.
3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon to make changes to the desired activity.
Activity classifications can also be cloned and activated/deactivated from here.
v. Specify the settings for the activity classification.
Select Display Type
Select the desired display type from the dropdown options.
Set Up AC as Required/Not Required
Choose whether or not the AC should be a required field by selecting or deselecting the check mark box next to Required under the General Information section.
AC Access Settings
Under General Information > Options, Administrators can choose the access settings for ACs for faculty and administrators. The table below describes each access setting option in detail.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Faculty can enter/edit AND Administrators can enter/edit |
If this option is selected, faculty and administrators can fill out the AC as well as edit their selection later. This option is great to use if the AC is NOT being populated by a file load. This is a great way to collect data points from faculty that do not exist anywhere else on campus and require self-reporting. |
| Faculty can enter/edit (unless locked) AND Administrators can enter/edit and lock |
If this option is selected, faculty can fill out and update the AC unless it has been locked by an administrator, while administrators can fill out, update, and lock the AC. The best practice recommendation is to lock ACs that will be populated by a data file load.
|
| Faculty cannot enter/edit and cannot view AND Administrators can enter/edit |
If this option is selected, faculty cannot fill out or update an AC nor can they view the classification. In this case, administrators can fill out or update the AC. This option is great to use if the institution needs to collect certain data points for reporting purposes that the faculty member doesn't have access to, would not know how to provide, or should not see either for confidentiality or to reduce clutter in the data request. |
| Faculty can view/not edit AND Administrators can view/can edit |
If this option is selected, faculty can view an AC but not fill it out or update it, while administrators can both view and update it. This option is great to use if faculty should be able to see a data point that is being loaded on a data file from a source system but should not be able to update it. It is helpful to include the source system that the data is pulling from as well as the administrator for that system in the section instructions so that faculty know who to contact if there is an error in the data. |
| Faculty can view/not edit AND Administrators can view/not edit |
If this option is selected, faculty and administrators can view and AC but neither group will be able to update it in the UI. This option is great to use to seelct if the AC is being populated by a data file load and the information is not confidential.
|
Input Sections that Allow for ACs
Note that ACs can only be tied to a handful of profile sections. These profile sections include the profile activities shown in the image below.
Manually Enter List Options
- Enter the dropdown choices in the Option field.
- Click Add Another Option button to add additional choices.
- The Show in Reports checkbox determines whether or not the AC will appear as a filtering option in Reports.
- The Default to this Value checkbox will auto-fill the selected value for that AC during data entry.
Once an option has been added and the AC has been saved, that option can be modified but cannot be deleted. If a dropdown option needs to be removed, the administrator should reach out to Support for assistance
Dropdown options should not be modified relating to Accreditation Reports (specified in the Organization column on the Manage Activity Classifications page. If a modification is necessary, the administrator should reach out to Support for assistance
Activate/Deactivate ACs
Institutions may need to deactivate an AC if they:
- No longer need that information.
- Need to change the unit an AC falls under. For example, if an AC is only for one unit, but needs to be changed to be available for the entire University, they will need to inactivate the original and then create a new AC.
Navigate to the Manage Activity Classifications page.
- To deactivate an AC, click the Checkmark adjacent to the desired AC.
- To activate an AC, click the Exclamation adjacent to the desired AC.
If the AC you are looking for is not showing up, you may have to change the Active Status dropdown at the top of the page to Both.
Note that the activity classification publicly displayed is a hard-coded activity classification that is automatically turned on, and can only be turned off by contacting Interfolio. For clients utilizing the APIs, a faculty selection of publicly displayed = no tells developers to not display that data outside of the module
vi. When finished making changes, scroll to the bottom and click the Save button.