A do-it-yourself faculty information system.

Heinrichs, Lynn R.

INTRODUCTION

Management information systems (MIS) serve the management level of an organization by summarizing and reporting on the basic operations of an organization (Laudon and Laudon, 1999).

MIS are characterized by:

* Support for structured decisions at the operational and management control levels, but are also useful for planning purposes,

* Reporting and control orientation,

* Use of existing corporate data and data flows,

* Use of past and present data,

* Internal orientation,

* Minimal flexibility and analytical ability.

University administrators, like corporate managers, need information systems to support decision-making. Building internal systems for organizing, maintaining, and sharing information is a vital part of managing any organization. In an academic environment, faculty planning and reporting activities require access to timely, accurate information by deans and department heads. Although universities maintain human resource information systems, these systems typically provide institutional-level reports that do not address the managerial needs of mid-level administrators.

Like any IS problem, implementing a system for faculty planning and reporting can be accomplished using either a "build it" or "buy it" approach. For example, Vinsonhaler, Vinsonhaler, Bartholome, Stephens, and Wagner (1996) developed a knowledge-based system for tracking academic productivity called PERIS--Productivity Evaluation, Reward, and Improvement System. The system tracked activities for the components of teaching, research, and service. Using IFTHEN rules, point values were assigned to activities. Activity points were accumulated to calculate a productivity total for each component as well as for a faculty member overall. The traditional advantage to this "do-it-yourself' approach is that an application is developed that meets the specific information needs of its users. However, the approach can suffer from long implementation times and substantial development costs.

Off-the-shelf software packages, such as the Dean's Associate from Octagram, allow an institution to quickly implement a faculty information system solution. The Dean's Associate is specifically designed to meet the needs of schools seeking AACSB accreditation or reaffirmation through two types of reports: business school management and accreditation-related. Cost of the software is based upon the size of the faculty.

This paper describes a project undertaken by one business school to implement a "do-it-yourself" faculty information system to support management decision-making and AACSB reaffirmation efforts. Specific objectives of the system were to:

* eliminate duplication of records,

* improve organization of and access to data,

* enhance decision-making with relevant and timely information,

* increase faculty awareness of business school performance and productivity,

* generate AACSB reports.

Information provided by the system is used in the business school's day-to-day operations, longer-term planning activities, and AACSB reaffirmation efforts.

BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

A combination of factors initiated the faculty information system (FIS) project in Fall 1997. The business school underwent a change in leadership the previous year followed by a change in office support personnel. Many of the paper and electronic record systems previously used were unavailable. Uncoordinated efforts among staff to recreate information were leading to redundant record systems. Addtionally, the school was two years away from the self-evaluation period of its AACSB reaffirmation.

Some information the business school required for decision-making and reaffirmation was available from institutional systems. However, reports were not timely and did not contain the appropriate level of detail needed for some types of decisions. Much of the data needed for AACSB reaffirmation surrounded faculty composition and intellectual activities. The personnel system maintained by the university did not capture this type of information.

The lack of appropriate information from university systems combined with the need for new internal record systems to support decision-making and AACSB reaffirmation triggered the FIS project in Fall 1997. Business school administrators examined the build versus buy options. The buy option was considered preferable, but funds could not be obtained to purchase an off-the-shelf solution. Since sufficient time and in-house expertise were available to implement a "do-it-yourself" solution, the school opted to build the faculty information system.

INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS

A subset of information requirements for the FIS is summarized in Table 1. The complete set of information requirements is too extensive to discuss comfortably in this paper. The requirements represent what information the FIS needed to generate for decision-making and external reporting activities.

Faculty Activity Tracking. Since the school's mission should guide all activity, information is needed to verify that faculty teaching and scholarly activity is consistent with the mission. Information in this area is used for internal decision-making as well as AACSB reporting.

Faculty Planning. Each year, the school's dean must justify requests for new faculty positions. " Positions generated" is a key figure used to justify these requests. If a faculty of 50 is generating credit-hour production equivalent to 55 positions, then new faculty lines can be justified.

AACSB Reporting. Two AACSB standards, "Faculty Composition and Development" as well as "Intellectual Contributions," require substantial information about the size, make up, qualifications, and intellectual activity of faculty members (AACSB, 1999). The faculty information system should generate information that documents compliance with these standards.

A key concern in defining the initial information requirements was the level of detail required for tracking and reporting intellectual contributions (IC) activity. Recording IC activity can involve substantial data entry if complete citations for all contributions are maintained. A simple prototype was developed to test the feasibility of entering complete citations. The additional work required for data entry was impractical given the staff available. The primary objective was to establish an IC profile at the faculty member, department, and college levels that documented the quality of scholarship and the consistency of activity with the mission. Generating this information did not require capturing complete citations. Only a simple transaction representing each citation that could be tied back to a faculty member's vita was needed.

THE DATA MODEL

The data model was developed using a semantic object modeling approach. According to Kroenke (1998), "a semantic object is a named collection of attributes that sufficiently describes a distinct identity." Attributes can be simple (single-valued) or group (multiple attributes). Object's can be simple, composite, compound or hybrid. Simple objects contain only single-valued, nonobject attributes. Composite objects contain one or more multi-valued, non-object attributes. Compound objects are made up of at least one object attribute. And hybrid, as the name suggests, are combinations of two different types. A completed semantic object model translates easily to a relational database design.

Four of the objects included in the data model are presented here: FACULTY MEMBER, DEPARTMENT, INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTION ACTIVITY, and TEACHING ASSIGNMENT. The data model assumed that faculty members belong to one department, but a department can have many faculty. A faculty member will have many teaching assignments and IC activities, but a teaching assignment or intellectual contribution activity belongs to only one faculty member. Figure 1 shows the semantic object diagram for the limited FIS.

Faculty Member Object. The FACULTY MEMBER object contains all attributes of a faculty member that are needed for satisfying the information requirements of the FIS. A faculty ID attribute uniquely identifies each member. FACULTY MEMBER has three object attributes that represent relationships with the objects. One group attribute, DEGREE GROUP, describes the attributes of the academic degrees earned by a faculty member. Since a faculty member can earn multiple degrees, the group is considered multi-valued.

Department Object. The DEPARTMENT object contains simple attributes department ID and name. The FACULTY MEMBER object attribute represents the multiple faculty members that are associated with a DEPARTMENT.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Teaching Assignment Object. TEACHING ASSIGNMENT contains attributes that describe a course taught by a faculty member during a specific term. If two faculty teach the same course, each is considered to have a unique TEACHING ASSIGNMENT. The semester credit hours represent the credit hours applied to the faculty member's teaching load.

Intellectual Contributions Activity Object. For the purpose of the faculty information system, the INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS ACTIVITY of a FACULTY MEMBER must describe when (the year) the activity occurred, the type of outlet for the activity, and the type of scholarship. A contribution number is used to associate the activity with the corresponding citation on the faculty member's vita. If an intellectual contribution is authored by more than one faculty member, each individual will have an entry in the database. The attribute "number of co-authors" is used to designate whether or not more than one FACULTY MEMBER contributed to the output. Availability of this attribute allows the FIS to produce a profile of activity that summarizes contributions with or without duplicate counts for co-authors.

THE DATA DESIGN

A semantic object model easily translates to a relational database design. The relational approach organizes all data in two-dimensional tables (or relations). Relationships between tables are created through common columns. Table 2 shows the table design for the FIS. Five tables are used to implement the four objects from Figure 1.

IMPLEMENTATION

According to Watson, Houdeshel, and Rainer (1997), two types of information are "generated and managed internally in the organization: information based on data records ... and document-based information such as reports, opinions, memos, and estimates. (p. 272)" Both types of internal information were used to populate the FIS database. As shown in Figure 2, university information systems were used to extract data regarding instructional activity. College of Business documents provided faculty composition information (origin, status, and rank) while faculty vita were used to capture terminal degree and intellectual contributions input.

The database was implemented using Microsoft Access. Data captured from internal documents were entered manually into database tables while data extracted from university information systems were imported. Once the tables were in place, queries were developed to extract information for generating reports.

The database tables, queries, and reports were installed on the local area network (LAN) to allow for shared access. The LAN implementation allows multiple staff to use the information system, thus avoiding the redundancy problems that existed with former systems of record keeping.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

FUTURE DIRECTION

A Web-based version of the system has already been tested. However, because of concerns regarding confidentiality of some data, the Web-based FIS is still in test mode. Eventually, all faculty and staff should be able to view FIS reports using a Web browser. For now, the LAN version continues to meet the current needs of the business school.

REFERENCES

AACSB. (1999). Achieving Quality and Continuous Improvement Through Self-Evaluation and Peer Review. AACSB--The International Association for Management Education, St. Louis, MO.

Kroenke, D. M. (1998). Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design, and Implementation. Prentice-Hall.

Laudon, K.C. & Laudon, J.P. (1999). Essentials of Management Information Systems. Prentice-Hall. Octagram, Inc. (2000). The Dean's Associate. www.octagram.com.

Vinsonhaler, J., J. Vinsonhaler, L. Bartholome, D. Stephens, & C. Wagner. (1996). PERIS: A knowledge based system for academic productivity. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 36(3), 37-47.

Watson, H.J., G. Houdeshel, and R. Rainer, Jr. (1997). Building Executive Information Systems and Other Decision Support Applications, John Wiley & Sons.

Lynn R. Heinrichs, Western Carolina University

Table 1

Sample Information Requirements for the FIS

Purpose Type of Decision, Type of FIS Output
 Problem or Question

Faculty Activity Do faculty have Semester credit hours
Tracking appropriate course loads generated No. of course
 to achieve the school's preparations
 mission?

 Are faculty members No. of intellectual
 intellectually active contributions Profile of
 and are activities intellectual
 consistent with the contributions by type of
 mission? outlet (journal,
 proceedings, etc.) and
 type of scholarship
 (basic, applied,
 instructional
 development)

Faculty Planning Should the school No. of teaching
 request additional positions generated by
 faculty positions? faculty

AACSB Reporting Is the full-time faculty Minimum full-time
 adequate? equivalent

 Is the faculty Ethnic origin, gender,
 sufficiently diverse? rank

 Are faculty members Terminal degree and year
 academically qualified? Profile of intellectual
 contributions

Table 2

The Data Design

Table Name Table Columns

Faculty Member Faculty ID, Faculty name, Rank, Gender,
 Graduate status, Date of hire, Hire
 status, Primary teaching field,
 Qualification

Degrees Faculty ID, Degree, Degree Year, Major

Department Dept ID, Name

Teaching Assignment Faculty ID, Year, Semester, Course ID,
 Section No., Level, SCH

Intellectual Contribution Faculty ID, Year, Contribution No., Outlet
 type, Contribution type, % of Contribution