• General Questions
• Regarding Reporting
• Working with Data
  

What are the steps to get up and running?

There are eight simple steps to setting-up Activity Insight:

1. Send a copy of any reports you would like to run on the teaching, research and service activities of your faculty and staff.

2. We use the reports you sent to add screens and fields to a base set of data that we know you will likely need to collect. Elements in the base ”set” of data include such items as, for presentations, the title of the presentation, where it was presented, who presented, and the date it was presented.

3. You beta test Activity Insight with as many people as you like, entering data into the system and seeing how things come out on reports. Changes are made to the system and you can again test the system until you deem that it is ready to be used.

4. Load data into Activity Insight from other databases, or connect Activity Insight to other databases in ”real-time”.

5. If you would like to use it, put remote file storage in place to house files that you want to store within Activity Insight. Files might include syllabii for each of your courses, the full-text of the intellectual contributions that your faculty and staff publish, presentation files of talks given by your faculty and staff, or videos of productions your faculty and staff create.

6. If you would like to use it, put single sign-on in place to make it more convenient to access Activity Insight. This makes it so your faculty and staff no longer need a separate username and password to get into Activity Insight. Making it easy to get into Activity Insight will encourage more frequent use of the system.

7. If you would like to have them do so, individuals can begin entering data on your faculty and staff's behalf.

8. Your faculty and staff begin entering their data. An email can be sent by Activity Insight to let them know how to access the system.

How many years of data must be entered into the system?

Digital Measures recommends that every new client thoroughly consider the number of years of data they need their faculty to enter into the system at initial setup. The amount of buy-in that will be received for an initiative is very much a function of the amount of work people are required to perform to comply with the initiative. The amount of work that must be completed to use Activity Insight is strongly correlated to the number of years of historical data that each new client would like to have within Activity Insight. While entire vitas can certainly be entered, the final decision on how much data you would like to include is entirely up to you.

Many of our clients ask their faculty to enter between one to ten years of data because they need reports on data from only this period of time. Perhaps an accreditation site visit taking place in three years will require reports on the last ten years of faculty and staff activities. This would give reason for importing or entering data into Activity Insight from the previous seven years. Many of our clients also choose to begin by asking their faculty to only keep track of their activities for the current academic year and then maintain that data on a going-forward basis. Many of our clients maintain entire vitas within Activity Insight.

Why should we not build a system such as Activity Insight in-house?

There are several good reasons to use Activity Insight instead of building your own system. Three of them are:

• Activity Insight is ready to use immediately and is rich with features. You benefit from Digital Measures' experience working with hundreds of other campuses. Instead of spending your resources building a system from scratch, you can use them to customize Activity Insight to be exactly as you want it. You are able to focus on the implementation, use of the system, and extraction of the data from the system rather than the construction of it.
• Most campus IT organizations do not seem to be in a position to build software solutions in-house. Creating software solutions entails significant time, expense and resources dedicated to their design, construction and maintenance. It seems to be a far better use of resources to focus a campus' IT organization on supporting and extending functionality in solutions such as Activity Insight.
• Activity Insight eliminates any downside of working with a vendor for this type of solution instead of building it in-house. The common "downsides" of working with a vendor for this type of solution are:
  
  ·The data from the vendor's system is in a proprietary file format that can only be used with the vendor's software, locking you into use of the vendor's software
  ·The data in the vendor's system cannot be used in real-time by other software that your campus uses, isolating your data and creating a "data island" where the data is locked away.
  ·If the vendor stops providing the service, your data will be lost
  
  Activity Insight effectively combats these concerns. All of Digital Measures' clients can obtain full downloads of all their data in comma-delimited or XML files at all times, ensuring clients always have access to all data and that the data can be used in other systems. Furthermore, your other software systems can "talk" to Activity Insight because of Digital Measures' use of web services.

What resources do we need to implement Activity Insight?

We recommend that a campus administrator oversee the implementation of Activity Insight campus-wide. This will not need to be the person’s sole responsibility, and the time commitment will drop significantly after implementation. Note that your campus administrator should have some technical background, as this is a software system.

We also recommend having each school or college appoint an administrator. This role is commonly filled by an associate/assistant dean, a technology coordinator, or someone similar. This is typically just one of the responsibilities of the person and is not a full or perhaps even part time role. If desired, your campus administrator can also fulfill this role for your school or college; this decision is up to you.

What is the advantage of using Activity Insight?

Once your faculty and staff's activity information has been entered just once into Activity Insight, it never again needs to be re-entered. After the information is in the system, you can then use Activity Insight to generate reports for all of your stakeholders. Faculty and staff never again need to be asked on a one-off basis for this information for every individual report that you need to prepare, such as for accreditation, promotion, tenure, performance appraisals, and media surveys. Furthermore, all academic units on your campus get the exact reports they need for these purposes because Activity Insight supports customizations on a unit-by-unit basis. Activity Insight lends itself well to the ”decentralized” nature of most campuses.

How do we get faculty to keep their data current?

There are several things you can do to increase user buy-in:

• Have people other than your faculty and staff enter data on their behalf.
• Tie use of Activity Insight to existing reporting processes such as a yearly faculty activity report or performance appraisal, noting that once their data is entered in the system, they will never again need to respond to requests for reports on their activities. Encourage this to be seen as a "one-stop-shop" for faculty activity information.
• Take advantage of Digital Measures’ data import capabilities as much as possible to alleviate any manual data entry that needs to be performed. You have databases with information such as the courses that your faculty teach. This information can be brought into Activity Insight so that data do not need to be re-keyed.
• Determine how many years of historical data you need entered and then clearly communicate this as well as any deadlines by which the information must be entered. Be sure to convey the importance of having timely, accurate data.
• Make training available to those who will be using Activity Insight. Support is also available through Digital Measures at any time. Digital Measures is frequently told that Activity Insight is very easy to use. Even so, people appreciate knowing that help is available if needed.

Is the initial setup period the only opportunity we have to customize Activity Insight?

No. You may revise the data you store within Activity Insight and the reports that you can build with it at any time.

How secure is Activity Insight?

Digital Measures has taken many steps to create a safe environment for your information while still making it easy for you to securely access it. All data are collected over a 128-bit SSL-encrypted connection, the industry-standard method of transferring sensitive information. All of Digital Measures' servers are managed by IBM and are running in an IBM-owned datacenter. All data is securely backed up every night to five geographically-dispersed locations owned by IBM and Iron Mountain. In addition, Digital Measures is registered with and certified by the United States Department of Commerce as compliant with the Safe Harbor Principles in effect between the European Union and the U.S.

Who owns my data and what can Digital Measures do with it?

All data provided by and collected for your campus by Digital Measures are solely owned by your campus. As per the terms in Digital Measures' standard service agreement, your data cannot be disclosed, reused, sold, or disseminated in any way by Digital Measures. Furthermore, per our standard service agreement, we legally agree to take steps to protect your confidential data.

Is your faculty activity reporting software American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant?

Yes.

We have custom reports that need to be pulled from the system. Can this be done?

Yes. Here are the ways this can be done:

• Send Digital Measures a detailed sample report as a Microsoft™ Word or Excel file, and we’ll build the report into the system for you. Custom reports contain the same exact text, formatting and layout as the reports you send.
• Use Activity Insight's Ad Hoc Reporting tool. This tool makes it easy to get data out of the system on a one-off basis.

Can we prepare vitas with Activity Insight?

Yes. Digital Measures can custom-build the vita formats you would like to have in Activity Insight. You can also use one of our ”out-of-the-box” vitas.

Who can see data in Activity Insight and reports generated from it?

The short answer to this question is ”You.” Our clients each set their own user permissions for the faculty, staff and administrators on their campus. Security can be assigned in nearly any way you desire. The typical security configuration most campuses use is similar to this:

• Faculty and staff are only able to run reports on their own data
• Several designated individuals are able to run reports for the individuals in each department. You may also desire that these same people, or alternate people, be able to modify data in the system for this department
• Several designated individuals are able to run reports for the individuals in each college or school. You may also desire that these same people, or alternate people, be able to modify data in the system for this college or school
• Several designated individuals are able to run reports for everyone on campus. You may also desire that these same people, or alternate people, be able to modify data in the system for everyone on campus

Can we prepare different custom reports per academic unit?

Yes. Custom reports can be built into the system for each of your academic units. This allows each of your colleges or schools to produce custom annual activity reports, for example.

Can we submit new reports to be built into the system even after the set-up period?

Yes. You may add, revise and remove reports at any time.

How do we bring data into Activity Insight from other systems?

Simply submit an import file in comma-delimited (.csv) format or a file that meets these two conditions:

• Every column in the file needs to ”map” to exactly one field in the system
• Every row in the file needs to have a unique identifier that matches an account in the system (new accounts can always be created)

This will enable you to use data from your campus ERP system such as PeopleSoft, Banner, SAP or Datatel.

How do we access data in Activity Insight with other systems?

Digital Measures supports an open standard referred to as ”web services.” The purpose of web services is to allow systems to “talk” that were otherwise not designed to do so. For example, this allows you to connect Activity Insight to your campus website to maintain profiles of your faculty and staff. If a faculty member adds an item to Activity Insight such as a research grant, the item immediately shows up on the person's profile on your website in real-time.

How can we get data out of Activity Insight?

Digital Measures makes it easy for you to build complex, custom reports for your accrediting bodies, campus and other stakeholders. Because Digital Measures digitizes the actual reports you need to prepare and uses the same specific data elements, calculations and formatting of the reports that you provide to us, building these reports is no longer a chore. When you click to run a report with Activity Insight, the report is then built in real-time using all data entered as of that instant.

Activity Insight's ad hoc reporting tool allows you to easily select the exact data elements you would like from those collected in the system. You can select the date range and whether you want to include data from all of your faculty and staff or only data from particular colleges, schools, departments or units.

Even though Digital Measures partners with IBM and Iron Mountain to make five back ups of all client data every night, we still think it is a good idea for each of our clients to periodically download and store a full copy of their data. Activity Insight makes it easy to automatically download a full copy of all your data on a periodic basis. The data back ups are in comma-separated value (.csv) file format which you can then save to other databases and software applications.

Digital Measures supports an open standard referred to as ”web services.” The purpose of web services is to allow systems to “talk” that were otherwise not designed to do so. For example, this allows you to connect Activity Insight to your campus website to maintain profiles of your faculty and staff. If a faculty member adds an item to Activity Insight such as a research grant, the item immediately shows up on the person's profile on your website in real-time.

Can we use data from Activity Insight in other Digital Measures solutions?

Yes. An example of this is if you use both Activity Insight and Course Response, our online course evaluation solution. Using both solutions together would integrate your course evaluation results with your faculty and staff's annual activity reports.

Can we load data into Activity Insight even after the initial setup period?

Yes. You may load data as often and whenever you would like.

How long does the data we put in Activity Insight remain in the system?

All information entered into Activity Insight is always available. Even though your faculty and staff change over time, keeping information for those individuals who are no longer with your campus is still important for preparing accurate historical reports on your campus' productivity.