SUBJECT:

Phased Implementation of Interfolio for Academic Personnel Processes

The Academic Personnel process is arguably one of the most critical procedures supporting the faculty mission at UC San Diego. It is also one of the most labor intensive. In 2016, with improved efficiency and simplification in mind, the Academic Personnel Services unit was charged to identify and assess a new electronic means to enhance and streamline facilitation of the campus' academic merit and promotion processes.

To this end, we are pleased to introduce Interfolio as the selected successor system to AP Online Review. Interfolio will offer enhanced "faculty-first" higher education technology to establish a digital solution for faculty review, tenure, promotion and activity reporting. Interfolio includes a dynamic workflow that supports the full scope of an academic review - from initial file submission and requests for external evaluation letters - through the delivery of a final decision. The system also provides a powerful faculty activity collection tool that will facilitate the extraction of data from various campus, and in some cases, third party databases such as PubMed to create biobibs and CVs.

The selection of Interfolio followed an extensive yearlong assessment by a diverse panel of faculty and staff. It is our collective assessment that this system will increase process transparency, provide academics with invaluable tools for activity sharing and analytics, and will ultimately ease the burden for faculty and staff involved in the preparation and appraisal of academic review materials.

Academic Personnel Services (APS) will phase out the use of AP Online Review and work to implement the use of Interfolio over the course of the next three years. Several departments, including those within the Health Sciences are serving as early adopters of the Interfolio system. Additional implementation details will be announced in the coming months.

Should you have questions or concerns regarding Interfolio, or if you would like to participate in the early adoption pool please contact Cindy Palmer, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel Services at c5palmer@ucsd.edu.

Peter F. Cowhey Interim Executive Vice Chancellor Tamara Wall Associate Vice Chancellor - Academic Personnel