Decision on Contract with Academic Analytics

Colleagues,

Thank you to the many of you who provided perspective and insight after my request for feedback on the proposed contract for Academic Analytics (AA). As I indicated previously, AA provides detailed information about our research productivity across the university and how it compares with our peers in similar disciplines. This information helps researchers elevate their programs and also helps chairs and directors identify opportunities and areas ready for advances. Moreover, our use of Academic Analytics and the ability to work with their team to ensure the product most effectively captures all aspects of our research productivity is essential for our status in the AAU, which receives its member metric data from AA.

Our request for feedback generated impassioned responses expressing a variety of viewpoints. I heard from a number of faculty researchers who identified AA as an important — in some cases, essential — tool for their scholarly activities. As was pointed out to me, Academic Analytics is not all things to all people on campus, and some of the responses said the price tag is too steep. Academic Analytics has limited benefit for faculty in some disciplines. On the other hand, it emerged as a very strong tool for other disciplines and for chairs and directors who will be called to harness its benchmarking capabilities.

As I’ve stated from the onset, Academic Analytics is one of many tools that can help guide us in understanding our faculty strengths and finding opportunities, but it is not the only tool we can (or will) use.

I’m grateful to know we have many faculty who feel invested in participating in these conversations, and I appreciate the opportunity to communicate with many of you in this process. Balancing all the information we gathered, I will be signing the 4-year contract this week.

Carl

Carl Lejuez
Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor