Faculty Activity System

Activity Insight™ organizes and builds reports on teaching, research, and service activities. At the College of Charleston, we call this our Faculty Activity System (FAS). It enables you to keep track of your activity information just once so that many outputs can be prepared, such as annual activity reports, promotion and tenure documentation, data for accreditation reports, your CV, data for your profile on your campus website, and more. It also assists your administration in responding to requests for faculty-related data, rather than needing to continually ask you for the information. This enables your campus to communicate more effectively about your accomplishments. For assistance with the FAS, please use the Help "?" link within Activity Insight, and your message will be directed to the Activity Insight tech support team and the College of Charleston Activity Insight Administrator in the Office of the Provost (FacultyActivitySysAdmin@cofc.edu).

Access FAS Through MyPortal

FAS Overview

Activities

Faculty are expected to add or update information about the activities they accomplish in all sections of the Activities page. Please remember to click Save after completing any updates to each screen. New faculty may contact their department chair, program director, or our College of Charleston Activity Insight Administrator for guidance on how, what, and when to enter for each faculty activity.

Navigation Bar

The navigation bar displays at least two main utilities, Activities and Reports. You may have other utilities if the CofC Activity Insight Administrator has given you security access to them.

  • Activities: Add or update information about the activities you accomplish. See a list of Activites screens below.
  • Reports: Run reports that have been custom-built for your campus or create your own reports.
  • Help: The question mark icon allows you to submit suggestions on how to improve the system, questions about use of the system, or report system errors.

Saving Records

When working in the system, it is important that you preserve modifications by selecting one of the Save buttons at the top of the screen. If you attempt to navigate away from a screen containing unsaved changes, a warning message will display to determine whether you would like to return to the screen and save your modifications before proceeding.

Customizations

The screens available from the Manage Activities tab and all of the fields on them have been customized for your campus. These can still be changed as needed. To propose changes that you would like to see made, contact your administrator in the Office of the Provost using the Help link.

Reports

Use this utility to run reports that were custom-built for your campus or to create a new CV to your own specifications. Information on customizing your own CV.

Tips and Features

Expanding Text Boxes

You may see two diagonal lines in the bottom right corner of text boxes. Clicking this area and dragging allows you to resize the text box as needed.

Import Citations from Other Systems

There are two ways for you to bring citations into Activity Insight from other databases.

First, you can load BibTeX files into Activity Insight. BibTeX Imports enable you to import citations from a wide variety of reference managers or databases — for example, EndNote, Google Scholar, Mendeley, RefWorks, HeinOnline, or Zotero. More information on BibTeX Imports.

Second, you can import citations directly into Activity Insight from Crossref and PubMed. (You may also be able to import directly from ORCID, Scopus, and Web of Science.) Visit the Import Publications webpage for details on this feature.

PasteBoard

You will find the PasteBoard to be a time-saving feature. The PasteBoard allows you to copy text from another document, such as your vita in Microsoft Word, and paste it into the PasteBoard. After you have pasted text into the PasteBoard, you can then select text from it, click-and-hold on the text you selected, and drag it into a field in the system to have it pasted into the field.

To access the PasteBoard, click the text PasteBoard icon on the top right-hand side of the screen. The PasteBoard will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and can be dragged anywhere on the screen as needed. Any text in the PasteBoard upon logging out will remain in the PasteBoard for future sessions.

Rapid Reports

While you are managing your activities, you may want to see how a particular change looks on a report. Rapid Reports provides you with quick and easy access to the reports you can run from Activity Insight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some of the most frequently asked questions we receive regarding the Faculty Activities System.
  • Does Activity Insight have spell check?

    Most modern browsers have settings or preferences which enable the browser to check your spelling as you type across all web applications.

  • How do I know where to put each of my different types of activities?

    We intend for the names of each screen to assist you in determining this. Please contact the CofC Activity Insight Administrator in the Office of the Provost (FacultyActivitySysAdmin@cofc.edu) to inquire if such a document is available, or with any specific questions you may have.

  • I need to faculty records in my unit for review and report. How I access these?

    Accesses for deans, department chairs, program directors, or designated staff, are updated by the CofC Activity Insight Administrator in the Office of the Provost at least three times a year during the start of the academic term. You will have other utilities if the CofC Activity Insight Administrator has given you security access to them. 

  • How often is the data in the system updated?

    Activities data are added and updated by faculty regularly and throughout the year. Please contact your department chair or program director for information about any deadlines based on your unit's needs for annual reports, evaluations, CV updates, etc. Typically, faculty update their activities at least twice a year - by the end of the fiscal year and the end of the calendar year. In addition to faculty-entered data, "Scheduled Teaching" data are imported from Banner during each academic term after the Census II data clean-up is complete (typically March, July, and October) by the College of Charleston Activity Insight Administrator. ORGA’s grant data are imported each quarter (four times a year) by the College of Charleston Activity Insight Administrator. If you see an error in the data that is imported by our administrator, please click the "?" icon to report it. Please do not attempt to self-enter duplicate data.

  • Additional Questions?

    Please use the Help link in the system if you need additional assistance. You will be directed to either the Activity Insight support team or the College of Charleston Administrator in the Office of the Provost (FacultyActivitySysAdmin@cofc.edu). Additionally, contact the Associate Provost of Faculty Affairs, Deanna Caveny, who oversees Digital Measures at the College of Charleston.