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Research Advising Supports Committee Involvement

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In an effort to better support faculty's ability to document their research advising activities, OFA has analyzed the existing Research Advising activity records and found that 60% of the records with Role of Other are for involvement in research advising related committees. 

As a result, the options available for the Role in Research Advising are being expanded to include a number of committees - e.g., Dissertation Committee, Comprehensive Exam Committee, etc. - along with Reader roles. Existing data has been updated where appropriate to use these newly defined roles. 

This change to the Research Advising activity screen reduces the manual data entry needed to document this type of advising involvement while also standardizing these advising activities in the Faculty Success data.

Faculty Success continues to receive data from the Graduate School, after a student has graduated, with information on faculty roles in master thesis and PhD dissertation committee involvement for faculty. This is automatically added to faculty member's Participation in Thesis/Dissertation Committees activity screen.

Using the newly expanded Role field:

  • As an advisor or a mentor to a student, faculty should continue to document this activity on the Research Advising activity screen, and whether they are a co-advisor in this role.
  • When faculty serve on a committee or as a reader, they can now select that specific role from the Role dropdown menu (in the past, they would have had to use the Role of Other and manually enter this information in the Explanation of Other field).
  • Faculty involved in multiple advising roles with a student should continue to use the Other Role option and document their roles in the Explanation of Other field. 
  • Faculty involved in an advising role that is not listed in the Roles menu should use the Other Role and document their role in the Explanation of Other field.
  • Faculty can use the "Chair of Committee?" and "Dean's Representative on committee?" fields to further clarify their role on the committee.

For any research advising activity, faculty should document the student's name, their role in the advising activity, the student's degree level and the dates of the advising activity.

Full list of Research Advising role options now available:

  • Advisor
  • Mentor
  • First Reader
  • Second Reader
  • Faculty Reader
  • Advisory Committee
  • Capstone Project Committee
  • Comprehensive Exam Committee
  • Comprehensive Portfolio Advisory Committee
  • Dissertation Committee
  • Dissertation Proposal Defense Committee
  • Dissertation Prospectus Committee
  • Dissertation Prospectus Defense Committee
  • Doctoral Gateway Review Committee
  • Examination Committee
  • First Year Project Committee
  • First Year Review Committee
  • Honors Thesis Committee
  • Integrative Paper Committee
  • Major Fields Examination Committee
  • Mentorship Committee
  • Research Committee
  • Senior Honors Thesis Committee
  • Thesis Committee
  • Other