Academic Personnel Actions Reporting System (APARS)
The Academic Personnel Actions Reporting System (APARS) provides a centralized product for managing academic personnel data and processes in a secure system. ASU policy and established processes remain in effect for all academic personnel processes, whether or not they are conducted within the Academic Personnel Actions Reporting System.
APARS contains three products: Faculty Search, ASU Vita, and Review, Promotion & Tenure (RPT).
- Faculty Search is where application materials for academic personnel searches are collected and then evaluated by search committees.
- ASU Vita is where academic personnel report their annual research, teaching, and service activities to create an electronic curriculum vitae or biosketch. The ASU Vita CV is used for the annual evaluation; however, academic personnel also have the ability to create personal CVs and biosketches year-round.
- Review, Promotion & Tenure (RPT) is being piloted to streamline the review workflow for academic personnel actions and reviews. This is where materials for most academic personnel processes (annual evaluations, probationary reviews, promotion and/or tenure, etc.) will be collected and then evaluated.
Academic personnel should reach out to their unit staff contact for support and training.
Benefits of APARS for Academic Personnel
The Academic Personnel Actions Reporting System (APARS) streamlines review processes, and offers academic personnel a central point of contact for submitting activities for personnel processes, e.g., P&T or annual evaluation. The APARS products support the work of unit administrators and review committees, providing a single electronic system to conduct reviews. APARS also supports unit and college accreditation reporting, saving staff and faculty time duplicating work in multiple systems.
The APARS products are more secure than the creation and distribution of paper forms or the use of unsecured storage locations, e.g., Google Drive or Dropbox, for managing private information and are more sustainable than paper processes. Faculty Search provides a central, secure location for managing confidential hiring information. Faculty can auto-format biosketches for funding applications, and find colleagues with specific expertise for potential collaborations in ASU Vita. The Review, Promotion, Tenure (RPT) product provides additional benefits for faculty by ensuring fair and consistent communications about review and evaluation expectations.
As ASU has expanded, many processes have become paper-intensive, including accreditation and academic reporting, which are time-consuming, inefficient and insecure. The old processes consume valuable resources that can be applied elsewhere. Read more about the Academic Personnel Actions Reporting System initiative.