In collaboration with OIT and other key business units, the Provost Office plans to announce the availability of a new Credentialing Request eForm this summer. This is one of several new projects birthed out of recommendations made by the Adjunct Initiative Committee, which came together in May 2018 with an overall objective to improve the onboarding process for adjunct faculty. The committee has made incremental changes since 2019. It continues tackling a series of projects that will ultimately provide standard tools and streamlined processes to all departments to improve many of the pain points experienced by adjunct faculty, their hiring departments, and related business units.
- What is the Credentialing project?
- Credentialing is one of 6 sub-processes associated with the adjunct onboarding process, which ensures that all credential documentation is in place for new instructors before the start of instruction, as required by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The new Credentialing Request eForm will standardize how credentials are collected, stored, reviewed, and approved for all faculty. Along with the new Credentialing eForm, the project includes a new credentialed courses repository and a new faculty status page within my.SMU. These tools will help the Provost Office and departments easily track faculty-related data points, including credentialing status, SMU training status, hire form status, course enrollment numbers, and more!
- How does this project impact faculty?
- While this project doesn’t directly impact the way faculty do day-to-day business, the expectation is that this project, in conjunction with others on the Adjunct Initiative Committee’s roadmap, will result in a smoother onboarding experience. This will provide new adjunct faculty easier access to SMU resources when onboarding and improve communication within key business units.
- How will this change staff’s processes for those who are responsible for hiring faculty?
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- Department coordinators will submit new Credentialing Request eForms for all newly hired regular and adjunct faculty. (Existing faculty and the courses they taught in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 will be automatically accounted for in the Credentialed Courses baseline and will not require submission of Credentialing eForms. These are faculty courses that have already been reported to SACS.)
- Credential documentation, such as CVs, Official Transcripts, and Justification Letters, will no longer be submitted as part of adjunct Hire Forms but attached to the new Credentialing eForm.
- The Credentialing form will be automatically routed through a workflow process to obtain proper approvals.
- Upon form approval, the system will automatically enter the appropriate data into the Instructor/Advisor table and the Credentialed Courses repository in my.SMU.
- Training materials will be distributed before implementing the Credentialing Request eForm.
The Adjunct Initiative Committees’ roadmap to improve adjunct onboarding processes includes an Adjunct Website (coming in May) eForms to request SMU ID’s, contracts, and pay changes; and an Adjunct Onboarding Activity Guide.
