Working with Industry & Intellectual Property — April 3, 2017

“Working with Industry and Intellectual Property” with Shauna Brummet, Jay Dahlman, Elizabeth Drotleff, Daral Jackwood & Hilary Price

In this session, our panel will detail best practices for working with the private sector, and how to integrate an entrepreneurial culture into your research, innovation and discovery process. Topics for discussion will include public-private partnerships, intellectual property, setting up a company and more, with plenty of time for discussion. Our panel includes representatives from BioHio, OSU’s Technology & Commercialization Office, OSU Discovery Themes and CFAES Office of Advancement.

Date: Monday, April 3, 2017
Time
: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: Agricultural Administration Building 100, Columbus; Research Services 209, Wooster


Please R.S.V.P. to this session by emailing burant.2@osu.edu

Leadership & Team Development — March 6, 2017

Leadership & Team Development with Dr. Jeff King, Director, OSU Leadership Center

In this session, Dr. King will provide information and insights related to personnel issues and working with interdisciplinary teams. In addition, Dr. King will explore specific strategies and programs for continued growth as faculty members.

Please read the message below from Dr. King in order to take the MBTI:

“When people differ, knowledge of personality type lessens friction and eases strain. In addition, it reveals the value of differences. No one has to be good at everything. By developing individual strengths, guarding against known weaknesses, and appreciating the strengths of other personality types, life will be more amusing, more interesting and more of a daily adventure than it could possibly be if everyone were alike.”

~ Isabel Briggs Myers

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a simple and reliable method of determining a person’s individual preferences.  It is designed to “indicate” not test your equally valuable preferences in regard to perception and judgment.  There is no “right” or “wrong” answers.  The indicator is not a measure of your mental health, aptitude, intelligence, maturity, ability, or excellence but rather a self-awareness instrument to learn about your individual gifts and strengths.

When completing the MBTI, please keep in mind that I would like for you to answer the questions in your “shoes-off self” attitude.  Imagine being in your most favorite location where you enjoy spending time without being interrupted by phones, work issues, family, co-workers, etc.  Once you picture this location, please answer the questions from this point of view rather than from how family members want you to be, or from how your co-workers want you to be, or how you wish you could be, etc.

Please complete the MBTI by Thursday, March 2, 2017. 

Completing the assessment generally takes between 10 and 15 minutes.  It must be completed when you log in.  You can’t save and return later.  If you need to leave the site before completing, please start the process over when you log back in.

To complete, log on to:

http://online.cpp.com/en/CPPLandingPage.aspx?projectId=8517af09-6842-4110-a46f-bae391c86fb1 and follow the directions to complete.  If an error message should come up, please cut and paste the address directly into your browser.

I will email your results prior to the start of the First Mondays session on March 6 so watch your inbox.  During our session, I will be providing you with an overview of type and potential implications of your type on your style of communication, decision making, and approach to conflict within teams.  If you have any questions prior to the session or have difficulty call me at (614) 247-5034 or e-mail me at king.20@osu.edu.

I look forward to our discussion on March 6.

Date: Monday, March 6, 2017
Time
: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: Agricultural Administration Building 140G, Columbus; Research Services 209, Wooster


Please R.S.V.P. to this session by emailing burant.2@osu.edu

Meeting Notes: Media Training — February 6, 2017

Tracy Turner: I’ve been at OSU for about five years now, and I was at the Columbus Dispatch for 11 years. Reporters typically don’t come in with a specialty… you go where the assignments are. The reporter can cover K-12 one day, and something completely different the next. They come to you as the experts.

Why work with the media? What is the advantage?

It can raise your status and make your department and college look really good.

One of the first things to understand is where the reporters are coming from. We maintain a faculty experts list at the college level. We would love to get you on there. What this is saying is that you are comfortable talking to the media and will respond to them when they call.

What does the media want?

It may be important to your sponsors or your organization, but that doesn’t make it newsworthy. If you want coverage or want to pitch a story, look at the significance of the story and what else is happening.

There have been more opportunities for posting things that aren’t necessarily true with the internet lately, so it is important that we provide people with accurate information.

The #1 goal of any journalist is accuracy.

Reporters have to have context for what they’re reporting. It’s about balance and getting different viewpoints.

Think about human interest… personal stories are more interesting. They ask why should I care? Who is this impacting?

Brevity … when you’re talking to a reporter, get to the point. Most news stories are short.

Before the internet, deadlines meant the end of the day. They had all day to research, report, talk to people, write. Now with the internet, you have one minute. As soon as something happens… reporters are concerned with getting it first not getting it right.

It’s always important to respond quickly, even if it’s just saying to them that you will call them back.

Working with the Media

Understand where the reporter is coming from so you know what to expect.

Ask them what they are looking for… you don’t have to respond immediately with an answer if you’re more comfortable waiting 15-20 minutes and gathering your answers.

Another question you can ask the reporter is to understand what kind of deadlines they’re under. You can also ask them what the format of the interview is, where will it take place, over the phone? Will it be recorded? Etc.

Know your key messages before the interview even starts.

Redirect questions when necessary to respond with your talking points.

Do not say yes or no or add an opinion, go on to your point that you want to understand.

Know your reporters and what their scope is.

Reporters don’t have your expertise.

NEVER say “no comment” … it makes it seem like there is a bigger story there.

You can say “I cant really address that, but you can talk to ….” etc. We have redirected reporters to the university level communications, keeping a separation from negative attention in the media. The university is luckily happy to handle that for us.

Don’t ask to review the story, most news organizations have policies that don’t allow this.

Be cautious… reporters can be friendly but they are not your friends. They are not out to get you, but they are out to do their job. Watch what you say, do not rely on “off the record” … if you don’t want it reported, don’t say it.

Don’t fall for the silent treatment. Reporters are allowing you to tell them what they don’t know. Stick with your key points. Don’t feel the need to bridge the silence with your thoughts.

Respond with grace to abrasive questions, its a reporters job to ask hard questions. They’re not talking to you as an individual, they’re talking to you as a representative of the research or the school, etc. they’re not coming after you as an individual, they’re looking at the bigger picture. You can change the tone with how you respond.

They may disarm you with kindness first, it’s not personal, but it’s a way to get you to open up a bit more.

The interview is not over until it’s over, especially when someone has a camera or recording on you.

Reiterate your main points at the end of the interview when they ask if there is anything else you’d like to add at the end.

Reporters have direct access to our researchers.

Resources for Marketing and Communications: communications.cfaes.ohio-state.edu

Crisis Communications

We have a plan here and how you react makes all the difference. Please come to us if you have a crisis so that we can craft a message with you. We want to be accurate.

It helps to look at the plan, which is on our website. Be responsive, be calm and protect our reputation.

Media Coaching

We can help you, give you sample questions, talking points, draft answers, and help build your comfort level talking to the media. We want to make sure that you are prepared. Know that you are not out there alone. We are there to support you and help you.

We do write news releases and do proactive media. If you are working on research, or have something new coming out, we can work with you to promote it. We can do news releases, pitch stories to reporters. We can look at the human interest side of what you are doing… the research you are doing does impact Ohioans so there are always opportunities to work with you to show impact or tell a story.

We’re getting ready to go into a budget year… the more positive press we can get about what we’re doing, it reinforces that.

You can subscribe to our news releases, we do social media campaigns… adding people to our faculty experts list, we don’t always know who everyone is and what their area of expertise is.

It doesn’t have to be a news release, we can send out social media, photos, etc. it doesn’t have to be a traditional “story.”

We have a few mechanisms to do work with us:

We have a project request form for a larger project or for news releases.

You can also reach out directly to our writers in different subject areas. We will be sharing that soon.

We can promote your research if you have something coming out in an academic journal, etc.

An advantage of working with us is that you do get to review the story that we write. We do not want to get you out of context or misquote you. If you are comfortable with the story and we get the right focus.

Question: I would like to be more proactive instead of being called out of the blue…

We have a person on our team that is focused on proactive media relations. To work with people in the college to pitch stories. She will help get the root of what it is, what are the best ways to get the information out, specialty publications, etc.

We serve the entire college, so we cant do everything for everyone. A lot of departments will do outreach to alumni, their department social media pages, they can let us know about different research that your department is doing.

We are such a large college, so we rely on our department and extension communicators to help educate us and keep us connected to what’s happening on the ground level.

Media Training — February 6, 2017

Media Training with Michelle Ball and Tracy Turner

A good interview with a news reporter can be a satisfying experience. Not only can it raise your profile within your profession, but it can make your department and the college look good, too. But if an interview goes south, the consequences can be long-lasting. In this session, Michelle Ball and Tracy Turner will offer tips to help you make sure you get your message across effectively during an interview and introduce you to media relations and other services available through CFAES Marketing and Communications. This session will also provide tips on generating news tips or story ideas and how to work with marketing and communications to pitch your story to the media.

Date: Monday, February 6, 2017
Time
: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: Agricultural Administration Building 140G, Columbus; Research Services 209, Wooster

Please R.S.V.P. to this session by emailing burant.2@osu.edu as soon as possible.

Meeting Notes: Funding Your Research — January 9, 2017

Finding Research Funding

PowerPoint Presentation

Lori Kaser: I’d like to provide an overview of the GDSU. We are a first come first serve service. We provide proposal development resources and run the SEEDS program. To talk about SEEDS a little bit, it is an internal faculty competition. We have a SEEDS Early Career competition for people who have not reached tenure-stage yet or have less than six years experience.

We have a SEEDS Team competition, which is two or more faculty members working together and a SEEDS Team Partnership Grant, which is an option to work with a commodity group or industry partner who brings a match.

The Partnership Grant has two deadlines per year. The next deadline is March 8.

After this meeting, Melissa will send out the SEEDS RFP.

Overall, we get about $1 million a year. We fund about 10 Early Career Grants with $50k a piece, a few for Partnership and some for student competitions.

Pam Schlegel: A good resource for finding funding is Lori’s monthly research newsletter. It includes the newest competitions that are out there, but the number one is the Spin Database which links into grants.gov etc.

Lori: On the sponsor websites, all federal sponsors list their solicitations on grants.gov. Just because we work with USDA-NIFA so much, if you go to NIFA grants it will bring up a whole list of RFPs available through NIFA.

Pam: Unsolicited vs solicited solicitations.

Solicited: submitted in response to a certain thing that the sponsor is looking for.

Unsolicited: submit work / ask if what you’re doing works for a sponsor.

You found your solicitation… within that there will be an RFP or a PA with everything you will need to address or have ready to go. Primarily your research narrative and budget.

We have budget templates, but the approval doesn’t come from the GDSU, it comes from your Sponsored Program Officer (SPO). We can provide budget justification templates, conflict of interest templates, etc.

The SPO hits the submit button, but we can put all that information in there for you. Our whole goal is to provide you time to work on your narrative, because the research portion is the most important. If we have time, we can do some editing and proofreading as well…

We also work a lot with other universities to get sub-award documentation. That frees you up to work on the narrative.

Lori: Please reach out to us when you have questions. It may be a simple question, or you may need help with everything… We will talk you though it and we know that you are new. We are here to help! We want to help make the process not so intimidating.

Question: What is the sponsored program officer? Who is that?

Pam: That is the person you have to go to to let them know you are submitting a particular proposal, and they give you approval on the budget you come up with.  They work with us to get that budget approved. Typically you and I are not able to hit the submit button for the proposal.

Lori: It’s through the Office of Research at the University-level, and within that office is the Office of Sponsored Programs with Sponsored Program Officers. Each department has an assigned SPO.

The Office of Sponsored Programs does not provide editing. They are reviewers of budgets and can submit the proposal for you. They make sure all of the boxes are checked, etc. but they are not writers and editors.

Question: How long does the process take with the Office of Sponsored Programs?

Pam: Ultimately give yourself as much time as possible. Usually with in six weeks time that you are planning on submitting a proposal, then we can start pulling all the info together. We can do it quicker, but again, we only have as much time as we are allotted

Lori: SPO will want at least two days before you’re planning to submit, because in our college, several people may be submitting to the same grant at the same time.

Pam: We also do faculty development with D.C. Days and First Mondays.

D.C. days is a competitive program, and it’s an opportunity to meet with federal program officers face to face. We usually take people in April or May, this year it will be the third week of May.

Summer: It’s very helpful… We went to USDA, NSF and NIH… We talked with Program Officers and Directors. I was also on an NSF panel and learned a lot from that. Great networking opportunity.

Pam: The different agencies we go to depends on who applies. Typically we go to USDA. We usually fly in on a Sunday and leave on a Wednesday. It’s just a good time to get together with other FAES people.

Typically, D.C. Days will have an RFP in October and we have a letter out in December. So look for that next year.

We also provide faculty and staff training workshops and other opportunities.

Lori: We will have a 2017 training schedule coming out soon.

We also provide research compliance administrative approvals. We follow up on the financial conflict of interest forms that you need to file at least once a year. We also handle the responsible conduct of research training for the college.

ePA-005 approvals – our office approves those forms.

Terry Snoddy:

Federal Capacity Funds (USDA-NIFA)

Susan Dimit helps in the USDA REEport system.

Shawn Adams does financial reporting

Angie LeMaster helps out with Extension

Capacity funds.

What are these?

A competitive grant – you apply for the funds.
Capacity funds are legislative. We get the funds and we create the projects to spend the dollars.

Base funds and other sources: Hard and soft dollars

Hard dollars are funds we typically count on each year and soft dollars are more cyclical.

Base funds: how we fund salaries, benefits, etc.

Research has four programs: Hatch, Hatch Multi-State, McIntire Stennis (forestry research), Animal Health

Extension has three: Smith Lever, EFNEP, RREA

How are they used?

In research capacity funds: 100% allocated to faculty salary and benefits

Extension: Smith Lever 100% allocated to salary and benefits for faculty and staff across Extension

To spend these funds, we have to have an active research project in one of the categories above. You can have your own project or be a co-PI. For new faculty, we give you a grace period of one year, but if you have a research appointment you should have a Hatch project.

REEport is the USDA project administration. Once the project is active we can pay some of your salary with these funds. These are very general. Many faculty try to fit it in with their overall research focus.

Dr. Dave Benfield is the administrative lead. He reads all the reports that come in.

Extension is a little easier in that they don’t have project level requirements for Smith Lever. Likely, part of your appointment is paid in Smith Lever funds if you have a faculty appointment in Extension.

Lori: Any further questions?

Question: Are Post Docs allowed to apply to the SEEDS program?

Lori: If you have PI status at the university as a Post Doc. PI status is granted by the Office of Research. There is a procedure… The CV goes to the Department Chair, then that goes to the VP of Research and Grad Education for the college, and then goes to Office of Research.

Question: Is $50k the max you can get from SEEDS?

Lori: Yes. The whole idea for SEEDS is to get the initial research data so you can apply for bigger and better funding sources. It is meant to be one or two years of funding so you can collect data and move forward with bigger proposals.

Question: Can you have SEEDS Early Career collaborators that are not early career?

Lori: Yes, but they cannot be lead PI or co-PI and they will not get any of the budget money. But they can be collaborators.

Question: If we have an industry grant that we are writing, can we retroactively apply for the match for the grant?

Lori: Yes, but it has to be within the same fiscal year.

Question: ePA005, there are a lot of questions about invertebrate animals and IACUC?

Lori: Some of the protocol information, does it need to be in place before you submit the proposal? No. Office of Research understands that once you know you get funded you’ll initiate your protocol. It’s a lot to do upfront to not get funded.

Meeting Notes: Academic Publishing Activities and the Responsible Conduct of Research — December 5, 2016

Academic Publishing and the Responsible Conduct of Research Presentation

Responsible Conduct of Research Curriculum

OSU Research Data Policy

OSU Research Misconduct Policy

Responsible Conduct of Research Training for FAES

Academic Publishing and Academic Conduct of Research

Jen Yucel, Ph.D.:

Overview of the Office of Research:

There are over 500 people that belong to the Office of Research.

Key people/offices to make note: Office of Sponsored Programs: Christine Hamble, Interim Director.

Office of Responsible Research Practices for Human and Animal Protocols.

University Laboratory Animal Resources

Research Compliance Director – Jen Yucel

 

OSU Libraries Resources:

Two main places where you may interact with the library:

Subject Librarians: experts who can help in a particular area. This can be helpful for interdisciplinary research. (library.osu.edu/find/librarians)

There are subject librarians who work with the faculty in Wooster.

 

The Research Commons a physical space and a set of services and partnerships. It is located on the 3rd floor at the 18th Avenue Library in Columbus. It also includes an interface with IRB, a data management librarian, geographic information services, and more.

If you have a research related question, you can go to the Research Commons website for that information or if you don’t know where to start or who you go to.

Some workshops are live-streamed for folks on other campuses. If you’re interested in having a workshop or attending, please let us know if you need it streamed.

Melanie Schlosser, MLS:

Predatory Publishing

This is an area of concern and help is also often needed for graduate students.

Access Models for Publishing:

Subscription Journals: Content is behind a pay wall, but tends to be free for the author to publish. It’s been done this way for a while.

However, with the Internet, things are different now.

Open Access (OA) Journals: Content is freely available online, sometimes funded through author fees.

Hybrid Open Access Journals: publication itself is behind a pay wall unless the author pays an Open Access fee.

TIP: I would strongly discourage people to not pay for hybrid open access! It borders on unethical double dipping from the publisher.

There are good and bad journals in ALL of these categories.

The Problem with Lists:

White lists (“good” journals) vs. black lists (“bad” or predatory journals) / any lists… Don’t rely on these too heavily. Criteria for making it on the list might not be clear; people may have their own agendas for creating the lists, etc.

Advance Fee Scams:

Predatory publishing talks about two different things: First, an advance fee scam. It looks like a journal, calls itself a journal, but really is not. It takes your money.

Recognize these by:

  • Little or no published scholarship
  • Lack of a named editor or editorial board — or contact these people to make sure
  • Promises full peer review with fast turnaround
  • Journal website doesn’t make sense (in the about section, etc.)
  • They may reach out to you offering to publish your work

Search Google and ask around!

Good journals vs. bad journals:

The other thing people talk about with predatory publishing is low quality journals. It’s not very cut and dry.

Pay attention to these things:

  • Will it improve your work? For example, attentive editors who will polish your work and present it in a professional way. Look at what has been published. Is it polished, copy edited, etc.?
  • Will it help your research find an audience?
  • Will it add to your reputation as a scholar? This can look different based on where you’re at in your career. Have a sense of what you want to get out of publishing your work.

Risk: look at journal scope / subject matter.
Tip: what journals did you cite? — have at least one citation for a journal you’re looking to publish in.

Finally, ask for advice!

  • Faculty in your department
  • Colleagues at other institutions
  • Librarians
  • The editor of the journal (ask them, “Would you be interested in an article on…?”)

A little more about fees:

Predatory journals will ask you to submit, accept your work quickly and then send you a bill. It may or may not be listed on their website, but once you are sent a bill it can be tricky to get out of.

Author charges are not uncommon … Figure out ahead of time if there are fees.

In terms of invoicing, we’ve had faculty continue to get invoiced. If this happens, please contact Jen’s office or OSU Legal Affairs to help you.

We are also seeing this behavior in international conferences that are bogus. People get promised that they will be a keynote, etc.

Scams around being on editorial boards. It is hard to get out of so if you are approached about being on a board, do your homework! Talk to people in your field and make sure it is reputable. We have a hard time repairing that damage.

Resources:

Directory of Open Access Journals: doaj.org — reputable place to start

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association: oaspa.org

 

Jen Yucel: Research Misconduct and Plagiarism

Research misconduct is narrowly defined:

It doesn’t have to be published to be a problem! Even if it’s written in a notebook, any time you are creating data that is not valid it could be research misconduct.

Fabrication: the making up of data or results and recording or reporting them. Ex: fake Excel data

Falsification: manipulating research materials, equipment or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented. Ex: image manipulation

Plagiarism: appropriation of the ideas, processes, results or work of another person without giving appropriate credit. Ex: taking something off the web without credit

Not Considered Plagiarism:

Self-plagiarism (using something from your past text… But it’s something that is a gray area).

Information generated with former collaborators — handled as an authorship or credit dispute.

How much copying is too much? How many different ways can you describe something?

Plagiarism:

OSU licenses the software program iThenticate for use by any OSU faculty, staff or student.

It highlights text in your document that matches other published material to allow you to determine if text is appropriately cited.

There are many watchdog websites, as well as mainstream media who are involved in the scrutiny of research.

Many journals and funding sponsors are actively screening submissions for plagiarized text. This includes grants!

The rise of “academic warfare” and specific targeting of individuals to target competitors.

Question: If a Postdoc or grad student is guilty of plagiarism in a manuscript etc., how does that effect their faculty member?

Answer: The person responsible is the person who did the plagiarism. iThenticate isn’t there to punish wrong doers, it is to help people have high integrity. As a faculty member, tell your Postdocs and grad students to run it through iThenticate as a policy before anything gets to you.

If you have a process like that, use it as a training and teaching tool. Some cultures cite differently, so it’s a good way to teach how to do this. If you have a repeat offender, you can bring it to my office to talk about it. If a grad student publishes plagiarized text in their thesis there can be a serious consequence.

Question: How serious is it as a faculty member?

Answer: It depends. If it’s in a grant proposal and brought to our attention we have to let them know and they could bar you from submitting.

Federally-funded research can debar you if the plagiarism is on federal money.

If it’s a case where they just made a mistake in citation… We try to determine the intent. There are details that change every case.

Question: What percentage on iThenticate is considered plagiarism?

Answer: It requires you to look at what is matching. There’s no defined threshold. It doesn’t matter what percentages it is… Is it big sections of text or a few sentences, etc.? That’s why you need to look at it.

Plagiarism is all about attribution.

If you are using the same methods that you have published before, just make sure to cite your previous paper. It’s not okay when you give the appearance that this is brand new work of yours. Be transparent about where the work came from.

Responsible Conduct of Research Training (RCR):

 

The university has a research data policy that you should look at.

What is a research record? All of the various forms that research takes that embodies the results from scholarly inquiry.

Data Sharing:

NIH and other federal sponsors expect data generated be shared with the public.

Many sponsors require that you file a data management plan with your grant proposal. We use the online DMP tool with agency specific formats.

Data Ownership:

As new faculty, take a look at the university research data policy. It helps answer a lot of questions about data ownership.

Just because someone leaves doesn’t mean their data gets nullified. The Office of Research tries to stay out of publication issues, like author etc., but we will work on authorship disputes.

Expectations for Authorship:

 

Many societies and associations have published guidelines regarding the assignment of authorship or acknowledgment on manuscripts. It can be very discipline specific.

If you don’t believe someone should have authorship on the journal, raise that with the senior author and start a conversation.

Science is about what your peers say about you, so it can be tense to enforce a strong reading of these guidelines. The journal should enforce whether or not that person can be an author.

The University doesn’t really have any say on who should be an author.

Have the conversation with the journal because the journal can ask the person, what was this person’s contribution?

 

Conflict of Interest:

Conflicts can be real or perceived, and both are important. It doesn’t necessarily mean someone is acting unethically, but it needs to be disclosed.

Typically, people think of Conflict of Interest as financial interests… It can also include personal relationships, professional relationships, academic and corporate rivalries, philosophical or intellectual differences.

Your immediate family’s are also your potential conflicts.

 

Academic Publishing Activities and the Responsible Conduct of Research — December 5, 2016

Academic Publishing Activities and the Responsible Conduct of Research with Melanie Schlosser, MLS and Jennifer Yucel, Ph.D.

Please join Melanie Schlosser, Digital Publishing Librarian, University Libraries, and Jennifer Yucel, Director, Office of Research Compliance and Research Integrity Officer, Office of Research for a discussion of recent trends negatively impacting the integrity of academic publishing activities and a discussion of various topics related to the responsible conduct of research.

During this session, we will also provide an overview of the organizational structures, tools and resources available to you through the University Libraries and the Office of Research to enable your research endeavors as new faculty.

Date: Monday, December 5, 2016
Time
: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: Agricultural Administration Building 140G, Columbus; Research Services 209, Wooster

Please R.S.V.P. to this session by emailing burant.2@osu.edu as soon as possible.

Inclusive Excellence — November 7, 2016

Inclusive Excellence with Kathy Lechman

Please join Dr. Kathy Lechman, CFAES Director of Equity and Inclusion for our session on Inclusive Excellence.

“Inclusive Excellence” is a concept stemming from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) that many colleges and universities across the nation have adopted. The focus of inclusive excellence is to build educational environments where students, faculty, and staff can thrive. Through various types of legislation, higher education has become more diverse, but has it become more inclusive? Inclusive excellence is not simply about numbers of students, staff, or faculty. It is about understanding the ways in which we influence the environment around us.

This session will explore the role of implicit bias in recruiting and retaining faculty, staff and students. To make the most of our time I ask each person to visit the Project Implicit site and take two or three of the tests. You will not be asked to share your results, but we will use our experiences with the Implicit Association Test as the basis of our discussion.

Date: Monday, November 7, 2016
Time
: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: Agricultural Administration Building 140G, Columbus; Research Services 209, Wooster

Please R.S.V.P. to this session by emailing burant.2@osu.edu as soon as possible.

Meeting Notes: Promotion & Tenure — October 3, 2016

Promotion and Tenure Review — Presentation from Kay Wolf

Kay Wolf, OSU Office of Academic Affairs: Promotion and tenure is a quality improvement program. We want you to show your major accomplishments while you’re at Ohio State University. What are your goals and strategies each year and where are you with them?

The idea is to grow and take ownership of your growth.

Teaching is important. What are you learning and how are you growing with it?

What are the outcomes of your service and engagement? We don’t ask as much for younger faculty, but some it’s very intertwined in who you are.

You are an Assistant Professor. Ask for assistance. We want you to succeed and are very proud that you are at Ohio State.

For the six year P&T review, the review begins with the tenure initiating unit (TIU) P&T review. The Chair then writes a letter. You have a 10 day period to respond to the letter, but this is not a chance to rewrite everything.

Take the opportunity to read the letters closely and write a response if you feel you need to. It then goes to the university committee. I read every dossier.

If the TIU was positive and the Chair was positive, but not the Dean or college-level committee, I will also take it forward to the University committee for one final look. The University follows through for you to ensure that the process and criteria was followed by everyone. The appointment will be approved by the Provost and Board of Trustees.

During your fourth year review, the TIU and the Dean will make the final decision. It does not come forward to OAA.

Your mandatory review is the sixth year review.

Clinical faculty reviews are the same as fourth year reviews and end at the level of the Dean. The Dean then decides promotion vs. non promotion and reappointment vs. non reappointment.

Mandatory reviews must go forward. Start working on Vita as soon as it goes up. Reviews must go forward even if you have missing data. Non-mandatory reviews do not have to go forward if you’re missing data.

Working with teams: what is your responsibility?

What is the unique piece that you contribute consistently to your team? Your unique niche is extremely important to the team… You really need to show what this means in your narrative.

STEP mentoring can count as Extension or teaching in your portfolio, but it can’t be both.

Appointments across the campus–with an MOU or in two departments etc.–be sure you’re contributing to other departments correctly and work with your Chair.

Mark Sulc, Horticulture & Crop Science: In documenting team contributions, hopefully your department is seeing the change in science, but it’s very important to describe your unique piece in that. Under every publication, be VERY specific about what you wrote, your research, etc. and hopefully your external letter writers will know what you are doing. They will hopefully say you are a team player, can describe your contribution to the team and say that without you it cannot happen. Another option is to get a letter from a collaborator.

Kay: It helps if you ask the Chair to write a request for the letter to your collaborator so it appears very neutral. When it gets to the
University committee, it’s important for them to understand as well. Think of everyone reading this… Some TIUs or someone at the University-level might not know your work, so describe things clearly and specifically.

Question: Can external letters come from collaborators?

Mark: External reviewers need to come from non-collaborators. They can know you and your work, but cannot have worked with you on a project.

No more than half of the external reviewers can be suggested by the candidate. The P&T committee usually suggests most of them.

In regards to your dossier:

Vita.osu.edu will be launching in April 2017. Research in view is closing on December 31, 2016. You don’t have to fear your data has been lost. Assistance will be provided for those faculty going forward in any manner.

Question: Is this a tool that can be used for annual reviews?

Kay: I would not recommend it. I think you should print everything in December. If someone is new, I would allow them to use a Word document or something else.

Dossier tips:

  • Do not repeat
  • Think about what you’re trying to convey–what are your strengths? Think that through!
  • Recognize your college and unit. This is important! They set the criteria for you and if you don’t understand the criteria, you need to talk with people on the P&T committee and the Chair of your department.

You have two choices when you go up for P&T: to use the document from when you were hired or the document for the current year you are going up.

Narratives — why bother?

It is YOUR STORY. The one place that you can demonstrate the growth of your career. Show outcomes and tell your story through growth.

Jeff Sharp: It’s a lot of work to take on those five external review letters. You don’t want to start that process and then back out if you’re not ready. Just make sure you think about it.

Mark: Your trajectory and works in progress are important at the fourth year review. Most people are making good progress. The committee wants to know if there is momentum.

Jeff: Regarding the idea of narratives: you need to study what your unit’s criteria are. If your narrative addresses them, it would be useful.

Terry Niblack: Avoid overly technical language in the narratives, especially in narratives about research. It’s impossible to interpret some. Make sure you’re communicating to  people who don’t know about your field.

Jeff: Good point. Even when you’re listing journals, let us know this if is a top publication in your field.

Question: What time of year is the dossier due?

Terry: Your department will determine that. That should be communicated to you by your departmental P&T committee. It will probably be in spring to late-spring.

Mark: Every department is different so talk to your Chair and the P&T committee.

Once it is sent to the college, the dossier is sent to the Dean, then the Dean makes a committee of nine different people. The job of the college committee is to determine if your unit review occurred in a proper way. That the right criteria were applied, the right procedures were followed, etc. We look at all the dossiers. There’s usually three sub-committees and we divide each of the dossiers to really, really look at them and then come back with a recommendation to the main committee. At the college-level we read all of them, but at a finer level we look at them again in our sub-committees. If there are concerns, the whole committee looks into it.

The college committee does a very good job of being very objective and sticking to their role to determine that the review was conducted in the proper way. There have been times where flags were raised and the committee went in a different direction from the department, but if everything was done right at the department level, then it should go right through to the university.

If there are issues a the unit level, it has to go back and be reconducted at the unit level.

The committee will then take a vote and writes a letter to the Dean. The Dean then writes their own report.

Terry: Search OAA governance and it will show you the governance documents for every unit.

Question: Is there ever a case that the peer expert might be outside of the department, but within the university or does it always have to come from outside of OSU?

Kay: The rule says external, so it has to be outside of OSU.

The Promotion and Tenure Process — October 3, 2016

The Promotion and Tenure Process with Kay Wolf and Mark Sulc

Please join our panel members Kay Wolf, OSU Office of Academic Affairs and Mark Sulc of Horticulture and Crop Science for our session on Promotion & Tenure.

In this session, our panel will provide an understanding of the principles, procedures and policies of promotion and tenure at the department, college and university levels. In addition, they will discuss key concerns that correspond with university values, faculty rewards and recognition. There will be plenty of time for open dialogue and discussion.

Date: Monday, October 3, 2016
Time
: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: Agricultural Administration Building 140G, Columbus; Research Services 209, Wooster

Please R.S.V.P. to this session by emailing burant.2@osu.edu as soon as possible.