UNL launches Digital Measures Project

Activity Insight™, an Academic Data Reporting System
UNL is in the early stages of launching a new project called the Faculty Database. This web-based application will allow UNL to more easily collect and aggregate data about faculty scholarship, research and outreach. UNL has purchased a software service called Activity Insight™ from Digital Measures.  Activity Insight™ is a secure, reliable web-based tool for faculty to manage and report their research, teaching, and service activities. More than 600 colleges and universities use this system, according to Digital Measures' website. The office of Academic Affairs plans to deploy Activity Insight™ for the entire campus, college by college over a three-to-five-year time frame. A long-range goal is to integrate this database with other databases, such as the new student information system or the NUgrant database.

At UNL, the Academic Affairs office has hired and trained college students to enter faculty Curriculum Vitae (CV) information into the Digital Measures database.  Progress has also been made in developing automatic transfer of data from SAP and NUGrant into Digital Measures Activity Insight™ to reduce the amount of data entry required by faculty.

The student workers are entering publication and presentation data from faculty curriculum vitas (CVs), and they have just finished their work with the College of Business Administration.  The students will work on Library faculty next.  The Arts & Sciences and Engineering colleges are also making plans to adopt the system. The goal is to have the entire campus using the system within three years.  Visit this page to get more information about college progress.

Log-in Page

Access to Digital Measures Activity Insight™ is through the UNL campus authorization system.

1. You must have an account on the Digital Measures server in order to log-in.
2. Visit the UNL campus authentication web page to log-in to Digital Measures Activity Insight™.
3. Use your Blackboard/my.unl.edu user id and password to access your account.
4. This user's guide offers assistance for Activity Insight™.

The Digital Measures National Users Group
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has joined five other institutions to form a Digital Measures' users group. UNL has signed a 5-year contract with Digital Measures (DM) to host Activity Insight™ , a faculty activity and reporting database.

UNL was invited to join the University of Connecticut, Pennsylvania State, Ohio State, the University of Iowa, and the University of Georgia in an effort to build a consortium of Digital Measurers clients to help coordinate larger scale upgrade and enhancement requests for Activity Insight™. Other campuses that have been invited to join include Cornell, Virginia Tech., and the University of Minnesota.

More information about Digital Measures and Activity Insight™ can be found at the web site: http://www.digitalmeasures.com.  Contact Ron Roeber, 402-472-3751, for questions or comments about this project.