Testimonials

Department Administrators

  • Christine Hermes, Academic Personnel Coordinator, Department of Psychology/CMB
  • I work in a department with 40 Professors. At a time when the University was restructuring their departments and clustering, and workload demands were increasing, using the MIV program was beneficial to my work load management. I am able to process merit and promotion actions efficiently and accurately. MIV allows changes, updates, and corrections which saves time. MIV was new to our faculty. This year with very minimal communication, mutual participation was created between faculty and myself in creating their dossiers. The system is user friendly and comments received were positive.

    Christine Hermes
    Academic Personnel Coordinator
    Department of Psychology/CMB
  • Christina Jones, Department Manager, Molecular and Cellular Biology, CBS
  • MyInfoVault has saved the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology an enormous amount of paper since being implemented as part of the campus pilot program. Prior to MIV, we would print draft after draft of dossiers for faculty to review. Hard copy drafts would go back and forth several times until a final dossier was reached. Using MyInfoVault, faculty enter their information into the system and there is no longer a need to exchange hard copy drafts. When a dossier is complete, the faculty member will inform me that it is ready for my review. On paper, a full professor's regular merit dossier can consist of an estimated 65 pages, not including publications. An original and one copy were required for a re-delegated action and an original and three copies were required for all other merits. After drafts and final copies (not including publications) were printed, up to 250 sheets of paper could easily be used. With MIV, I only print one copy (no publications) for my file. 65 pages (MIV) versus 250 pages (pre- MIV), is a huge difference. MCB submits as many as 22 dossiers during a busy merit season. Pre-MIV, not including publications or larger dossiers for Above Scales and Promotions, my estimate is 5,500 sheets or 11 reams of paper used for 22 dossiers. Using MIV results in 1,430 sheets or less than 3 reams of paper. In an era where every penny counts, MIV provides solid proof that it is both a money and time saver.

    Christina Jones
    Department Manager
    Molecular and Cellular Biology
    CBS
  • Dawn Whitaker, HR Analyst/Supervisor, CHEDDAR Cluster, CA&ES
  • I absolutely love MIV and have seen a great increase in productivity in my unit using it for submission of merit/promotion dossiers. I think it is a very effective program for managing merit and promotion dossiers and can't wait until we can do ALL academic actions on it (new hires, appraisals, etc.). For the faculty who are willing to maintain their files on MIV "as they go" I find there is much less "pain" in getting their dossier documentation pulled together and ready for review. The format presentation is professional and easy to follow. Most beneficial is that now we don't have to haul binders of documentation around from building to building or have faculty come into our offices to review dossiers. They can review the files at their own convenience – even outside of traditional office hours – which I believe affords them the time and willingness to give serious, thoughtful consideration to the documentation they are reviewing….they aren't rushing through it. 100% of our actions put forth in 2011 were done in MIV – including a department who had categorically refused to do so prior to this. With the implementation of the cluster access, it's made it easier for myself and my staff to manage these actions. I applaud the MIV programming crew for recognizing our need and bumping this up on the priority list. THANK YOU! I feel the program is very solid now, and can't wait to see where it takes us in the future. I am really looking forward to the day the faculty can maintain their CV's via this program instead of keeping separate Word documents. Onward!

    Dawn Whitaker
    HR Analyst/Supervisor
    Ag & Resource Economics
    Environmental Design: Landscape Architecture
    Environmental Science and Policy
    Human and Community Development

School/College Administrators

  • Amy Burnham, School of Veterinary Medicine, Dean's Office
  • It is with pleasure this brief note is written in an attempt to attest to the positive attributes of using the MyInfoVault (MIV) system at both the Department and School levels. The use of MIV has evolved rapidly and effectively over the past seven years. It is exciting to see the new attributes with the roll-out of each new version. Everything from the use of the special characters palate to assigning reviewers assists us in streamlining the packets. Also, even more important, the use of MIV enables us to save time, which serves us well in these economically challenging years. As they say, time is money. Especially comforting is the help tool and that behind that simple link sending a message to the help desk (miv-help@ucdavis.edu) is a courteous human being, fortified with the knowledge and ability to transmit that information to the lay person, is important to note. The ability to streamline academic actions to be as individual as each faculty while conforming to a (school/campus) standard is phenomenal.

    Amy Burnham
    School of Veterinary Medicine
    Dean's Office

  • Carol Erickson, Executive Associate Dean, College of Biological Sciences
  • To put my two cents in: having the whole file in MIV has been fabulous. As an example, I am leaving this weekend for 10 days in Japan. I will be connected the whole time while working and will continue to do the Dean's promotion letters. Having everything in MIV will make this trip possible and allow our office to get all our actions in on time. I would really like to see the Vice Provost's office push this hard for next year. SO much effort has gone into an excellent on line system and I feel it is time for the whole campus to get on board. OK – my view for what it is worth.

    Carol Erickson
    Executive Associate Dean
    College of Biological Sciences

  • Cathe Richardson, College of Engineering, Dean's Office
  • My personal experience with using MyInfoVault (MIV) has been quite positive. Once the data has been entered and verified for an eligible candidate, it becomes the benchmark for all future actions, and allows for quick and easy updating of materials for the next review. Having a repository such as this of information, will allow ease in compiling documentation in the future, especially for those actions with long review periods, i.e., promotions, advancement to step 6 and above scale. I have also been impressed with how quickly corrections can be made to dossiers, and the ease of review, not only for myself but for our college faculty personnel committee. This year marks our first year to review actions that were entered in MIV, and what a difference it made when it came to assigning dossiers to FPC members and the lack of "paper" needed to be passed around for review. Another asset is being able to coincide our reviews for joint actions, where the review has to occur between two or more colleges. MIV has significantly cut down the lag time for review between academic units. Although the system is not perfect, and can be "clunky" at times, overall it saves time and effort and allows for flexibility, especially for reviewers. Next academic year, all of our actions in Engineering will be submitted through MIV. I am actually looking forward to it!

    Cathe Richardson
    Academic Personnel Analyst
    Engineering Dean's Office

  • Bruce Winterhalder, Associate Dean, College of Letters and Science
  • In the UC system, full review personnel actions are frequent for our hundreds of faculty; they entail multiple complicated options and levels of review by individuals, faculties and groups who are dispersed over many campus locations and must assemble, move and track large stacks of documents, obtain just the right signatures all along the way, on time, under a variety of contingencies. Whatever its other merits, from a workload and logistic perspective, it is a ghastly system. We are not crushed by it only because of the hard work of the staff who run it, and who are dedicated to making it more efficient. By progressively consolidating the complex world of personnel actions and documents into an accessible, thoughtful, on-line interface, the MIV group has been at the forefront of that effort. Thank you.

    Bruce Winterhalder
    Associate Dean for Academic Personnel and Instructional Resources
    (Division of Social Sciences, College of Letters and Science)
    Professor of Anthropology,
    Graduate Group in Ecology (Human Ecology Area of Interest), and,
    Graduate Group in International Agricultural Development