UAB IT partnered the Office of the Provost and UAB Marketing and Communications to help create a faster and more secure site for faculty to connect and collaborate across campus.
Scholars@UAB is a searchable tool that aides in collaborations and sharing UAB faculty achievements. Users can find grants, teaching, research, and scholarship and creative activity by searching for names or keywords.
UAB IT’s security team identified some potential vulnerabilities with the old site, and with help from Eva Lewis, Ph.D., vice provost for Institutional Effectiveness & Academic Planning and her team; the UAB Office of Marketing and Communications; and faculty sponsor Dr. Laura Dreer, the old system was replaced.
“Having a single and consistent database for all faculty to use is so important for several reasons,” Lewis said. “First, the consistency of formatting is needed in order to utilize data efficiently for the public-facing web displays and branding. Second, this is being used to capture full-time faculty credentials for SACSCOC accreditation.”
Lewis began overseeing Profiles and Scholars in 2019 and was able to help allocate funds for the project and brought a new service from the vendor, Symplectic, to help modernize the site. Profiles, a database for UAB faculty, originally launched in 2014 and started showing vulnerability issues during the pandemic. Before the change could happen, UAB IT staff members had to make sure there was no broken code to ensure a smooth transition.
“James Hill led the implementation of the Discovery module in a development environment, with guidance from the Symplectic parent company, Digital Science, and the support of Sinead Maher (of UAB IT) and the (Institutional Effectiveness and Analysis) team,” Lewis said.
The project took more than six months to complete, and after weeks of testing and ensuring the functionality of the site, it was released to UAB faculty.
Since the update, faculty have noticed that updates are published faster than before, averaging about two minutes to post. Before the overhaul, posts took a week to appear on the site. Users from UAB’s Heersink School of Medicine say scholars@UAB has never been better.
“I was delighted to see the implementation of a fresh, modern layout to help present our faculty’s scholarly activity on the web,” said Carolyn Walsh, director of communications with the Department of Medicine. “It’s well organized, and easy for faculty to update. From my perspective as a communicator, it’s just incredibly helpful to have a tool that can automatically import publications. Now our faculty can be sure their list is always up to date after only a few minutes of basic customization. It’s now a part of our onboarding process, and I look forward to having 100 percent of our faculty represented in Scholars so everyone will be able to showcase their academic excellence online.”