The Arts and Science Information System (ASIS) is a relational database system with a web-based interface developed by Arts and Science. ASIS extracts and links together information residing in several independent university database systems for students, faculty, employees, curriculum, income, expense, financial aid, and facilities. Throughout the academic year, departmental administrators also enter new information about planned courses, instructors, and students, to be merged with the other institutional data for a comprehensive view of Arts and Science activity.

ASIS is used by the deans and higher administration to make informed policy decisions in areas such as curricular reform/changes, financial aid support levels, and faculty staffing projections, and to produce a variety of ad hoc historical reports.

ASIS consists of six modules:

The Courses module shows past and present course offerings, enrollments, and instructor assignments. This allows administrators to use history as a guide when making enrollment and course staffing projections. Departmental administrators use this module to plan course offerings and to make all instructional assignments for Arts and Science courses. For Arts and Science, ASIS is the only source for the instructor assignments which appear in the Registrar’s online “Albert” catalog.

Graduate Program Profiles module provides an overview of currently enrolled graduate students, and allows administrators to track and manage financial aid. Departments and programs can view a variety of important descriptors of each student's status.

The TAT (Teaching Assistant Training) module is used to manage invitations and payments for new teaching assistants who are expected to attend pre-semester training sessions offered by the Graduate School and individual departments. Departmental administrators are responsible for entering this information.

The Faculty module, available only to Arts and Science deans and higher administration, tracks information about current faculty and recruitment of new faculty. It spans job descriptions, applicants, and offers for prospective faculty to details on commitments, sabbaticals, and leaves for current faculty. It also provides an overview of departmental curricula and staffing.

The Housing module is used to track housing needs and requests for incoming new faculty.

The Space module (not yet developed) tracks usage of Arts and Science facilities -- offices, classrooms, and lab space.

The ASIS system is designed to be user-friendly and relatively self-explanatory. Because ASIS data entry is so closely tied to each department’s unique administrative routines and practices, the ASIS staff does not provide formal training; instead, training in ASIS should be integrated with departmental training for new administrators. However, documentation is available on the ASIS menu and both new and old administrators are welcome to contact the ASIS staff for assistance at any time if they encounter problems.

 Back to Top