About the Faculty Database

What is the Faculty Database System?

The Faculty Database System (FDS) is a Web-based database designed to hold curriculum vita information. Its purpose is to streamline, manage, and secure sensitive data and make it easily interoperable with other university systems.

Using the FDS, information can be entered and maintained in a single place, yet published in as many formats as necessary. The FDS eliminates the necessity for the dean's staff, the departmental staff, individual faculty members, the departmental Web site maintainer, etc. to all keep and update separate instances of the same data. Instead, the information is contained in the FDS, and an appropriate level of access to view or update it is granted to the people who need it.

The FDS also interacts easily with other university systems. For example, users can log into the FDS using their Duke NetID and password. Teaching schedules and departmental course listings can be pulled in from other university systems, displayed on the department's Web site, and automatically updated.

The data in the FDS is managed and maintained within the department, and all faculty have access to view and edit their own data. The FDS can be accessed securely from anywhere via the Web with an ID and password.

How Can the FDS Be Used by Faculty?

The FDS allows faculty to generate and review their annual reports. Faculty members may also use the database to generate and update their official departmental web pages, compile lists of publications, and maintain a curriculum vita. Information which is added or updated in one database view (annual report, CV, or web page) is available to any of the other views, so updating the annual report simultaneously updates the CV and the web page, and vice versa.

How Can the FDS Be Used by Departments?

The information in FDS can be published or displayed in any format. For example, data may be selectively displayed as

• A curriculum vitae, which may be viewed as a Web page or downloaded as a PDF document
• Web pages for individual faculty members
• A departmental directory
• A list of departmental course offerings
• A list of departmental publications and/or research interests
• A statement to the chair for annual review purposes
• A means to manage departmental email lists, and make them easily accessible to department members

Since all views are generated dynamically, information is updated once, and all relevant views are automatically updated. For example, when a new faculty member joins the department, adding some basic information to the database (name, email address, title, research interests) could generate the following:

• a page on the department Web site
• contact information added to the departmental directory
• email address added to the appropriate department mailing lists
• teaching schedule incorporated into list of department course offerings

Learn More About FDS

The Faculty Database System can be accessed at http://fds.duke.edu/

For help or more information about FDS, you may

• contact your departmental FDS manager
• send email to fds@aas.duke.edu
• contact the Arts & Sciences Help Desk at 660-3186