ScholarSteps Pilot and Training Sessions

AP Review Replacement

Dear Colleagues:

As many of you are aware, AP Review, UCI’s system for processing academic review files was a joint venture between UCI and UCSD which started in 2010. While this system has served us well at UCI, the technology that runs the system is no longer being supported. As a result, the Office of Academic Personnel would like to introduce our new online review system, ScholarSteps. We will be piloting ScholarSteps during the 2022-23 academic year with plans to fully replace AP Review by the 2023-24 academic year.

The ScholarSteps pilot is a voluntary opt in for units who are interested in using the system for some or all of their review files during this next review cycle (please work with your dean’s office to coordinate whether your school will be opting into the pilot). If your school would like to opt in, please send an email to scholarsteps@uci.edu. During this transition year, you can choose to run review files in ScholarSteps OR AP Review (files processed in ScholarSteps should not be run in AP Review and vice versa).

ScholarSteps can now be used for all senate and non-senate review actions except:

• Appointments
• Reappointments
• Midcareer Appraisals
• Reviews representing split appointments (split titles or split schools/departments).
• Reviews for Department Chairs (requiring a “surrogate” Department Chair) and Deans.

If, for any reason, you are uncertain whether a file can be processed through ScholarSteps please contact your AP Analyst.

Departmental Staff Training

Academic Personnel will be providing ScholarSteps training geared toward department analysts starting next week. Training sessions will be interactive and focused on the ScholarSteps system up to the point the file is forwarded to the Dean’s office. Please forward the training dates below to your department staff. Personnel managers and assistant deans from the deans’ offices are welcome and encouraged to attend.

This will be an interactive training via Zoom. For the training to be as effective as possible, we will allow up to 18 individuals per session. Sign-ups will be on a first come first serve basis.

Please select one (1) of the four sessions below for Department Staff (Dean Staff are invited, if interested):

Zoom meeting details will be sent a few days prior to each training session.

Dean Staff Training

A separate and additional training will be provided to dean staff personnel, which will be focused on processing files through ScholarSteps at the level of the dean. This focused training will be provided in late Fall (TBA). If dean staff would like training prior to the Fall, a one-on-one session can be scheduled.

On behalf of the Office of Academic Personnel, we thank you for your cooperation and look forward to your participation.

Thank you,
Office of Academic Personnel