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Build your faculty annual report from your own record: a year-end checklist

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The painful part of an annual report is rebuilding the year from memory in December. Keep one record as things happen and the report becomes an afternoon of checking, not a week of searching your inbox. Here is how to set that up, and what to check at year end.

Disclosure up front: I am an assistant professor and I make Vitae, a Mac app for keeping an academic record, which appears in steps 3 and 5. Vitae needs macOS 15 or later. A spreadsheet works for the same routine, and the steps do not depend on the app. What I describe about Vitae comes from its own code and page, and I say where I did not test something.

1. Know what your report asks for

Formats differ by department and college, so read yours first. Most activity reports ask for the same kinds of material:

Write down the year rule before you start. A paper can be accepted in one year, posted online in a second and printed in a third. Your department decides which date counts, and the answer is not the same everywhere.

2. Keep the record as things happen

Add each item the day it happens, in one place: a submission when you send it, a decision when the email arrives, a grant when you submit and again when it is awarded, a talk when you give it. It takes a minute each. Rebuilding the same year from your inbox in December takes days, and you still miss things.

One habit pays for the rest: when a paper is accepted, add the DOI as soon as it exists. Everything downstream, from the reference list to the year-end check, is easier with it.

3. Bring in what you already have

Start from existing sources, not from a blank page. In Vitae you can add publications from identifiers such as DOIs, from pasted BibTeX, or from a Zotero collection, and each route shows an editable list before anything is saved. Whichever tool you use, check what comes in. Metadata can differ from your own version: a preprint title, a different year, a missing coauthor.

ORCID is the third source. Vitae can check your ORCID record once a day and propose works that are not in your library, for you to import or ignore. That daily check is a Vitae Plus feature and is off by default; it contacts pub.orcid.org at most once every 24 hours, and nothing is added until you say so. Enter your ORCID iD in your profile first. Plus is $2.99 a month or $23.99 a year after a 7-day trial; the record-keeping itself is free.

4. The year-end pass

  1. Fix the year and the rule for which date counts.
  2. Publications. Check every paper for the year: final title, venue, authors in order, DOI, status. Remove duplicates, especially a preprint and its published version.
  3. Work in progress. Update each submission to its status on December 31: under review, revise and resubmit, accepted, rejected.
  4. Grants. List each grant that was submitted, awarded or active at any point in the year, not only those that began in it.
  5. Talks, teaching and service. Fill these from your calendar and course records while the year is fresh.
  6. Narrative. Write it last, from the numbers: what moved from submitted to accepted, what you funded, what you plan to finish.

5. What Vitae's Annual review does

In CV & Packages, choose Annual Review and a year. From the code, it limits publications to that year, and it includes a grant if its start and end dates span that year. It shows three change tiles for the year against the one before: publications, grants submitted and talks. Papers under review are left out of the output, so add work in progress by hand if your form asks for it. You then export the report. The product page lists PDF, LaTeX and rich text exports, and says Word (.docx) templates are part of Vitae Plus.

What it does not do is fill your department's form. If you have a template, you will copy the content across. I have not tested Vitae against any department's form.

Frequently asked

Which year does a paper count for, the online date or the print date?

That is your department's rule, not a software setting, so check the instructions for your report. A paper can be accepted in one year, posted online in a second and printed in a third. Decide the rule once, write it next to the list, and apply it to every entry.

Does Vitae's Annual review include papers that are still under review?

No. Annual review lists the year's publications, and papers under review are left out of that output. Keep them in your submissions table and add them to the report by hand if your form asks for work in progress.

Can I import my publications from ORCID?

Vitae can check your ORCID record daily and list works that are not in your library yet, for you to import or ignore. That daily check is a Vitae Plus feature and is off until you turn it on. Add your ORCID iD to your profile first. Always check the titles and years it brings in.

Will it fill my department's form?

No. Vitae builds an activity report from your record and exports it. If your department uses its own form or a Word template, you will copy the content across. I have not tested Vitae against any particular department's form.

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