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How Can You Identify Your Training Needs?
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March 18, 2008, Volume 54, No. 25

Introducing the Penn Profiler Survey

The Office of the Vice Provost for Research, in conjunction with the Division of Finance, Information Systems and Computing, and the School of Medicine is pleased to introduce Penn Profiler. Penn Profiler is the University’s new web-based application that enables people to self-identify many (but not all) training needs and requirements. These are determined by completing a 5-15 minute online survey based on academic activities and/or job responsibilities.

Penn Profiler will be released in stages, over a 7–10 week period, beginning in April. A phased rollout approach will be used to facilitate orientation and the support of new users of the system. Users will receive individual notification e-mails with more details and instructions about access when their organizations or divisions are rolled out.

Penn Profiler is part of the University’s overall education initiative regarding safety, research compliance, and other trainings required by Federal, State, and University policies and regulations as well as, in some cases, the training related to administrative job skills or responsibilities. We anticipate that Penn Profiler will continue to evolve and cover a wider range of training needs over time. It is important to note that the Penn Profiler does not currently introduce any new required courses. Its purpose is to help individuals identify appropriate required training courses that already exist at Penn.

Penn Profiler leverages Knowledge Link, a learning management system that can be used to deliver University and Health System related training. It can greatly simplify the user’s training experience by clearly presenting faculty and staff with their required courses in one place—the Required Training screen of Knowledge Link (for more information on Knowledge Link, click here). Over time additional training options will also become available.

Penn Profiler presently contains sections covering courses pertaining to Administration and Finance, Sponsored Projects, Environmental Health and Radiation Safety, Animal Care and Use, Human Subjects Research, and Clinical Care. The tool was designed with the functionality to add additional sections as needed. Penn Profiler is not the sole method of assigning required courses at Penn. There are other entities on campus that can also assign required courses that will appear on an individual’s Knowledge Link Required Training page.

The development of Penn Profiler was based on consultation involving individuals and focus groups from Schools and Centers throughout the University and reflects the collective knowledge and current training experiences of the Research Training Community and the Financial Training Department.

Who needs to take the Penn Profiler survey?
Completing the Penn Profiler survey is expcted for all full- and part-time Penn faculty and staff including student workers, adjuncts, and temporary employees. It must be completed at least annually (more often if an individual’s job responsibilities change).

Benefits of Penn Profiler
Benefits of the Penn Profiler include the following:

• Strengthens knowledge of appropriate best practices that will prepare individuals to do their jobs safely and effectively.

• Provides a user-friendly, web-based, self-service application to identify and assign in a timely manner task-appropriate training.

• Provides the research and administrative communities with easily accessible tools to assign, manage, maintain and report training information (in conjunction with Knowledge Link).

• Strengthens the University’s ability to meet ever-changing federal and regulatory compliance requirements and demands for accountability.

Access
Users will receive an e-mail confirming their Penn Profiler availability with the URL to access the application. Users will only need to authenticate with their PennKey and PennKey password before accessing the system with a standard web browser. (For information about PennKeys see www.upenn.edu/computing/pennkey/.)

Optional Information Sessions with Q&A
Optional information sessions about Penn Profiler will be available in the individual Schools as the rollout is implemented. Each School will be communicating its schedule with specific times and places for these sessions.

Additional Information
Questions about the Penn Profiler can be addressed to PennProfiler@pobox.upenn.edu.

 

Steven J. Fluharty, Vice Provost for Research
—Stephen Golding, Vice President for Finance & Treasurer
—Chris Kops, Vice Dean for Administration and Finance, SOM
—Robin H. Beck, Vice President, Information Systems and Computin
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Related: Of Record: Penn Profiler: Rollout Begins In April

 

 

Almanac - March 18, 2008, Volume 54, No. 25