People Application

People Application Image

In CHSSWeb, information about faculty and staff, including paid research assistants, is entered and displayed through the People (bios) Application. A nightly process creates bios for new hires and updates key information for existing bios.

On all websites, the application has the URL /people. For instance:

  • All faculty and staff on communication: communication.gmu.edu/people
  • All faculty and staff on economics: economics.gmu.edu/people
  • All faculty and staff on psychology: psychology.gmu.edu/people

Students who are not paid can also be added to this system, though all information about unpaid students must be added and maintained manually and students are not displayed in the same context (the "/people" url and its sub-urls) as the paid faculty and staff.

List Page for the People Application

All the people associated with a site are displayed on the "list page" for that site. For a sample, click on image to right.

On the list page, the viewer can scroll down to get a quick glimpse of everyone on the site -- name, rank (optional), administrative title, research interests, and picture. A link from the person's name or picture takes the viewer to a full page ("show page") with more information about that person.

Sorting the List Page

On the list page, using the tabs at the top, viewers can choose a variety of ways to view the people associated with a site. They can sort by:

  • All people
  • All faculty with these sub-choices:
    • Full-time faculty
    • Tenure-line faculty
    • Part-time faculty
    • Research
    • Postdoctoral
    • Emeritus faculty
  • All staff
  • Graduate Assistants

Subdisciplines

Units can group (and filter) their faculty by subdisciplines as well. For example, on the Sociology and Anthropology site, faculty can be sorted by sociology or anthropology. On the History and Art History site, faculty can be sorted by the subdisciplines European history, U.S. history, World history, or Art history. The subdisciplines appear at the bottom of the sort options. Click on image to right for an example.

Subdisciplines are not set automatically. Anyone with edit rights on a bio may set that person's subdiscipline.

Choosing the Link Name and Default View of the People Application

Most websites have a link from their main navigation to the People Application. Units can decide what the name of the link will be and what the default view to the application will be.

The link can be named "People" or "Faculty" or "Faculty and Staff" or something else, should they wish.

The link can go to the most inclusive display in the People Application and show all faculty and staff. That link would use the URL /people. The link can display a subgroup of faculty and staff, as suits the needs and audiences of the unit. Different units have made different choices for their websites:

  • People (everyone associated with the site) (/people)
  • All faculty (everyone with faculty status associated with the site)(/people/all_faculty)
  • All full time faculty (all faculty with full time status associated with the site)( /people/full_time_faculty)
  • All tenure-line faculty (all faculty with tenure-line status associated with the site) (/people/tenure_line_faculty)

To learn more about this topic see the web page Categorizing and Sorting People under the Managing People tab above. To change the link name or default view of the People Application, contact CHSSWeb.