[NOTE: This information will also be posted as a pdf file on the
NALP website.]
FOLLOW-UP
EMAIL ON RECOMMENDER DIRECTORY
NALP OSCAR WORKING
GROUP
May 20,
2009
Dear Colleagues:
We're writing to follow up on the email from OSCAR concerning
the master directory of recommenders uploaded by law schools. In April, 2009,
inactive recommender accounts – those with no activity since September 30, 2008
– were archived. Once archived, those recommenders are no longer listed in the
law school recommender directory dropdown, their usernames and passwords do not
work, and their completed letters are removed. The launch of OSCAR 5.0 on May 18
means that you can now repopulate your recommender directory in the new system.
It is important to update your recommender directory as promptly as possible,
preferably before the Class of 2010 is granted access on Friday, May
22..
One Reminder: Clean up your Law School Administrator (LSA)
Accounts
Remember that OSCAR recognizes one person from each law
school as the primary LSA, who can create other administrator accounts within
the school and designate varying levels of administrative rights. If staff
turnover or reorganization at your school means that different people will be
working with OSCAR this season, now is the time to update your administrator
accounts. Only the OSCAR staff can change your primary LSA, and the staff will
only make that change upon a written request from the dean/director of your
career services office (which can be emailed to the OSCAR help desk: oscar-support@ao.uscourts.gov).
Because we know that the person who was the primary LSA was often also
designated as the "universal CC" for all recommendation request emails, we also
encourage you to update the "universal CC" at the same time you make other
changes. That can also be done via an email request to the OSCAR help
desk.
Be Prepared to Upload Your Faculty Recommenders Before
Your Students Input Them
After archiving, your recommender directories may have
significant gaps. Students, or especially alumni, who will want to create
applications now will type in their recommenders themselves if they don't find
them on the dropdown list, which could create confusing
duplications.
a. Who's on your Master List?
There are some clear choices for your recommender directory:
your permanent faculty. We suggest including everyone on your permanent faculty,
even those who might be visiting at another school in the coming academic year.
That is the best way to ensure that your applicants have access to them as soon
as they need them.
Other people more tangentially associated with you law school
fall into a gray area (e.g., adjuncts, lecturers, visiting faculty for the
coming academic year or for prior years). Not only are they not permanently
affiliated with your school, they may well have affiliations with multiple
schools. In addition to assessing your own institution's needs and the
recommenders' preferences, you should understand how OSCAR treats recommenders
with multiple school affiliations before deciding whether to include these
categories of people in your recommender directory.
b. What will happen with recommenders associated with
multiple schools?
For OSCAR, the recommender's email address – not the name –
is key to identifying duplicate entries. When an LSA (or applicant) from "XYZ
School of Law" attempts to create a new recommender account, OSCAR will first
check to see if that recommender email address already exists, either in XYZ's
directory or in any other law school’s directory. If it already exists in XYZ's
directory, OSCAR will not create a new account, but will simply "merge" the new
upload with the existing account. If another recommender account with that same
email address already exists at another school, rather than creating a second
duplicate account, OSCAR will instead “associate” XYZ with the already existing
account. That means both LSAs, the one from the first school and the one from
XYZ, will have access to that recommender’s account and can edit the
recommender's profile; moreover, both schools will be able to view ALL
recommendation requests made of that recommender from all schools. This
"association" will also occur if an applicant uses the "create recommender"
feature; OSCAR will recognize the email address and add the applicant to the
pending recommendation list, but will not change any other information.
Because OSCAR makes distinctions based on email addresses,
the use of different email addresses will create duplicate accounts for the same
person. For example, if XYZ uploads Jane T. Adjunct with "jtadjunct@gmail.com"
and an applicant from another school adds her with
"jane.adjunct@biglawfirm.com," OSCAR will create a separate account for her at
each school. In that case, neither LSA will be able to view recommendation
requests by applicants from the other school.
When you encounter a recommender account that includes
recommendation requests from students from another school, we urge you to
contact your counterpart at the other school to insure all requests are
processed (and to avoid duplication of efforts). Also, if you know in advance
that any of your faculty or affiliates are likely to be associated with another
school, we suggest that you reach out to the other school to collaborate on
developing a joint plan for processing his or her recommendation
requests.
c. Not many recommenders archived?
Since alumni and graduating students can—and do—utilize OSCAR
virtually year-round, you may find that many of your faculty are not archived
and remain on the Recommender list. If you do not have many changes to make,
you may prefer to update individual recommender accounts from the Recommender
list. You can make changes to an existing account (e.g., a different phone
number or faculty assistant email address) by choosing Recommenders from the
left sidebar menu, then finding the individual recommender. Clicking on the
Edit icon (paper and pencil) next to the recommender's name will take you to the
Recommender Details edit page, where you can type in your changes, then click on
Save & Exit. You can also add a single recommender by scrolling to the
bottom of the Recommender list page and clicking on "Add New." (If you prefer to
use spreadsheets in all events, read the next section.)
d. Phased uploading – or, you don't have to be perfect the
first time!
We realize that information on your faculty list is bound to
change over the course of the summer. Although you can certainly make individual
changes on a piecemeal basis, OSCAR 5.0 also will allow you to upload
periodically a revised spreadsheet of your entire faculty, their email
addresses, and their faculty assistants – without creating duplicate accounts
for faculty whose information was already uploaded and did not change. OSCAR
will, however, update an existing recommender account that contains information
different from the information previously uploaded. OSCAR will also create a new
recommender account for each new faculty member who was not included in a prior
uploaded list.
Also, because OSCAR will recognize duplicate entries, you
need not remove "unarchived" faculty (those with current pending requests) from
your master list prior to your upload. They will retain their existing password
and have access to their templates and completed recommendations.
Thanks for your attention,
NALP OSCAR Working Group
Rhonda Beassie (Houston)
rbeassie@central.uh.edu
Marilyn Drees, Chair (Yale)
marilyn.drees@yale.edu
Terry Galligan (Berkeley)
tgalligan@law.berkeley.edu
Sonja Hayes (Stetson) shays@law.stetson.edu
Allison Heverin (Northwestern)
a-heverin@law.northwestern.edu
Susan Staab (Chicago) sstaab@law.uchicago.edu
Katie Wilkinson (Tulane)
kwilkin1@tulane.edu