What is UC OATS?
The UC Outside Activity Tracking System (UC OATS) is a web-based platform that simplifies the reporting and monitoring of Outside Professional Activities (OPA) to ensure compliance with the University of California's Conflict of Commitment (COC) policies, as outlined in the Academic Personnel Manual (APM). UC OATS enables faculty to report their outside professional activities, request prior approvals, document associated time and earnings, and complete annual certification requirements, supporting their commitment to university policies.
Key Features
Approval Forms & Routing
UC OATS collects information about outside professional activities and automatically generates prior approval forms when needed. These forms are then routed through a structured review and approval workflow.
System Roles
UC OATS operates as a role-based system, with designated roles that include general campus faculty, health science faculty, deans, full-time faculty administrators, reviewers, approvers, auditors, and system administrators.
Report & Track Effort/Earnings
Faculty can report their outside professional activities, and document associated efforts and income.
Annual Certification
In UC OATS, faculty certify their compliance with UCOP conflict of commitment policies. The system compiles an annual report of outside professional activities based on the information collected throughout the year.
Reports
Reports are available for various compliance issues in real-time (e.g., annual certification reports, faculty exceeding time and/or earnings thresholds, involvement of students in OPA, etc.).
Faculty Education
UC OATS contains embedded educational components to facilitate faculty understanding of the policies, their role and responsibilities, and accurate reporting. To learn more about UC OATS visit the Training knowledge base.
Health Science Compensation Plan (HSCP) Payments
Reviewers can document and track payments due to the HSCP plan. Payments are reflected in both the reviewer's and faculty's workspace.
Archiving Approvals
UC OATS archives approvals and disclosures, allowing for historical (and multi-year) searches for approvals/disclosures.
UC OATS is live on all 10 UC campuses
- University of California, Berkeley (UCB)
- University of California, Davis (UCD)
- University of California, Irvine (UCI)
- University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- University of California, Merced (UCM)
- University of California, Riverside (UCR)
- University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
- University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)
