Elon University publishes an annual report to highlight faculty scholarship, undergraduate research and institutional milestones from the previous academic year. Now named the President's Report, the 2010-2011 report has been re-invented and is reaching more people than ever in its online-only form.

"All institutions do this kind of thing, so we are constantly receiving print publications from universities and colleges all over the country," said Tim Peeples, associate provost for faculty affairs. "It's a way for people to be aware of other institutions and what they are doing at what quality work."The report, formerly known as the Provost's Report, was printed and mailed to schools across the country each year. The report listed all faculty scholarship for the academic year and included a couple of feature stories about faculty and student work.

"Last year was the last year we made a print Provost's Report," Peeples said. "The print version was expensive to produce and to mail, and harder to reach as many people. We went online to reach a wider audience."

This year, more people were able to access the university's report, which was previously mailed out to 800 universities and individuals.

"In what was less than a couple of days, we know that more than 2,000 people looked at the President's Report," Peeples said. "We already have more than doubled the number of people looking at the report by going online."

Though the report's new format features only 12 faculty scholarship initiatives, Peeples said the university will be putting a PDF file online, a companion piece with a list of all the faculty scholarship.

"It just will not get the same kind of press that the (work in the) President's Report will," he said.

The university has never featured all of its undergraduate research in a Provost's Report, but through the President's Report on Scholarship has increased the number of undergraduate research projects featured each year.

The university sought to highlight undergraduate projects that best captured the Elon experience, Peeples said.

"We wanted to find the ones that garnered the most interest when they were originally put out as stories of undergraduate research," he said.

There is no designated committee for selecting what faculty research will be featured in the report. Peeples said he asks the deans and other faculty members to share with him who they believe are doing the most significant scholarship. That list, he said, is still larger than what the university can publish, meaning a smaller list is formed.

"From there, we ask the selected faculty members if they are willing to do a video and have a story written on them," Peeples said. "Some of them might say 'no,' so we would select someone else."

The featured faculty scholarship initiatives encompass all types of fields of research topics on campus, ranging from exercise science and physical therapy to economics and a book on how Satan would view the world.

Tina Das and Casey DiRienzo, economics professors whose work on the corruption effect in developing countries was featured in the report, have been studying the issue as a pair and plan to continue to do so.

"(We) started working on the effects of corruption — bribery, kickbacks, nepotism, abuse of public office for private gain — on economic and business outcomes about five years ago," DiRienzo said. "The impact of corruption is a theme throughout our work and will continue to be."

Peeples said the university plans to continue publishing the report as an online version, following a similar format of featuring around a dozen faculty members and several undergraduate students each year.