The University of Texas at Austin
Degree Audit User Group
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Meeting Minutes
Attendance
Present: Cruiz Alvarado, Mickey Gonzales, Justin Brady, Shan Evans, Kate Joly, Daniela Kaufman, Delisa Lee, Jen Morgan, Xavier Oaks, Josh Shandera, Jesse Stumbris, Kim Taylor, Catherine Theriot, Catherine Whited, Tomi Yamamoto
Announcements
All references to IDA 1.0 in Advisors Toolkit have been removed.
Jen Morgan reported that UGS made changes to the core IDA requirements by adding the core codes for in-residence classes to all catalogs prior to the 16-18 catalog. The process of adding correct core codes to student records had not yet been completed at this time. Therefore, the results of the audit could have been slightly altered. We advised the degree audit coders group on March 11 that the core requirement course list had been adjusted and that they should feel free to run new population audits for students to refresh any audits that were run beginning February through March 1st. We recommended that you use newly run audits during the upcoming advising period.
Discussion
Degree Plan Workbook for 2016-2018 catalog: An Excel workbook containing all program codes was uploaded to Box. Colleges can download and review this document from Box and reply to the Office of the Registrar with any changes to their programs, including programs to be added and deleted. Sequence records will not be created for new programs until they have been manually added to the Degree Plan Interface. New minors will be added to the inventory no earlier than May 2016.
Training Timeline/Materials: The systems for transcript-recognized minors will be rolled out in August. Shan Evans will help coordinate training efforts and materials for business users, including “train the trainer” sessions for work group users beginning in July. Materials will include a list of new systems, screenshots, and functionality. A testing checklist will also be provided. Existing documentation on the minors systems can be found at this link: Minors
Reporting: The Office of the Registrar will provide two reports related to the new minors. The first report will consists of the students who have been approved to pursue a transcript-recognized minor or certificate. This report will include students who were approved automatically and manually.
The second report will consist of the students whose profiles have been updated with their approved secondary credential. This report will be the basis for the official “head count” for each minor/certificate.
Five Minor/Certificates for Each Major: 2016-18 profiles can carry up to five minors/certificates. Each combination of degree plan and minor/certificate will have an audit submitted for the purposes of slotting audits and profile-driven audit requests. Registrar technical staff are currently developing this functionality.
In response to user feedback, Registrar technical staff are developing a web interface equivalent to the NRDAPF/PX command and the functionality to submit an audit from the profile listing on the individual EID audit request page. Completion of these projects will allow us to retire NRDAPF.
The new minors system will be available to staff and students. Colleges will manage the maximum number of students that can pursue a given minor/certificate. Students will be able to see if a minor/certificate is not available before they apply for it.
If a student no longer chooses to pursue a minor/certificate, then the student’s college will be responsible for removing the minor/certificate from the student’s profile, and the offering department will be responsible for expiring the minor/certificate for that student. Considerable communication between the colleges and offering departments is expected in the early stages of production.
Test scenarios and known issues: Registrar staff are compiling a series of testing scenarios relating to the 16-18 catalog in IDA 2.0. We request that you spend time working through scenarios relating to the minor trigger, elective requirements (if applicable), profile updates, and PTD testing. Registrar staff will provide these testing scenarios to you in the coming days. Feedback from the colleges is requested.
Updates: Several known issues exist in production. Some of these have been fixed through QUAL.
Fixes in QUAL include: “Minor from Profile” added back to drop-down menu; ability to submit a 16-18 audit without a FOS (such as LA); prevention of minor trigger waives; and the option to delete an override on a minor trigger requirement.
Outstanding issues include:
- using a hidden empty requirement to trump a minor trigger;
- inability to add minor triggers to programs below the degree type (such as LAANSBAEA);
- whitespace added in program codes in profile interface;
- changing the scope of an existing requirement to Minor/Certificate;
- requirement completion display on standalone certificates.
Be mindful of these issues as you begin testing. Registrar staff will continue to communicate to users when updates are pushed into production.
Feedback on RG 302: Registrar staff are continuing to facilitate feedback on RG 302 for advanced administrative functions in IDA 2.0. Only two colleges have indicated that they allow department advisers to perform overrides. DA admins plan to offer this course before the end of spring.
Next steps
Next meeting: April 7, 2016