Prescriptive Degree Maps with Degree Map Milestones

The Academic Advising initiative is supported by the development and implementation of prescriptive degree map that show students the proper timing and pacing of majors, degrees, gateway courses and general education requirements necessary to ensure graduation in four to six years. Degree maps will serve as advising tools and assist students and advisors in developing an academic plan that fits course availability and can be adjusted to accommodate failure to complete courses, alternative options, and remediation needs prior to program start. Furthermore, the University will audit student progress towards degree completion each semester using a prescribed set of course progress and GPA milestones and alerts students who are off-course Course milestones will ensure that students follow their degree maps and stay on track to graduation. Failure to meet a milestone may result in a registration hold and a communication from the advising staff. A second consecutive milestone miss may result in a required meeting with the advising staff. Prescriptive degree maps are particularly useful as advising resources are limited. As academic departments implement mandatory advising for all their students they will find the self-advising feature and the ease of communicating an academic plan to a large number of students particularly useful. This may allow the faculty to engage in academic advising beyond explaining degree and general education requirements. Furthermore, as the personalized degree map software is implemented, the information gathered from degree maps database can be used for planning and predicting the number of courses that must be offered to ensure timely progress to graduation. Project Working Group Members: Dan Fortmiller, Sukhwant Jhaj, Robert Mercer, Cindy Baccar, Angela Garbarino, Pam Wagner, Kristen Patrick, Steve Harmon as needed, Jackie Balzer, as needed, Academic Department Designees, as needed Pilot Project Team Leaders: Casey Campbell, CLAS; Doug Siegler, SBA; Jessica Wright, FPA Project Description Academic departments prepare and publish model four-year term-by-term course progressions for all majors which show students the proper timing and pacing of the major and general education requirements necessary to ensure graduation in four to six years. The degree maps will be developed in alignment with the official u.Achieve (ne DARS) degree audit requirements. Action Items Degree Maps mandated by Advising Council & Provost Departments craft degree maps in consultation with the Work Group to ensure alignment with official u.Achieve degree audit - Delegate Degree Map creation (Full-time/part-time) - Craft Degree Maps from existing requirements - Adopt level of prescription for each field of study Publish Degree Maps to central website Implement Degree Maps software Set a campus-wide deadline mandated by the provost to develop Degree Map Milestones. Departments design course completion and GPA milestones. Campus IT works with the registrar to create a system for auditing student progress against these milestones.
These actions will reduce

Key Barrier Poor academic planning & preventable graduation delays Under loading introductory courses Repeatedly failing gateway course Denied admission to upper division due to low GPA

These actions will achieve

Goals 1. Improved ability of students to self-advise. 2. Improve quality of advising across the university. 3. Students who miss a milestone are flagged with a registration hold and automatically notified to set an appointment with an advisor to get the hold lifted.
These actions will ultimately lead to

Ensure students stay on track to graduation in four to six years.

Recommendations and Decisions Add Steve Harmon from OAA to the workgroup on an as needed basis. During initial phases, keep the number of Degree Maps per program to a minimum, focusing on, traditional full-time and part-time pathways. Accommodate needs of transfer students. Ensure maps are aligned with official degree audit requirements.

Degree Mapping Work Group

Council of Academic Deans

Implementing Department

Admissions and Records

Project Working Group

Leaders Action Council

Executive Committee

Advising Council

Input Provider 2

Public Meetings I I

Faculty Senate

Decision Matrix Key: (R) Recommend, (A) Agree, (P) Perform, (I) Input, (D) Decide. Degree Map software initial review Software Presentation to Advising Council, Provost and CADS Implementation Plan Developed, Input from Advising Council Software Recommendation to Provost Provost Review and Approval of Software and Implementation Plan ARR: Advisors/Faculty Prepare Learning Plan/Outline Learning Modules Learning Modules for Students and Faculty Developed Learning Plans Implemented in Software Program Centralized website created with appropriate standards and format Implementation order for various departments Review maps and establish protocols for future updates

P P R P P P P

I I

I I

Funding Required Funding for u.Direct software and ARR administrative position has been assigned. Kristen Patrick, Degree Progress Coordinator, was hired by ARR to support this project. Small stipends are available to departments to support staff time commitment for developing degree maps. Funding will come from savings in new advisor budget. Amount $47,000 $58,400 $105,400 Frequency One Time Per year Total Purpose u.Direct License 1.0 FTE in Admissions, Registration and Records includes OPE College Source, Inc.

Timeframe and Metrics Initial Pilot Phase Goals Pilot Degree Maps Completed u.Direct Software Implementation Kick-off, dependent on College Source technical deliverables on u.Acheive upgrade Website Prototype Complete/Ready for Demo Completion Completion with Technical delays Training for Advisors Metric Name/Description Advisor Training Hours Percentage of advisors trained Percentage of department trained Degree Maps/Advising Plans Metric Name/Description Departments/Colleges without Advising Plans Departments/Colleges without Degree Maps Accessibility of Advising Plans Use of Degree Maps Degree Map Reach

Date August, 1, 2011 September 6,2011 October 1, 2011 January 1, 2012 February - March

Completed (See below) Completed Completion Completion with Technical delays Formula Total # of hours spent in training Total # of advisors trained Total # of advisors Total # of department trained* Total # number of departments*

Formula List of those departments without advising plans List of those departments without degree maps Are advising plans 1 click from the department web page? # of Students who have created degree maps Do maps exist for all academic units?

Website

Provost

ARC

Students Interacting with Advisors Metric Name/Description Percentage of students with excessive credits for graduation (all students). Percentage of students with excessive credits for graduation (only those a given graduating class). Percentage of student petitions due to perceived advisor error Percentage of UNST petitions: Measures advising that is ineffective Student Satisfaction: Are students satisfied with their advisors and advising content? Degree Map Milestone Metrics Metric Name/Description Use of Milestones: Number of students notified of missed milestones, receive intervention and continue on towards graduation Degree Map Milestones Reach: Have all departments uploaded degree map milestones by a certain date? Student Satisfaction: Are students more satisfied by knowing when they are not reaching milestones? Staff/Faculty Knowledge: Are faculty and staff more knowledgeable about what it takes to get a degree from PSU? Are classes structured better to accomplish that need?

Formula # Of students w/ >200 credits Total # of students # Of students w/ >200 credits (in graduating class) Total # of students (in graduating class) # Of petitions, perceived advisor error Total # of petitions # Of UNST petitions Total # of petitions Based on survey results from post-advising sessions

Formula Quantitative assessment of success. Comparison to cost. Is it worth it? Completion numbers to number of departments Survey Survey

Status of Degree Maps Collection Activity, January 15, 2012: 60% of all programs have been submitted and are in various stages of testing and posting to website. 80% of all CLAS majors have been submitted. The following programs remain outstanding, and are currently being worked on by the respective units. College of Liberal Arts & Sciences: 9 programs remain outstanding: Arabic, Chinese, German, History-Honors, Japanese, PhysicsEnvironmental, Philosophy-Honors, Russian, and Sociology Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science: All 8 programs remain outstanding. College of Urban and Public Affairs: All 8 programs remain outstanding. School of Fine & Performing Arts: 10 of 16 programs remain outstanding. Outreach and follow-up with the remaining programs continues. Status of u.Direct Software Implementation, January 15, 2012 December: Project kick-off meeting with College Source Inc. (CSI) Project time-line draft developed by ARR-EITS work team and has been approved by CSI (Timeline can be found at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlKnqMQV75eAdEpidy1lSFQtWmMzT251MUhicXdGMXc). EITS must give final approval for timeline and delivery dates in order to secure vendor commitment to schedule the onsite visit to provide training and implementation services. Ability to meet target dates impacts two important milestones in the project: o Vendor onsite training and implementation services targeted for March 12 -16, 2012 and o Move u.Direct to production environment by April 23rd, 2012. If deadlines are not met, onsite visit and/or the move to production will be delayed. The ARR-EITS work group meets every two weeks to keep the technology aspects of the project moving. o This technical work group reports to the larger group on timeline task completion and will identify any problems that develop that prevent meeting deadlines. Need another workgroup to strategically plan for implementation and roll-out. o Examples: Do we try to use u.Direct for summer 2012 Orientation? Do we wait until ALL majors are coded to launch? Or develop a pilot program with selected majors? Advisor training? Promotion strategies to students? o Need to coordinate closely with the technical work team so as to track progress and understand more about the product and how it will work as we go through CSI training and onsite implementation. o Outcomes from this process will inform the roll-out plan. This team should include people who work closely with advising and orientation and who can make the time commitment to be a working member of this team, which would eventually include weekly or bi-weekly meetings.