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DARS Steering Committee Minutes 2007-081) Minutes: Minutes from 1-16-08 meeting are available on the web: http://www.iastate.edu/~registrar/dars/minutes/darsminutes.html David Ross from Ag stated he believed we needed to come to a conclusion concerning pseudo names for the new catalog added to the minutes. After discussion, it was decided to move current pseudo names to the ’09 catalog unless there was a specific new sub-requirement, then a new pseudo name would be assigned. Here is the reference from January meeting: If an existing sub is altered, either additional courses added or subtracted, leave the pseudo name the same? YES. For this example, because the course list in the sub has been altered, do we need to change the pseudo name? NO; What affect will it have on exceptions already done? It will allow any approved exceptions to fall into the same area on a different catalog year. We agreed at the meeting today that the default should be to allow the pseudo code to remain the same so long as the changes to the existing sub primarily have to do with either expanding or reducing the sub-requirement’s course list. If the sub-requirement is changed more fundamentally (i.e., the sub-requirement is changed from math 150 to math 181), then a new pseudo code should be used. If possible, the sub would be labeled as NEW on the returned sample form to assist the degree audit staff with implementation. 2) Introductions: none. We had 18 in attendance 3) Next meeting –10:00 a.m., July 16, at 302 Catt Hall
4) Exceptions meeting: After discussion, it was decided to have another exceptions meeting after summer orientation. With Jeremy busy with TRANSIT, it was decided to wait until the July steering committee meeting before setting a time. Deanna introduced a new CW exceptions code for use in changing credits at the requirement level. LAS needs this for requirements which are written this way. Several other colleges expressed a need for this as well. Any MR or AD codes now in use do not need to be changed unless an error is showing in the audit somewhere else. If this is spotted, the MR or AD codes need to be changed to CW code. A helpful discussion followed as to when this should be used and alternate ways requirements may be written to eliminate credits at the requirement level and add credits at the sub level. If that is done, then an exception would be eliminated and less work would be needed. 5) ITS Update: Transfer credits update. Notations for electives area have begun. Currently Business, Design, Engineering, and Agriculture should be seeing these messages on Transfer students for one year from entry term: **TRANSFER COURSES LISTED BELOW MAY BE APPLIED TO ABOVE DEGREE REQUIREMENTS AFTER REVIEW BY YOUR DEPARTMENT. FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT YOUR ISU ACADEMIC ADVISOR OR DEPARTMENTAL OFFICE.**
If technical credits have been evaluated, this message will show: Courses from Career and Technical area: Maximum of 16.0 credits allowed
We still have the colleges of H SCI and LAS to program for the above. Also, there was discussion about how the transfer credits would be counted. Since we hope to have the transfer credits monitored in the total electives area, then the degree audit does not need to monitor, but it set to monitor unless tech credits are moved to another area. Then the monitoring becomes inaccurate. The two colleges will be notified once programming is competed.
* E-report audits: Here is a sample of what an e-report looks like for a batch of audits: This could be an alternate way to receive batch degree audits. Begin to think about this for you college. Advantages: a) Audits would be at the adviser’s fingertips. b) save paper. c) In future, when students have access, no need to print. THIS IS COMING! Disadvantages: a) Learning curve for advisers b) All advisers may not yet be using DARSWeb or have access c) If printed, requires dept. paper --Another alternative: provide only the names of the students in an e-report and let the adviser run the audit in DARSWeb. This would give the most up to date report possible.
Discussion on the e-reports was very positive. We all see this as the future. There were questions to Jeremy about delivery of the e-report and he stated reports could be generated and sent to those who have a need. We don’t see this coming for fall ’09 since ITS has other commitments.
6) ISU Certifications and DARS: Registrar staff met to discuss the process needed for awarding a certification. Currently the Latin American Studies is the only identified certification we have. Work is in progress on developing the DARS piece and process. We continue to be somewhat confused about the process of Certifications and how to proceed with it. Larry will find out what the process should be concerning addition of a notation to perm record and see if a code can be created for Deanna to use so an audit can be generated for this group. Ag announced they have approved two additional certifications which will be coming.
7) College reports: Ag: Mickie reported the AG senior audits went very well this time and advisers seem to like them. Business: Design: Engr: Roberta asked if splits could be addressed in the exceptions meeting. Since few use this, it was though doing this one on one might be the best way and for now Sheryl will continue to split as directed from the colleges. Roberta also mentioned the English Proficiency for ENGR is changing. Also, the new catalog will have the audit outline showing as the format of courses needed. This will be a big improvement over the current catalog format. H Sci: LAS: JoAnn mentioned she feel good about the audits after today’s explanations. V M: not in attendance ATH: not in attendance Grad staff: not in attendance
8) Future topics for discussion: * Transfer credit comes into ISU as 0.0 crs when first taken at ISU. New TA process will address this. * Honors Code: ITS job to trigger email to Honors when curriculum is changed. A weekly query was also discussed. Laurie Fiegel and Suzanne Wirth from HONORS have been invited to our July meeting to explain the needs of better connections between the systems used to monitor members. * Grad staff: Debbie would like to talk about the ENGL waivers done different ways by different colleges. Could this become more standardized? Debbie will bring examples to July meeting.
9) Other: Deanna asked the colleges when and how they would like to receive the ’07 format for their majors so changes to the ’09 may begin to be addressed. Engineering is now ready. All others thought as soon as the catalog was finalized would be a good time. We will work on getting samples to ENGR shortly.
Looking ahead: July 16th 10:00 302 Catt Hall with guests Sept 17th 10:00 2200 Gerdin 1) Minutes: One correction was noted on minutes from last November meeting. Deanna will change achieve to archive in Engr. section. The rest of the minutes were approved as written http://www.iastate.edu/~registrar/dars/minutes/darsminutes.html 2) Introductions: Paul Castleberry is the proud new father of a baby girl, Sela Paige. She is reported to be gaining weight well! Congratulations, Paul 3) Next meeting –10:00 a.m., March 26th at 2200 Gerdin 4) Exceptions meeting: It was decided to cancel the next exceptions meeting until further notice. We will discuss if another is needed in March. 5) ITS Update: Jeremy reported the TA modular of DARS continues to progress. Laura reported issues are being addressed and a long meeting is planned shortly with the team to discuss topics that need to action such as AA degrees and automatic waiving of gen eds in some majors. 6) College reports: Ag: David:
Business: Lee stated their college is receiving many request for students to view their audits from the web. This piece continues to be a work in progress, but Lee would like to see it up and going and not waiting for TA to come up. Design: Engr: H Sci: LAS: V M: ATH: GRAD AREA:
7) Pseudo name changes: (see below) Due to the exceptions meeting put on hold, this was discussed. The group agreed the exceptions could flow from catalog to catalog and the DARS staff will attempt to help this happen for the ’09 catalog. Any areas with lots of past exceptions may be revisited if Deanna or Sheryl is notified. We can add the past pseudo name to the ’07 catalog to avoid college staff having to do multiple adjustments to exceptions. 8) Moving the Honors requirement: Feedback from colleges have indicated that the placement of the Honors requirement is not a high priority, but that if moved, all majors should be moved to keep audit continuity. We will at this time, not move the Honors piece. LAS: this college needs the HONORS piece to fall lower due to the way courses are flowing, not for the look of the audit. BUS: this college is only concerned about the look of the audit.
9) Future topics for discussion:
10) Other:
Looking ahead: Feb 20th 10:00 exception training -cancelled March 26th 10:00 2200 Gerdin (after spring break) May 21st 10:00 114 Marston July 16th 10:00 302 Catt Hall Sept 17th 10:00 2200 Gerdin Deanna will stay as needed after the meeting to address individual college concerns.
We will NOT be retroactively changing any pseudo names unless you email us with a specific sub/requirement that you would like changed. We will be accommodating if you have a specific need and reason.
Pseudo name changes: With the ’07 catalog, when a requirement was changed, we sometimes changed the pseudo name as well. I believe we need to now evaluate this step for the future to see how this should be done to eliminate as many exception problems as we can when a student jumps catalogs. a) From feedback from staff doing exceptions, it sounds like it’s ok for an exception done on a past catalog to be allowed automatically on a new catalog. Is this ok?___________ If yes, for the ’09 catalog, can we state: If the subs on the requirement do not change, then the pseudo names may remain the same. example: (’09 rules could allow this example to show same pseudo names since the sub did not change Something changed for ’07, but it was not these subs showing..) b) If an additional sub is added, only the added sub gets a new pseudo name. example: (’09 rules, only the new pseudo name would be attached to the additional sub #4. No renumbering would be done. The new sub would acquire a name like A 7xxxx8, even though it does not fall in that order. c) If a sub is taken away, no change would be done to pseudo names on remaining subs. d) : If an existing sub is altered, either additional courses added or subtracted, leave the pseudo name the same??______ example: (For this example, because the course list in the sub has been altered, do we need to change the pseudo name? What affect will it have on exceptions already done?)
1) Minutes: Minutes from 07-18-07 and 09-19-07 meetings were approved as appearing on the web http://www.iastate.edu/~registrar/dars/minutes/darsminutes.html 2) Introductions: Members introduced themselves again for Paul Castleberry and Matt Skoy. Matt will be added to our mailing list of members. We had 21 in attendance today with all colleges represented. 3) Next meeting –Jan. 16th, 10:00 2200 Gerdin 4) Exceptions meeting:(October 17, 2007) Eight staff were in attendance representing AG, Bus, and ENGR, ITS, and Registrar’s office. 1. Deanna has added a new section (4 FS CODE-exception-break grade restriction) to the training manual showing how to do an exception if a set grade rule needs to be broken. (this is on the web site): http://www.iastate.edu/~registrar/dars/DARS%20Student%20Exceptions%20Manual.pdf The file was also emailed to staff. 2. We discussed information given at the RCC meeting concerning the use of the minor form as the official form needed to verify courses required. It’s ok to attempt to make DARS audits minor areas appear as the form indicates. If you have problems doing this due to the major/minor combo (Engr. with the math minor seems to require additional overlap of courses) then contact Deanna to see if there is a way we can approach individual combos in a better way. It’s acceptable for the college of the major to do the exceptions. 3. Deanna showed the group how to use the “what-if” feature on DARSWeb for showing courses in the future on the audit. It was suggested having these courses in a different color or font would be helpful to distinguish future courses from the others. The top of the audit gives a message “Planned Courses Included”. Jeremy was not hopeful that this could be done, but will check into it. We see this feature as becoming popular with students once they receive access to DARSWeb. 5) ITS Update: Jeremy reported the following: 1. A new and more accurate Praxis scores area has been completed on DARS 2. The designated repeat is now a more accurate reporting field, pulling from the last term in attendance for incoming transfer students. 3. Changes to Basic program in Engineering are in progress. 4. TA report: · Jeremy is meeting bi-weekly with Mary and Kerri in Admissions moving ahead to the July 1, 2008 target implementation date. There are many changes which need implemented, but Jeremy feels they are on schedule to meet the deadline. Regular update meetings are also occurring with Mary, Kerri, Jeremy, Laura, Karen Zunkel, and Kathy Jones present. · Laura reported Senate file 601 is driving the TA progress · Admissions hope to have 80 domestic schools up and running DARS TA by the July 1 deadline with some additional special features. · On Friday, Laura will give a presentation to the Regents on ISU progress and in February, will give a demo of a prototype to them. · UNI has a system called “Plan-it” already in place for transfer credits, but is having to revamp this to accommodate tech credits currently not appearing. · U of Iowa is waiting for 4.0 DARS and has a home grown system that is causing conflicts with the systems currently in use. · For future students, transfer articulation will be available outside of AccessPlus, but once a student is enrolled at ISU, AccessPlus will be the system used showing the TA courses. · Laura mentioned the present “Courses not applied” area may need to be renamed in the future. · AA degree issue was asked about by Jane from LAS. LAS and Bus have agreements that a student with an AA degree from an · Lee questioned if current and future students would both have access to Web audits once TA was implemented. Yes, these will go hand in hand with each other to ensure current ISU students may also view audits, not just future students. Current students will use AccessPlus and future students will have a different way to view audits. · Laura asked Engineering and Human Sciences colleges if they are comfortable having students view and run their audits from DARSWeb. Jeanne reported a concern about “what-if” audits not showing options, additional majors, or minors. Deanna will send examples of some of the different text showing on majors that have options when none is declared (this was done 11-14-07). Having said that, Jeanne felt their college would be comfortable with student view. Roberta reported her college continues to move closer to this point, still adjusting information within the audits.
6) New Catalog Loading Process Update: There continues to be a few majors who are not able to see DARS ’07 audits on DARSWeb due to no check-in sheet filed. We are not comfortable allowing advisers to run audits that may have incorrect information. The majors involved know who they are and continue to work with us. For the next new catalog, we hope to make this a much smoother process with earlier distribution of information for loading the ’09 catalog. Thanks to all who assisted in getting us through this rough time. It was not fun. 7) College reports: Ag: no report Bus: no report Design: Michelle reported work on a BLA/MLA audit is in progress. This will be used by the graduation staff in helping clear this group of students for graduation. Engr: Roberta reported the split credits continue to be an issue for their college. Several majors are now attempting to split some of the areas on the audit to help accomplish this internally. Engineering had also inquired about archiving. Deanna will add this to a futures list. H Sci: Several of the El Ed options are also attempting to split areas of the audit to accommodate better reporting. LAS: Jane is concerned with how TA will handle the automatic fulfillment of Gen Ed’s with her college. V M: no report ATH: no report 8) Updates: Laura:
9) Concurrent students and DARS audits…Issues and answers… The audit has been adjusted to bring in any CUR or REG courses for concurrent student. Be aware this is now happening. There may be grad level courses showing in areas where they are not needed. This was done to imitate the way the old system handled CUR courses to assist graduation area and other staff working with these students. Discussion centered around the fact that now that CUR/REG courses are showing, incorrect information could be given concerning courses applying to the undergrad record in error. Paperwork and college/graduation area monitoring is occurring which should minimize any problems. This is a rather small select group of student.
10) Honors Code: A meeting was held with Jeremy, Carol, Liz Beck, Suzanne Wirth, and Deanna with Laura on the conference phone. Discussion involved who currently updates Honors code from Honors Programs and College offices. Carol thought the best decision would be to leave the DARS HRN field on the DR screen open to change, but also make it a field that would be updated each time a change was made on the Info file screen. This seemed like a good solution. Carol will write this up as an ITS job with an email triggered to Honors Programs when the DR field is updated. No time frame of when this will be completed as given. Carol will report progress. I’ll leave this on the agenda until we find out this project has been completed. Until a better solution comes, Deanna is willing to provide a weekly query to Honors Programs of all curriculum changes done by honors students at the college level. This has not yet happened, but she will work on this after the big run is completed and all majors have ’07 updates. When a student switches majors, should the HON’s code (F) be removed? It was thought that Honors Program was catching this and notifying the college. We will keep this as a future item on the agenda due to IT priorities on TA project.
11) Other:
December 19th 10.00 Jan. 16th 10:00 2200 Gerdin March 26th 10:00 2200 Gerdin May 21st 10:00 114 Marston July 16th 10:00 302 Catt Hall Sept 17th 10:00 2200 Gerdin Deanna will stay as needed after the meeting to address individual college concerns.
1) The meeting highlight was cake, mints, and nuts to Welcome DARSWeb to ISU. Kathy Jones thanked all of us for the dedication and hard work of working together on a project like this. Laura echoed her thanks as well. We had 27 in attendance for the celebrating. 2) Minutes: Minutes from http://www.iastate.edu/~registrar/dars/minutes/darsminutes.html 2) Introductions: Matt Skoy from the athletic department and Stephanie Larson were introduced to the group. Welcome! 3) Next meeting – 4) Deanna had planned to show on the system how MN and notes sections on exceptions were used, but with the party and time limits, a handout was distributed. This document is also on the DARS web site. Each college needs to decide which way works best for them. 5) ITS Update: DARS on the web: Update: Laura reported on a meeting of Registrar staff and ITS staff and the discussion of granting advisers student access to DARSWeb. It was decided to leave in place the current scheme for AccessPlus users with the knowledge that more “super” users may be needed to do the business of certain colleges. For this, Clare Smith-Larson and Deanna may be notified and will work together to give the needed access. Clare may give advisers access to needed students and Deanna to needed college programs on the web. Deanna reminded everyone to be sure to let us know when staff leave who may have had DARS client so we may remove privileges in a timely manner. 6) New Catalog Loading Process: In a week, right before the big run, Deanna will notify colleges of the majors that will not be running on the ’07 catalog. These student audits will error and print a no program message at the top. Once the audit has been approved, a query will be run to identify this group for that major and a batch run will be set up. 7) College reports: Ag: Business: Lee offered to host the meetings in 2200 Gerdin for the Jan. 16th and March 26th meeting. This will be a new location for us. Thanks! Design: Engr: Roberta announced this was their first semester of DARS only audits and many programming errors from the departments were being discovered. H Sci: The Citizenship is now displayed on the audit. Thanks, Jeremy! LAS: Jane asks what other colleges were doing when someone jumped catalogs with a minor on the past catalog. Since you may not take a minor from a past catalog than what you are on, several others stated they were removing the minor. V M: ATH:
8) Senior Run stats F.Y.I. Stats from Senior Run:
9) Updates: Laura:
10) Concurrent students and DARS audits…Issues and answers… I’ve received one request for grad level courses to show on audit…these were removed due to graduation staff request for more accurate audits…What news on concurrent students do you hear? There was discussion on a new concurrent code that was in place and how it may assist in helping us in the future in working with concurrent students. Deanna indicated this would become a future issue once transfer articulation piece is in place. 11) Honors Code: A meeting was held with Jeremy, Carol, Liz Beck, Suzanne Wirth, and Deanna with Laura on the conference phone. Discussion involved who currently updates Honors code from Honors Programs and College offices. Carol thought the best decision would be to leave the DARS HRN field on the DR screen open to change, but also make it a field that would be updated each time a change was made on the Info file screen. This seemed like a good solution. Carol will write this up as an ITS job with an email triggered to Honors Programs when the DR field is updated. No time frame of when this will be completed was given. Carol will report progress. I’ll leave this on the agenda until we find out this project has been completed. Until a better solution comes, Deanna is willing to provide a weekly query to Honors Programs of all curriculum changes done by honors students at the college level. This has not yet happened, but she will work on this after the big run is completed and all majors have ’07 updates.
12) Other:
October 17th 10.00 Nov. 14th December 19th 10.00 Jan. 16th March 26th May 21st July 16th Sept 17th Deanna stayed after the meeting to address individual college concerns.
Respectfully submitted, Deanna Jordan
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