Degree Planning Initiative

1. Degree Planning Initiative October 6, 2011

2. Vision Every student will have fundamental degree planning services at every institution with the ability online for students considering transfer to assess degree progress at other SUNY institutions. All campuses will participate in SUNY’s Degree Planning and Audit program to promote student degree completion.

3. Principles • The following principles apply to all undergraduate students at all SUNY institutions: • Every student must have access to effective degree planning services. • Professional advisement is essential to student degree planning and must be available to students. Degree planning systems and other tools are intended to supplement professional services. • Every student enrolled at an institution must be able to assess degree progress (perform a degree audit) at that institution through an online system.

4. Principles (cont.) • Students considering transfer must be able to assess their degree progress for general education and identified mobility programs (lower division and upper division requirements) at all institutions through a common, university-wide online system. Institutions must maintain their requirements for general education and the identified mobility programs, and campus course equivalencies, in the common, university-wide degree planning system. • It is preferred that all institutions use DegreeWorks for degree planning. • It is preferred that all institutions provide students with advanced degree planning services (e.g., multi-semester course plans, comparison of multi-semester course plans to scheduled course offerings, “what if” degree analyses) through an online system.

5. Principles (cont.) • Degree requirements are maintained by every institution in a degree planning system in a timely and accurate manner. • Best practices will be promoted in the definition of degree requirements, and opportunities for greater standardization will be explored. • The DegreeWorks implementation will promote collaboration and cost-effectiveness among campuses: • Campuses will work in clusters of three to four campuses to implement the DegreeWorks software. • The DegreeWorks software will be installed at a common site for all students and campuses to access. The degree planning services must be available on a 24x7 basis with complete business continuity in place.

6. Project Organization • The University Provost is the Sponsor. • An Advisory Group will provide oversight with representation from campus constituencies and System Administration. • Work Groups will assist with aspects of the implementation: • Functional work group (registrars and related areas) • Technical work group • A University-wide Project Team is being assembled. • Campus Contacts are being finalized.

7. SunGard Contract • SUNY has contracted with SunGard for the following: • The DegreeWorks software is licensed for all colleges (annual maintenance payments start in September, 2013). • Functional training for colleges assuming 15 cohorts of 3-4 campuses each at common sites. • Some amount of scribing services for all campuses. • Customization of basic software to meet transfer and inter- campus requirements. • Technical architecture and infrastructure support.

8. SUNY Customization • SunGard will customize the software so that students will be able to: • Gather (online) their records from multiple SUNY colleges to produce a degree audit. • Access class schedules at multiple SUNY schools to check for course availability. • Assess their degree progress against a program at up to three colleges for comparison. • Advisors at potential transfer colleges will be able to create an articulation and audit to support the transfers. • SunGard will work with SUNY to build a data bridge between DegreeWorks and Datatel – data bridges currently exist for Banner and PeopleSoft.

9. College Implementations • Implementations are currently planned to start in February/March 2012. • Cohort groups of 3-4 colleges will share functional training at common sites. A new cohort would start every month. • A college team of up to 5 individuals would participate in the sessions. • It is expected that a cohort will take up to 6 to 7 months to be implemented. • Cohort groups must be determined considering: • Student Information System • Complexity of program mix • Physical proximity • Readiness for implementation

10. College Implementations (cont.) • A standard DegreeWorks implementation consists of: • A Kickoff Call of 2 hours. • Some remote scribing by SunGard of degree requirements. • An on-site launch session of 2 days. • Three training sessions of 3 days each. • Fine tuning and go live for a pilot group. • Will we have standard implementations? • Shared training within cohorts might need to be modified. • A common technical infrastructure affects process. • How best can we accomplish this together?

11. Other Considerations • The technical plan is to install DegreeWorks at ITEC for all campuses to access. • Minimizes impact on local campus technical staff and resources. • Local campus student information systems must communicate real time with DegreeWorks at ITEC. • SUNY has contracted with SunGard for a limited amount of scribe services - the intent is to scribe general education and the transfer path programs to the extent possible. • The transfer paths can be found at: http://www.suny.edu/student/transfer/transfer_mobility_all.cfm • Other options are being explored to assist campuses in completing the scribe process.

12. Conclusion • Next steps: • Complete project organization – working groups, campus contacts, use of Confluence for sharing information, etc. • DegreeWorks demonstrations (webinars), as necessary, so colleges can determine their participation beyond university-wide requirements. • Establish technical infrastructure at ITEC. • Review general education and transfer paths for commonality in scribing. • Work with SunGard on customizations. • Questions?

13. Contact Dave DeMarco Dave.DeMarco@SUNY.edu (518) 320-1317