Shan Evans
The University of Texas at Austin
The
UT Austin
Story
• 1980s Dumb Terminal
• Basic Mainframe Application
using 3270 interface
• *NRDEGR was born
• Staff/Advisor accessible
*NRDEGR Coding Degree Requirements
*NRDEGR Running an Audit
*NRDEGR View Student Audits
*NRDEGR Summary View
*NRDEGR Detail View
*NRDEGR Detail View
*NRDEGR Detail View
*NRDEGR Remaining Requirements View
*NRDEGR Student Audit Printout
• Mid 1990s the internet!
• Web tools and delivery
• Birth of IDA 1.0
• 2000 UT Direct framework
• Staff/Advisor/Student accessible
Interactive Degree Audit 1.0
*NRDEGR Coding Degree Requirements
IDA 1.0 Create Audit
IDA 1.0 Wizard
IDA 1.0 Wizard
IDA 1.0 Wizard
IDA 1.0 Wizard
IDA 1.0 View Audit
IDA 1.0 Summary View
IDA 1.0 Detail View
IDA 1.0 Remaining View
IDA 1.0 Printout
• 2000s - Focus on data driven
decisions
• More space and processing
time/speed available
• Better web and usability
standards
• Requirements gathering
• 4 Year graduation rates
• Interactive Degree Audit 2.0
was born...Finally!
The Pretty
The Pretty
The Pretty
The Pretty
The Pretty
Online Requirements
Streamlined Audit Submission
How We Got Here
Better Infrastructure/Data
• Old file structures – difficult to
make data useful outside the
system
• Need to effectively track
student progress
Requirements and Buy-in
• Determined what the core
functions of *NRDEGR
provided
• Benchmarking other
universities
• Created a Degree Audit Policy
committee to identify new
policies that were needed
• Created an Degree Audit
Operations committee
Feedback
• Students wanted a new, more
streamline, easy interface
• Student /Staff/Advisor usability
Four Year Graduation Rate
• Better tracking for students
• Better toolset for advisors
• Less complicated
curriculum/degree plans
• Planning and demand analysis
• More campus committees to
assess/address
Where Are We Now?
•
•
•
•
Rollout mid 2012
7 out of 14 colleges in IDA 2.0
*NRDEGR and IDA 1.0
Students using IDA 1.0
interface submissions
• Adding additional
functionality and bug fixes
• Complexities identified
Where Are We Going?
• All colleges in IDA 2.0 by March
for 2010 and 2012 catalogs
• All colleges for 2008 – 2014 by
August 2014
• Decommissioning *NRDEGR and
IDA 1.0 plans
• Student Planner Phase 1 and 2
• Additional functionality to
support 4 year graduation
• Progress Towards Degree
Indicator
Progress Towards Degree
Four Year Graduation Support
Committees
Lessons Learned
• No matter how much time you spend
on requirements gathering, you always
miss some
• UT’s curriculum is extremely complex
• UT’s degree plans are complex
• Progress Towards Degree is complex
• Many issues/features/functions that are
deemed as critical are based on
anecdotal information
• Training and actual testing is a must
• Overrides are here to stay
• Policy is difficult to change, create
• You can’t make everyone happy
In a Nutshell….
In a Nutshell….
Speed of Dark
Questions?
Shan Evans
shan.evans@austin.utexas.edu
The University of Texas at Austin