Student Working Group Meeting Minutes 5/17/10
Attendees: Krista Bargsten, Andrew Brusletten, Jen Lehner, Jason Smith, Maria Hopper, Amanda Davis, Christine
Noyes, Julia Carlson, John Drew
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Last week’s minutes were amended to include “TA evaluations” on the list of student file contents.
o It was noted that TA evaluations can/should alternatively be kept in students’ employee files (vs.
academic files) since these are ASE employment evaluations.
The agenda is limited to two items: (1) Wrapping up the discussion regarding electronic student files, and (2)
beginning the discussion of how each of the member’s departments track academic progress and search for
commonalities.
ELECTRONIC STUDENT FILES
o Last week the committee finalized the definition of a student file, and recommended the four most
important items to include in an electronic file; (1) admissions profile, (2) academic progress tracking, (3)
advisor search, (4) advising notes.
o John Drew noted that an electronic student file would contain fields of data and documents, thus it would
be helpful to have the ability to tag items so as to be able to retrieve them using different methods/search
parameters.
 Because the contents of advising notes correlate with different categories, tagging would allow a
thread to help in tracking.
o It was asked whether students would benefit from (or use) MyGrad for their advising inquiries.
 Many committee members commented that much of their advising is done informally – hallway
conversations, office drop-ins, or over email -- and that students were unlikely to voluntarily
switch to a new method.
 One solution would be for the GPA/GPC to start the thread in MyGrad after the student’s email
with advising comments has been sent to the advisor.
 A side benefit would be that faculty advisors could be pulled in to the process by having viewing
capabilities to student files and thus be included on the thread. This could potentially replace the
current process of faculty advisors being cc’ed on advising emails.
 Regarding the issues of students being able to simply view (versus add their own comments to the
thread), many of the committee members thought that student participation would be beneficial.
 It was re-iterated that students were unlikely to adopt a MyGrad advising system in place of
informal emails and in-person conversations, so this thread tool would primarily be of use and
benefit to GPAs/GPCs and faculty advisors.
o One concern was overload of irrelevant data -- sorting through emails that were not relevant to a student
file (in the sense of it being an official record). Would the program’s users be able to discard irrelevant
emails from the thread?
 It would probably be easier to have advisors/GPAs proactively create threads and enter data,
instead of receiving it all from the Graduate School and having to sort through and assign it all as
either “save” or “discard.”
 It was re-emphasized that while faculty should be able to access the files, they should not have
the ability to delete data.
 Ultimately, someone needs to be responsible for maintaining the student file, and thus for an
electronic file program to be centrally managed one person. While other users should have
viewing access capabilities, the GPA/GPC should maintain authority over what is added and
removed from the student file, as is currently the practice in most departments using paper files.
 One suggestion was to create a work-flow process similar to the current MyGrad petition process
(anyone with access can create a petition, but the GPA/GPC must review and approve the petition
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before it is forwarded to the Graduate School). This process preserves the GPA/GPC’s role in
managing the departments’ relationship and communication with the Graduate School.
The committee then discussed the mechanics of an electronic student file – specifically, how would data
be entered?
 Should emails be pasted directly, or drag-and-dropped?
 The Graduate School advocates a simple approach, and one that would support rich
text/formatting.
 Within the context of accountability and verification, there was concern expressed about the
ability to fully replace a paper student file containing printed emails – a pasted email message
won’t always capture all the relevant information (how it was routed, the date, internal message
header information, etc.)
 If it were tagged to a category, the program could date stamp it and identify the submitter.
It was again re-iterated students and faculty are unlikely to participate to a degree that would make the
program a valid replacement for all student files. Projects such as GradShare have demonstrated that
while social networking is popular, it isn’t necessarily the best medium for advising.
 It is beneficial to separate formal advising from informal advising, for participants to learn to use
the system for official degree tracking (versus drop-in, random questions/comments).
 Such a process would require informal conversations to be purged from the records
 A concern was raised regarding GPAs/GPCs who handle advising emails via cell phone/texting –
could MyGrad accommodate data entry for this process?
 Ultimately, email won’t ever be fully replaced as a communication medium for advising, so a
MyGrad electronic student file program would need to be very flexible (as we don’t want to save
ALL conversations).
TRACKING ACADEMIC PROGRESS
o The committee members were asked to share how often they track progress, who tracks progress, and
how data is captured.
 Most departments track on a quarterly and annual basis, with some activity on a monthly and
continual basis.
 Quarterly tracking includes: enrollment confirmation (1st day reports), low-GPA (low scholarship
report), specific course enrollment (particularly for programs using course sequencing), checking
low grades/no grade submitted against list of students with warning cards, 6-year limit timelines
for on-leave students.
 Annual tracking includes: requirement check for graduation, planning sheets/annual meetings
with students’ committee, reports to faculty of students’ entry date/credits/GPA/enrollment
status/milestone completion which should be returned to GPA with comments on satisfactory
progress/concerns.
 Most departments used MyGrad and Graduate School reports to aid in tracking, though some
departments did use internal databases or information resources personnel.
o The goal is preventative medicine -- to know who hasn’t met certain milestones in a particular timeframe.
 This gives departments time to react and allows students to know what the expectations gives
them a tool to be more proactive in satisfying department requirements
 Generating this data requires the system to know what the milestone are and when they need to be
achieved.
o Checking/confirming enrollment and 10 credit registration is an issue for many GPAs, this would be a
good candidate for tracking.
o Programs with course sequences/student cohort groups have an easier time identifying problems since
those student easily stand out when not in line with the rest of the group.
o The committee’s next step should be to define and lay out the milestones that should be tracked:
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A milestone is a requirement to be completed (either by a specific or non-specific time) that
triggers a change
 Milestones can’t always be assigned a generic deadline/date since they fall into quarterly,
annual, and continual categories.
 At the very least, every milestone has a WHAT and a WHEN, but a tracking program
must be flexible to allow for variable or undetermined timelines.
 How can a tracking system differential between core courses versus non-specific (breadth) course
requirements, and internships?
 A potential design could look similar to MyGrad admissions profiles database, in which there are
requirements (milestones) listed for both the Graduate School and the departments
 allows for department personalization and listing dates/deadlines for compliance.
 Also on the Graduate School’s list of items to track:
 1st quarter of enrollment
 identifying thesis vs. non-thesis masters’ students
 doctoral students for which departments have requested a 30-credit waiver
 a positive (versus negative) approach: Departments should indicated to them who is
making satisfactory (versus Unsatisfactory) progress.
 There is a difference between departmental “Requirement” and “Milestone”
 Requirements are a checklist of items to complete, where as milestones are major events
that trigger something else – there is some overlap, but they are different
 With milestones, departments might want to know how many students haven’t met them
at a certain time (even if the milestone doesn’t have a technical deadline).
 Even if a milestone isn’t a time-specific requirement, tracking completion does allow
faculty and GPC/GPAs to effectively monitor satisfactory progress (as opposed to just
moving through the program)
 There are varying levels of consequences for not meeting requirements or milestones –
not taking baby steps versus blocking progress
 Milestones may be derived from graduation requirements, but they are not synonymous –
therefore the system needs to be flexible enough to determine which items are timecritical and which are guides.
A tracking system should be designed as a communication tool for students, faculty, and departments.
 Milestone tracking doesn’t prevent students from progressing if not met, but does flag the
requirements so that students (and their departments) know they aren’t on track.
 It could indicated dates of importance (ex. Core courses completed by “X” date, but item types
themselves can be identified by specific dates and flagged as important.
 If set up in MyGrad, students could review their profile at any time and check their progress
status, which could be expected to reduce miscommunication and misunderstanding regarding
expectations toward graduation.
 Ultimately, it would be up to departments to utilize and identify these milestones.
The agenda for next week’s meeting will focus on laying out priorities for an academic progress tracking system.
In advance of the meeting, committee members should forward to the committee chair:
o A list of your department’s academic milestones (indicating which are required versus time-independent
trackers of progress)
o Copy of your department’s student planning form (or equivalent), to help the Graduate School understand
what is important in that spectrum
The committee’s next meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 24th at 9am.