COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
EAGLE
COURSE PLANNER SYSTEM
https://admin.engr.wisc.edu/course_planner
The Course Planner System was originally developed for the Department of Mechanical
Engineering to provide undergraduate students and their advisors with an easy-to-use, visual tool
for planning the students' academic career, and to assist in projecting the need for additional
sections of popular courses. The system is being expanded for the use of all COE departments.
The expectation is that students will fulfill their degree requirements more quickly when they can
see clearly what courses they have left to take, and when potential enrollment bottlenecks are
avoided by planning for enough spaces in high-demand courses.
Features
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Students are presented with DARS information in a visual ‘flowchart’ format that
indicates the graduation requirements which have been met, as well as those yet to be
fulfilled. Much easier to read and understand than the DARS report1.
Students indicate the semesters in which they will fulfill each remaining requirement.
Students print their plan and share it with their advisor.
Staff see a visual representation of the students’ remaining academic career in both a
semester-by-semester view and an overall (flowchart) view, making advising easier.
Staff get an early estimate of the number of students in the major who are planning to
take each course. This can help significantly with course-load and section planning.
Can be used as part of a comprehensive ‘Advising Day’ or between an individual student
and his/her advisor.
Getting Started
If you are in the College of Engineering, Gene Masters (masters@engr.wisc.edu) or Becky
Torrisi (torrisi@engr.wisc.edu) will be happy to work with you to create the flowchart
template(s) of required courses and prerequisites for your department. A separate flowchart is
needed for each set of requirements for the last four years. Plan on at least three week’s leadtime.
1
This system should never be considered a replacement for either the DARS report or
communication with an advisor! The Course Planner is meant to be used as an enhancement to
the official advising tools.
If you are not from the College of Engineering, we will be happy to talk with you about how you
might implement this system in your unit.
For Students
Students log in using their NetID and are presented with an information page that can be
customized by department. In this case, Mechanical Engineering wanted to display information
specific to their Advising Day.
The student then goes to the following instruction page:
The student views a flowchart of courses required for a degree in his/her major. The courses that
have already been taken (i.e., requirements that have been satisfied) by the student have a dark
(green) background. This data is pulled from the central DARS information. Courses with a
white background have yet to be satisfied.
The next page provides a list of the courses the student still needs to take along with a grid with
which the student will indicate the semester in which s/he plans to take each course. Students are
encouraged to plan the remainder of their undergraduate career. This information is saved in a
database so the student can return to it and make adjustments as needed.
The final page provides both a schedule of the plan the student just created, along with an
updated flowchart.
The updated flowchart shows the courses the student plans to take in the future highlighted with
a light (yellow) background, making it easy for both the student and advisor to see that all degree
requirements will be fulfilled if the student's plan is followed.
The student is encouraged to print out this final page (which prints as two pages), and bring it
with him/her on Advising Day to discuss it with his/her advisor.
For Staff
Authorized department staff (faculty advisors, student status examiners, etc.) log in to the same
system with his/her NetID. If the staff member is authorized for more than one department (e.g.,
a Student Status Examiner for a hub), s/he will be
A staff member is taken to the following page where s/he selects the student s/he wishes to work
with/view.
Upon selecting a student and clicking the Submit button, the staff member is taken to the
flowchart for that student. From there, the staff member may click through to the Course
Planning Printout to see the student’s plan by semester. Staff may also make changes to the
student’s plan, if needed. This may be appropriate during an advising session.
Authorized staff have the option of viewing the Planned Student Count report. This report shows
the number of students in the given major2 who are planning to take each course in each
upcoming semester. These projected enrollment numbers will allow the staff to better plan the
number of sections needed for each course.
We anticipate enhancing this report by adding columns to indicate the number of students who
have taken this course during the past few semesters, grouped by students in the major and not in
the major. For those courses with a significant non-major enrollment, this would enable staff to
better anticipate the total enrollment.
As with all systems developed by the COE IT office, suggestions for improvements are always
welcome.
2
These numbers include only students in the given major who utilized the Course Planner
system. Some courses have a significant number of enrollees from other majors. Students from
other majors, and students in the given major who do not use the Course Planner system will not
be included in this report.