Mapping A Successful Path to Graduation

NC State’s new Pack Planner is “like a one-stop shop” for course management, says Kendra Hairston, an NC State University junior who is majoring in accounting and business administration.

“I am trying to finish up two majors in two years,” Hairston said. “The previous planner made it much harder to see the targeted goal, while the new method has made me more aware of my standing and the things I need to do to get to graduation.”

Implemented in the Student Information System last fall, the new Pack Planner offers students a user friendly design as well as a new Suggested Plan, a template of eight semesters of approved courses based on degree requirements to make it easier for them to identity their courses. The Pack Planner allows students to change or move courses within the Suggested Plan, but they can still opt to select individual courses. This plan can then be shared with the student’s advisor, and courses can be sent to the Enrollment Wizard’s shopping cart to simplify the registration process.

“The Pack Planner provides a more efficient way for students to plan their undergraduate career and make timely progress toward graduation,” says Michelle Johnson, OIT Enterprise Application Services development manager. Loading the Suggested Plan provides students with a path to complete their degrees in four years while still providing flexibility in choosing elective and general education courses.

OIT and Enrollment Management and Registration and Records have worked collaboratively to revamp the previous system, which required students to scroll the Degree Audit, open each category of General Education Program (GEP) courses or major requirements, then search for classes that may or may not be offered during the specified term.

The Suggested Plan serves as one of the more prominent features “because the previous system was underutilized; it lacked the ability to be intuitive,” says Charles Clift, Senior Associate Registrar. “Students would begin creating plans, but they would soon be abandoned if they weren’t required by their college or major.” The Pack Planner provides students with an easier, more efficient option to select required classes.

Caleb Parker, a sophomore majoring in Architecture, says “I feel relieved knowing that I’m still on track and that I don’t have to stay up late staring at my schedule, constantly wondering if everything is in order.”

Johnson and Clift say the team is still developing plans  to better cater to double majors, transfer students and those who have completed requirements out of sequence.

“Enterprise Application Services and Registration and Records have a great partnership. Products like the Pack Planner are a result of that partnership,” says Clift. “And these small technological efficiencies in the information system help lead to student success.”   

Additional Highlights

• MyPack Portal – Sports a new mobile friendly interface with NC State’s website branding. The login page also has been organized into two main page components: Campus Affiliation access and Get Help.
• Student Information System (SIS) – Implemented support for various policy changes such as the revised Satisfactory Academic Progress rules and various other Fostering Undergraduate Student Success (FUSS) policies. Designed, built and implemented self-service grade exclusion (formerly “course repeat”) and appeal process. Began development for an automated workflow process to aid in the evaluation of new external courses that will significantly reduce the time students wait for transfer articulation results.
• Enrollment Wizard – Provided administrative access for advisors to enhance efficiency and effectiveness during class registration planning.  
• Student Success and Grades First – Partnered with DASA and EMAS to implement this united product from EAB as an “early warning” student success tool.
• SAS Visual Analytics (VA) – Partnered with the Office of Institutional Research & Planning and SAS to develop a strategy and plan to implement the VA platform using student cohort data. This implementation will ultimately result in better institutional data management and analytics, beginning with the delivery of university Fact Books in the fall.
• OnBase Document Management System – Implemented the Transcript Capture module to facilitate the OCR capture, indexing, verification, storage, retrieval of transcripts in OnBase, and transcript metadata loading to SIS for equivalency processing for transfer students.
• OnBase Financial Aid module – Implemented federal aid year changes for Office of Student Financial Aid to support student financial assistance.
• OIT Project Management Lite Internship – Continued to expand in all OIT units. Employed 11 interns in the program in the summer and will be bringing more on in fall 2016. Poole College of Management reports that this partnership has had significant impact on the information technology/information system (IT/IS) concentration for undergraduates. IT students are seeing starting salaries that are significantly higher than other concentrations, and recruiters are enthusiastic about the depth and breadth of the quality of experiences  interns are receiving. Also enrollment in the IT/IS concentration is increasing faster than all other concentrations.
• Poole College of Management (PCOM) – Partnered with PCOM Enterprise Risk Management students on a practicum project to conduct an enterprise-wide risk assessment of a data security breach, one of the university’s identified top 10 risks.  
• ClassTech – Assisting with a several-year project run by Office of the University Architect. The initial phase focused on the state of 110 learning spaces for campus and their current Learning Space Rating System scores. The chief concerns revolve around poor utilization numbers and whether the current campus inventory supports the proper learning environment.
• Microsoft Office – Negotiated the addition of Office 365 to the current Office campus license to permit free MS Office access to students, faculty and staff.