Next Generation Frequently Asked Questions

(March 2015)

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General

1. When will ASSIST Next Generation become available for use?
   ASSIST Next Generation (ASSIST Next Gen) is scheduled to become available to articulation officers in January of 2016 for data verification, updating, review of course-to-course articulation, and the building of major agreements. The new system will go live for the public in approximately mid-2016.



2. What do the names "Legacy ASSIST" and "ASSIST Next Gen" mean?
   "Legacy ASSIST" is the unofficial name of the currently running version of ASSIST and all related systems including the public website (www.assist.org), OSCAR, ASSIST Maintenance Reports, the ASSIST Information Center website (info.assist.org), and the ASSIST Data Entry Application used for building and maintaining articulation.
   
   "ASSIST Next Gen" refers to the current development project aimed at improving, updating and integrating each of those applications into a single integrated online system.


3. How will the change to ASSIST Next Gen affect the viewing of articulation agreements on the public website?
   All course data will be converted from Legacy ASSIST into ASSIST Next Gen. In ASSIST Next Gen, all articulation agreements published prior to and including the 2014-2015 academic year will be available in an individually searchable PDF format. Beginning with 2015-2016, articulation agreements created in ASSIST Next Gen will be shown in an updated format with the option to download and save in various file formats including PDF.
   
   Publicly accessible reports (such as CSU Transferability, IGETC, UC Transferability, etc.) continue to be available in ASSIST Next Gen and displayed in a comparable format to Legacy ASSIST whether by year, institution, major, or department/prefix.
   
   In addition, new tools will be available to help students organize articulation agreements for review and compare major preparation courses across institutions.


4. Will Advanced Placement (AP) be part of ASSIST?
   At the launch of ASSIST Next Gen, test credit articulation will not be included. There is no policy or technology barrier to including this information. Instead, it is a workload issue regarding who would maintain the data. The inclusion of any test credit articulation data would require system collaboration with private organizations such as the College Board. Further consideration will have to be made in evaluating whether the inclusion of the resulting data would be balanced with the effort and system resources required for implementation.


5. Will information pertaining to Associate Degrees for Transfer (ADTs) be available in ASSIST Next Gen?
   Information regarding ADTs will not be incorporated into ASSIST Next Gen at the time the system rolls out to the public. This request has been added to a list of items to review for future system enhancements.


6. Will all Legacy ASSIST agreements be available for reference & if so to whom will it be available & for how long?
   Until ASSIST Next Gen goes live to the public in mid-2016, all users will continue to have access to the Legacy ASSIST public functions as provided today. However, no updates to the agreements in Legacy ASSIST will be possible after data is converted into ASSIST Next Gen (December 2015). Articulation officers will still have access to the maintenance report area of Legacy ASSIST following the data conversion from Legacy ASSIST to ASSIST Next Gen. This may aid in the articulation officer verification process of data confirmation and building major agreements from converted data within ASSIST Next Gen. In mid-2016, Legacy ASSIST will shut down (both public and maintenance areas) and all articulation agreements up to and including 2014-2015 will be available on the ASSIST Next Gen site in un-editable PDF format with no further access available to Legacy ASSIST.


7. Who is responsible for training articulation officers, counselors, other staff, and students?
   ASSIST will provide ample training opportunities via a variety of methods (in-person, webinar, tutorials, and manuals) for all types of users. More details regarding a training plan will be presented at the 2015 CIAC Conference. However, we do appreciate that articulation officers are the ASSIST main point of contact on each campus and we may request articulation officer assistance with outreach to other groups.


8. Can a user print major agreements from the ASSIST Next Gen public site for any selected major as well as for any or all CSU/UC campuses?
   You can pin as many agreements as desired to the Pinboard within ASSIST Next Gen and print those agreements individually from the Pinboard.


9. What information is displayed for students when using the ASSIST Next Gen "Compare Courses By Major" tool?
   The "Compare Courses By Major" tool is meant as a quick view; it shows all of the course-to-course articulation entered into the system. However, it does not show the admissions and advising text that is entered at the top of the major agreement. To view the full agreement, including admissions and advising information, users can click on the document icon from this view. To ensure students are aware that they should still review the full agreement, a disclaimer is included on this page which clearly indicates to users that this view does not show the entire agreement. This disclaimer will show on any printed document from this area as well.


10. Can course-to-course agreements be programmatically converted?
    Complete course-to-course agreements prior to and including 2014-2015 will be converted into ASSIST Next Generation in an un-editable PDF format.
    
    We are converting 2015-2016 course-to-course articulation data into the ASSIST Next Gen format but it will not include any free text currently in Legacy ASSIST and will require further review with the potential addition of articulation attributes prior to the publication of those agreements within ASSIST Next Gen.


11. Of the 96 colleges that have CurricUNET, 40-50 have moved to the Meta version. What if my college doesn't have the funds to make the switch to the new version?
    Governet will follow-up on this and work with those institutions to provide a solution. The goal is to have a user-friendly and efficient process for the submission of course outlines for all users, regardless of the type of curriculum management system utilized.


12. Can we do focus groups to determine the wording to minimize disconnect in what different attributes may suggest (example of: if 1 college marks all courses with attribute of requiring C or better, and a student doesn't see this attribute on another college's agreements, they may assume that a D is acceptable.)
    We will continue to consult with articulation community members as we develop and grow the table of articulation attributes. Currently, staff from the ASSIST Coordination Site have already begun to analyze the various text descriptors being used within major agreements and headers in ASSIST. From this initial analysis, we anticipate using a workgroup of articulation officers, counselors, and transfer center directors to help norm commonly used terms or phrases.


13. What is "Federated Identity?"
    More and more campuses are implementing a single sign-on authentication process for allowing systems access. ASSIST Next Gen will support the familiar user id / password authentication as well as compliance with the standards for Shibboleth (a federated identity provider) compliance. This is typically not a user decision but the decision of your campus or system.


14. Who is providing input regarding the development of ASSIST Next Gen?
    Input has been received from articulation officers, counselors, transfer center directors, evaluators, admission directors, and students throughout the state during user meetings, demonstrations, webinars, development review meetings, presentations and direct contact.
    
    

    Curriculum



15. Can we use ASSIST as a database for all of our course outlines? (Even non-transferable.)
    ASSIST is not designed to replace a campus curriculum management system.


16. Should all course outlines (typically articulated) be entered into OSCAR in anticipation of conversion to ASSIST Next Gen? If they are in C-ID, will those be transferred to ASSIST?
    The plan is to convert data from Legacy ASSIST OSCAR into ASSIST Next Gen. There are no plans for converting outlines submitted to C-ID into ASSIST Next Gen. When Next Gen is launched, users will be able to initiate a C-ID designation request from within ASSIST Next Gen, and the course outline will be forwarded from ASSIST Next Gen to C-ID along with the request.


17. Will course outlines be available to the public?
    Course outlines will not be available to the public in ASSIST Next Gen.


18. Will there be a tutorial on how to upload an outline from CurricUNET to ASSIST Next Gen?
    We will work with Governet to ensure they provide documentation on this process and facilitate uploads from existing versions of CurricUNET to ASSIST Next Gen. Please note that Governet has also committed to providing a mechanism for non-CurricUNET users to upload their course outlines into the new system. The goal is to have a user-friendly and efficient process for the submission of course outlines for all users, regardless of the type of curriculum management system utilized.


19. Instead of transferring Course Outlines of Record (CORs) from OSCAR to ASSIST Next Gen, would it be possible to have them transferred from CurricUNET for those schools that have CurricUNET?
    The course outlines in Legacy ASSIST (OSCAR) will be converted to ASSIST Next Gen. The goal is for subsequent course outline imports to be managed via an interface between ASSIST Next Gen and campus curriculum systems.


20. Will I be putting my new outlines into Next Gen?
    Yes, new outlines should go into ASSIST Next Gen once all the Legacy ASSIST data has been converted. Existing outlines from OSCAR will be converted as data into ASSIST Next Gen and changes can be made as needed to the converted outlines.


21. Will we continue to update course information in ASSIST Next Gen on the same annual schedule?
    A schedule for curriculum update cycles still needs to be confirmed. The articulation community will be consulted as it is developed.


22. Will faculty have access to course outlines in ASSIST Next Gen?
    Faculty members who utilized the course search function in the Legacy ASSIST maintenance report area will have the same capability in ASSIST Next Gen. In addition, faculty involved in the review process will be able to review the Course Outline of Record (COR) as part of the workflow process.


23. In Legacy ASSIST course numbering was limited in particular if a CCC uses leading zeroes in their courses. Will this be possible in Next Generation?
    ASSIST Next Gen is capable of including leading zeroes within course numbering.


24. Is OSCAR going away?
    The functionality of OSCAR will be built into the curriculum maintenance area in ASSIST Next Gen. It will no longer be a separate system as it is with Legacy ASSIST.


25. If you are able to update Courses at any time, will the courses still reflect effective dates per universities?
    The ASSIST Next Gen history function will capture revision dates whenever courses are changed or updated in the system.


26. I have course outlines in 5 different locations (CurricUNET, C-ID, OSCAR, Chancellor's Office, ASSIST) - is there a tool to have all of these bodies share information?
    At this time, an interface is planned to import course outlines from CurricUNET to ASSIST Next Gen. For C-ID, the course outline in ASSIST Next Gen will be exported to C-ID with the request for a C-ID designation. The functions of OSCAR in Legacy ASSIST have been incorporated into the ASSIST Next Gen system. The submission of course outlines to the CCC Chancellor's Office remains a separate process. We are very mindful of the multiple locations in which curriculum data and articulation exist. Over time we may find opportunities to eliminate the course outline redundancies.
    
    

    Articulation Maintenance



27. Is back dating available or would a school need to go in term by term to adjust an articulation?
    All of the data on the back end (in-progress data) is managed either by academic year or year term and is assumed to continue from the point it is changed or until the ASSIST Next Gen system has another change recorded. If articulation needed to be changed in the past, the user could return to a previous year term and make that change which would move forward until changed again. Depending upon the complexity of the change, ACS staff could provide administrative system assistance.


28. Will articulation officers have the ability to make corrections to data/PDF documents (i.e. error corrections)?
    It will not be possible to make changes to the historical PDF documents once they are created from Legacy ASSIST and uploaded to ASSIST Next Gen. Note: New agreements created from within ASSIST Next Gen will be maintainable.


29. How far back will legacy agreements be archived on ASSIST Next Gen?
    All articulation agreements on Legacy ASSIST published prior to and including the 2014-2015 academic year will be available in an individually searchable PDF format in ASSIST Next Gen. Beginning with 2015-2016, articulation agreements created in ASSIST Next Gen will be shown in an updated format with the option to download and save in various file formats including PDF.


30. When are published agreements available on ASSIST Next Gen?
    Published agreements will be available immediately after using the "Publish" function in ASSIST Next Gen. In ASSIST Next Gen the four-year articulation officer controls the agreement publication process and which data gets updated into the agreements. Course or articulation changes will not change in the agreements until the four-year articulation officer publishes. What is shown on the public site is determined by the academic year available.


31. When building articulation in ASSIST Next Gen, will we be able to view how the agreement will look to the public before publishing?
    Yes, preview screens built-in to ASSIST Next Gen will allow users to preview agreements exactly as they will appear to the public.


32. What does it mean that the Department organization is voluntary in ASSIST Next Gen?
    Articulation officers will be able to indicate in their college/university profile if they want their courses to be associated with a department. This is not a mandatory component within ASSIST Next Gen but is a voluntary organizational tool based on institutional preference. This will have further value within the articulation maintenance area.


33. Do attributes stay with a course in ASSIST Next Gen? Can you have different attributes for different majors or GE? Can the attribute be suppressed depending on the agreement?
    Attributes added to an articulation in ASSIST Next Gen will appear in all locations that articulation is used. Attributes added to majors will appear on the agreements for that major only. This also applies to GE agreements.


34. Will the Articulation Attribute lists in ASSIST Next Gen be limited to those used by the logged-in user's university?
    Articulation attributes in ASSIST Next Gen are not limited based on the logged-in user.


35. Once articulation is published and set for the year, can I count on what I published in ASSIST Next Gen to be set for that entire year and not auto-adjust by ongoing updates that take place throughout the year?
    This topic requires further policy and planning discussions with the articulation community in terms of publishing. However, four-year institutions will be notified of any course changes which might affect articulation. Published agreements will not change in ASSIST Next Gen until the four-year articulation officer re-publishes.


36. Are there any limitations on the number of courses that can show in ASSIST Next Gen agreements? Sometimes nursing has a long list of options, for example.
    There is no limit on the number of courses that can show in ASSIST Next Gen agreements.


37. Where does it show that "students who haven't completed an entire series must meet with a counselor prior to progressing?"
    This may be a good example of a section attribute in ASSIST Next Gen. Otherwise, articulation officers can place this type of information within the general, free-text agreement header which precedes the course articulation areas.


38. Will there be a limit to the number of nonstandard headings which can be used on Major Agreements in ASSIST Next Gen?
    ASSIST Next Gen will provide for a limited number of nonstandard section headers where you will be allowed to use free-form text. This will move us significantly toward the policy goal of having table-driven articulation agreements to facilitate the use of data in downstream systems (e.g., academic planning tools), while also acknowledging that not all of your current agreement structures will be accommodated with the available "articulation attributes." In the first year of implementation, the number of nonstandard headers at each institution will be limited to 20% of all section headers. The 20% can be spread across multiple agreements or concentrated in a limited number of agreements. The ASSIST staff and the Governet team will capture the % for evaluation. We will set goals for the second year of implementation based on the experience in 2016. Based on examples that you have provided to us already, we can see some solutions may involve modifications to your current processes. For example, breaking out major concentrations and options into separate agreements will greatly reduce the current use of the section headers.


39. Since major agreements will not be part of the conversion process, will there be a specific academic year for which major agreements will need to be built before ASSIST Next Gen becomes available to the public?
    All four-year institutions will be building 2015-2016 major agreements in ASSIST Next Gen. The ASSIST leadership team considered a request from some universities to have the first "build" in ASSIST Next Gen be for 2016-2017, since 2015-2016 will already be completed in Legacy ASSIST. However, there were several reasons for the building of 2015-2016 major agreements in ASSIST Next Gen. First and foremost, we want to have a robust tool for students and parents when the system goes live to the public in mid-2016. This would not be the case for most universities, which would be posting their 2016-2017 agreements in August or September. Secondly, we have heard from several of you that it is not uncommon to have changes to agreements in the spring of the given year. Such changes would not be possible for 2015-2016 agreements if that year had been converted into un-editable PDFs rather than built in ASSIST Next Gen. Furthermore, a new feature available in ASSIST Next Gen, the ability to compare major preparation courses across institutions, requires the use of ASSIST Next Gen formatted major agreements. Finally, it is important to remember that no work will be lost in creating the 2015-2016 agreements in ASSIST Next Gen. The 2015-2016 work will lay the foundation for the 2016-2017 agreements and beyond.


40. How will course-to-requirement articulation be managed in ASSIST Next Gen?
    Acknowledging that many articulation agreements describe course-to-requirement rather than course-to-course articulation, we have instructed Governet to create a new feature that will allow each university to maintain their own table values through a maintenance function. Downstream systems will still be able to identify the requirement as a non-course requirement, thus maintaining the data-driven approach as much as possible.
    
    

    Reporting



41. Will the reports in the Legacy ASSIST Maintenance Area be included in ASSIST Next Gen? What will be available in the "Maintenance Report Area" of ASSIST Next Gen?
    The reports currently available in Legacy ASSIST will continue to be available in ASSIST Next Gen. ASSIST Next Gen will provide these reports in an updated interface along with new, customizable options. Course history will be converted from Legacy ASSIST to ASSIST Next Gen as data, therefore making it accessible in a way similar to how it is currently accessed. The general plan is to make all Legacy ASSIST maintenance reports accessible in ASSIST Next Gen barring any technical limitations. Maintenance reports will be downloadable in a variety of formats including Excel spreadsheet, Word document, and PDF.


42. Will campuses still be able to get the same type of data extracts from ASSIST Next Gen as they have from Legacy ASSIST?
    The old, familiar file extracts from ASSIST will remain available, as well as the new more robust file extracts from ASSIST Next Gen. This should minimize conversion problems for campuses that use the file extracts now. Additional information will be shared with campuses in the future about augmentations available with the new product.


43. Will there be a history for the attributes available in ASSIST Next Gen?
    Yes, a history will be kept for all values in ASSIST Next Gen.
    
    

    Workflow/Approvals



44. Will UCOP qualifiers & limitations of credit be codified in ASSIST Next Gen?
    The time spent evaluating duplicate / limited credit from CCCs is enormous. If ASSIST Next Gen data is intended to be stored in such a way to be able to feed other academic systems that evaluate a student's work for satisfaction of the academic goal it is desirable for the database to include UCOP limitations of credit within data.
    
    We are including the ability to enter UCTCA footnotes into ASSIST Next Gen by using the attributes functionality. The footnotes will be stored in a data-table format, allowing for use by downstream systems.