Responses to the questions posted using online chat during CCC Confer Curriculum and Articulation Systems Webinar. Similar questions have been combined.
The course title (not the prefix title) would be helpful on these windows.
Response: Suggestion to add course title in addition to course prefixes and course number into Modal windows when merging courses or other such activities. Good suggestions for phase 2.
Is there a check box for UC transferable?
Response: UC transferability is indicated for the course when course outline information is being entered. Certain outline information is required before UC Transferability can be indicated.
CSU transferable flag should default to checked on.
Response: We will make CSU Transferable yes as the default value.
Are the 2 cross-listed courses you just added now in different disciplines because the prefixes are in different disciplines?
Response: Correlation between prefixes and disciplines has been identified as a limitation within Next Gen as currently designed. Additional functionality for more precise handling of courses within disciplines will be added to Next Gen in phase 2.
Does the Campus Approval date refer to Curriculum Committee or Board or does it matter?
Response: Within the Next Gen Course Outline functionality, the date field for Date of Campus Approval of Outline is intended to be the same date as used in current ASSIST / OSCAR. No additional relevance is intended for this date.
Is the lab content now embedded into the course content instead of a separate field? What about Honors?
Response: Within Next Gen the Course Outline functionality captures this information. Lab content would be required if lab hours were entered. Honors are indicated within the course outline information as well.
Once you hit Finish after a course is split (MATH 135) can you go back to it and make additional edits?
Response: If the original course, MATH 135, was terminated then edits are not available. The two new courses MATH 135A and MATH 135B are editable for course details, outline, and transferability.
If that MATH 135 course is articulated will it be shown in the articulation agreements? How will the new courses be shown on the agreements?
Response: In the next phase of this project the workflow will be defined to ensure the users will get notification for split courses, unit changes, or any other changes of this nature. Rendering on articulation agreements will be determined at that point.
How will Universities be notified when courses are split or of other changes of this type?
Response: User actions such as splitting an articulated course will generate notifications from within Next Gen to predetermined persons or user roles. This is functionality that does not exist right now but will be developed within the next phase.
If the MATH 135 course is CSU & UC transferable will the split records be UC transfer or will it have to be resubmitted for UC review? Will there be an option for submission when the records are split?
Response: CSU transferable is a checkbox within the course detail where the AO can make the adjustment as needed for the split course. UC transferability would need to be processed as normally would occur for course changes.
Is there an interface built between ASSIST Next Gen and CurricUNET?
Response: Yes there will be an interface between ASSIST Next Gen and CurricUNET. In fact, an interface will be available for mapping data with any other digital curriculum inventory systems being used by the colleges.
I noticed this morning on the Web ASSIST demo that the course articulation attributes that were added for the college course are being shown under the university course. Is that something you could consider changing?
Response: Articulation attributes can be added to appear in various locations on the agreements. When articulation is added for the Major it will appear for the articulation as a whole. When listed with a course it will appear on the side of the institution to which it applies.
Is it published right away or does it appear the next day?
Response: Publication to the Public Site is immediate.
But we can have the 13-14 be different than the 14-15, right?
Response: Yes, all changes are by academic year. If you make a change in 13-14, then it will show the same in 14-15. If you change articulation in 14-15, it does not affect your history for 13-14. This simplifies articulation agreements going forward where what you setup today will continue in subsequent years until you make a change.
Another question about articulation in future years. Do the agreements carry forward into the future on their own? Or do they have to be published for future years? I wouldn't want students planning to transfer in 15-16 thinking the 13-14 agreement was accurate for the future when they download an agreement now.
Response: No agreements are available on the Public site until the AO goes through the steps to create the agreement and publish it. All the articulation data persists from one year to the next but the AO has control of which agreements get published and when. Following those steps, the agreements would then be available on the Public Site.
Can you share a Major Articulation Section between Majors?
Response: Yes, using the share feature in Next Gen, you may create a section of articulation that youd like to use in multiple agreements.
There will be a lot of training sessions?
Response: Plans for training include train-the-trainer sessions for the ACS team as well as some TBD campus personnel. Initial training will be in-person with subsequent sessions provided via web training sessions. Governet will be providing training documentation to supplement the training sessions.
Can you copy & paste the advising section text from MS Word into the Next Gen text editors?
Response: Yes, copy and paste is supported. The rich text editor in Next Gen addresses well the sometimes difficult MS Word formatting. However, some user fine tuning may be necessary.
Will existing data from current ASSIST be transferred to the new system or will campuses need to reenter? What is the status of articulation by major and course-to-course agreements being transferred over? Course-to-course agreements would be really important. With all the text notes in Major agreements one would need to rethink how the information would be entered anyway.
Response: Course details and Course outlines will be programmatically converted from ASSIST to ASSIST Next Gen. This means all the course history, dates, attributes, and OSCAR information will be converted. Articulation agreements (course- to-course or major) are not planned to be part of the programmatic conversion. There will be a level of reentry for campus articulation agreements for the current year for go-live. Data conversion discussions are a work-in-progress.
What is the timeframe for rollout?
Response: The rollout for general usage is tentatively scheduled for January 2015. This date may be updated as development continues.
Is the curriculum portion replacing OSCAR?
Response: Yes, the features designed in Next Gen are meant to replace OSCAR.
Will you archive the "old" ASSIST agreements by Department or by Major articulation?
Response: Legacy articulation agreements will be saved in PDF by institutions for all departments and for all majors. They will be accessible online through the Next Gen public site.
Could you please explain to everyone the difference between the new term Discipline versus the current term "Department"?
Response: In Legacy ASSIST, prefixes are assigned to Departments and the Departments could be different at each institution. The goal of Next Gen is to standardize a grouping across all institutions which would represent a field of study or another grouping of curriculum. The terminology of Discipline is currently being evaluated for change. Several colleges have pointed out potential conflicts in standards or understanding. The term will likely be different on the final product.
Please explain the difference between moving prefixes and merging prefixes?
Response: Merging prefixes is essentially moving prefixes. Within Next Gen the merge feature will move all selected prefixes (and courses) into the target prefix. This captures all history to the database or subsequent reporting. If one or more prefixes are being discontinued, or an entire department is changing prefixes, then the merge is the feature youd use.
If there is no number conflict, but you are changing the number, is there a way to do this?
Response: If a course is not changing its prefix but you are changing the course number it can be changed on the Course management page simply by editing the course number. If a conflict existed when changing the course number, then system would provide notification.
What about many old courses to one new course?
Response: Merging courses into one course is accomplished on the course management page with the course menu.
I noticed that the Discipline value is always a drop down box, is there a place those are entered?
Response: In Next Gen there are several tables for storing common values for all institutions to use. One of the reasons for adding common predetermined table values is to improve the usability of ASSIST data extracts for other downstream systems like degree audits, education planners, etc. The Discipline value is one of those fields. The final label for this field and/or the full content has not been finalized.
Are the disciplines linked to TOP or CIP codes?
Response: Currently there is no integration between disciplines and TOP or CIP codes. We will look at this option within the next requirements phase.
So you can't change the course number here in splitting prefixes?
Response: Thats correct. Course numbers are not editable from the prefix management pages but are editable from the course management pages.
I take it that the system checks to make sure there isn't already an existing course with the same designator and number?
Response: Thats correct. Since Next Gen is dependent on unique course identifiers (prefix and number) validations are made whenever a change is attempted.
Can I see that the course is cross-listed on the course management page?
Response: There are several values to be added to the course management page during the next development phase. Showing which courses are cross-listed is one of the changes along with other course details like CSU GE, CSU AI, IGETC and transferability.
Is there a way to download course descriptions into the system?
Response: Yes there will be an interface between ASSIST Next Gen and CurricUNET. In fact an interface will be available for mapping data with any other digital curriculum inventory systems being used by the colleges. Although the AO always has the option to cut and paste or edit the values imported from their curriculum system.
Can we still view all the courses we have requested CSU GE for on one page?
Response: Indicators will be added to the course management page to show various course details including CSU GE. In addition, new reporting functionality is being added to filter, display, and report on this information.
After splitting, can we apply all existing articulation to one of the split courses?
Response: Just like other new courses, there may be workflow requirements for articulation approval to be applied. In addition to processing down the expected approval path we will look at ways to improve the process by adding review / approval steps into the curriculum management system.
Will it always go back to the full course list, instead of staying in the filter you had applied?
Response: Retention of selected filters will be an added feature within the next project phase. Full screen refresh will not clear previously selected values.
If a retro course is added/changed do you have to go to every year term to publish?
Response: Changes made today for a course in a past term will show for all subsequent terms and will remain until the course is changed again or terminated.
Will we be able to submit courses to C-ID through this system?
Response: Although course identification numbers will be included within the ASSIST Next Gen database, the extent of C-ID inclusion is still under discussion.
Can you change a course on the website immediately at any time?
Response: The system is developed allowing curriculum / course changes to be shown on the website as soon as the college publishes the update. The may be some workflow / notification steps put into this process if it is deemed that a review or approval should be conducted before being made public.
If the college you want to add articulation does not have the course in ASSIST can you add the course as text as we currently do in ASSIST?
Response: Articulation to text will not be included within Next Gen. We will look at options for a substitute. While text can be helpful for human readability, it is an unreliable value and really cannot be used by other computer systems. Having text as part of articulation is one reason conversion from ASSIST to Next Gen is difficult for course-to-course articulation.
This is a question for later. Currently we can look-up an articulation summary for specific courses - all the instances of course-to-course and major articulation agreements. This is a very useful tool. Has this functionality been taken away?
Response: The reporting capabilities you have now will not be taken away. They may be altered due to system differences but you should still have at least all the information you had from the Legacy ASSIST.
What if the "attribute" applies only to agreements with particular institutions?
Response: Attributes can be added at different points when setting up agreements. When an attribute is added during the creation or maintenance of a specific sending institution, it can be associated with that single college. Or it can be associated on a Major agreement and be applicable to all sending institutions. Essentially, attributes can address specific or multiple institutions.
Will articulation officer notes be migrated to next gen?
Response: Currently the migration of articulation officer notes has not been part of the plan. Migration plans have not included articulation information due the textual constraints within course articulation and agreement section descriptions where text is describing articulation.
If an articulation officer comment was made is there an indicator on the course showing there is a comment without clicking into the specific course?
Response: This is a good idea to add to the system for this next development phase.
Will we be able to have two windows open (log in twice) so we can refresh the agreement to look at it as we're entering course data for the major? Saves time going from one area to the other.
Response: A preview function is being added to the pages for articulation agreements and majors. Thus, allowing users to preview the agreement prior to publishing.
Are the headers regarding admission information or advisement optional? In other words, can each CSU choose to draft these headers? And can you rename these headers?
Response: Header blocks for admissions or advisement information are editable by institution. They can be unique by institution and can appear in any order within the top portion of the agreements.
When you publish, where do you enter the message you may want automatically sent to the community college?
Response: This has not yet been considered. Its a good idea and we will look for a way to integrate it into the next development phase, if possible.
Is the default message for any selected course "No course articulated" or do we have to add that message to each course we are working with?
Response: When building a major agreement with a college, the default message will be no course articulated for those courses that do not already have course articulation entered.
Is the webinar recorded for later viewing?
Response: Yes, at the CCC Confer site under the Archive tab. Click on the archives link below the Meet and Confer area at the bottom of the CCC Confer home page. Enter Next Gen in the search box.
From the review point, can you double click to make changes to the articulation?
Response: This is a function we can look into adding for phase 2 development. It is not currently in the production but sounds like a reasonable shortcut.
As I understand what you said earlier, it has not been decided if all the Legacy information (or what parts) will automatically migrate to Next Gen. If we need to manually move all the information, do you know what timeframe are we looking at for updating the information?
Response: The current plan for data migration is to programmatically import all the course details and outline information. Articulation information is not currently planned for programmatic conversion simply due to the amount of text that has built up in ASSIST over the years. Timeframe for the conversion has not been finalized but there will be at least two test conversions prior to final.
We publish agreements with pending statements noted for course-to-course articulation while they are being reviewed. Seeing as how any sort of pending statement was not included as a drop down menu choice in the course-to-course articulation section- am I understand that we can only create and publish agreements once every single course articulation has been reviewed and finalized for the year?
Response: Within Next Gen the AO has complete control over what gets published and when. Agreement changes can be made and republished as well. Currently we have no plans for a pending process but if needed an attribute could be considered for pending.
Has the Articulation Maintenance Reports functionality been rolled over to ASSIST Next Gen? I use this all the time and I know I can speak for all of us.
Response: Reports have not been forgotten. They are a large part of the later phase of Next Gen development. There will ultimately be more data captured and reporting capabilities will be robust.
After we go live with Next Gen, what about viewing course articulation for prior years (e.g. 2006-07 academic year)? Would we also have to re-create prior years of articulation, or will users be able to view the agreements in the old system?
Response: Legacy ASSIST will not be accessible shortly after Next Gen goes live (as currently planned). The historical agreements from ASSIST will be converted to PDF documents and will be accessible from the Next Gen public facing systems. The only agreements available in Next Gen are those recreated by the articulation officers or staff.
Will there still by by-dept agreements, too?
Response: The concept of Department as youve seen within Next Gen has been altered to a more cross-institutional concept of Disciplines (likely to change name). Agreements by Discipline (or new name) will be available just like by Major.
So there's no Major "preview" yet?
Response: Currently there is no function to preview major agreements but we can consider this in the future development.
Will we be able to use ASSIST Next Gen to submit course proposals to UC and CSU and to track all of the stages of the articulation review workflow?
Response: Yes, the workflow / notification functionality is being built into Next Gen during upcoming development. This will include articulation review workflow.
Will the old system be accessible until ASSIST Next Gen has migrated successfully? And is there a timeframe for when the backside of ASSIST Next Gen will be active?
Response: There is no intention to leave a gap in accessibility to ASSIST or Next Gen. When Next Gen goes online updates to Legacy ASSIST would have to stop as data is migrated. Next Gen will continue development into next fall and the plan to have the system live is January 2015.
Sometimes changes or corrections are made to prior year articulation. Will these changes need to be made on the PDF by the University?
Response: There is no plan to allow changes to prior year PDF agreements within Next Gen. If a college wants to recreate prior year agreements in Next Gen then the system could render it in the current manner rather than PDF.
