Heading Image Start ASSIST Info Center Home Page
 
spacer

Responses to the questions posted using online chat during CCC Confer Public System Webinar. Similar questions have been combined.

  1. Is there a mechanism so that a student can select transfer information for more than one campus and major requirements for multiple campuses will appear?


    2. Response: The ability to review the requirements of majors at several different institutions at one time will be included in the next phase of development.

  2. Will Next Gen be addressing C-ID's?


    3. Response: Yes, course identification numbers will be included within the ASSIST Next Gen database before this new system is rolled out. However the extent of C-ID inclusion is still under discussion.

  3. What do you mean by attributes?


    4. Response: In ASSIST Next Gen, a large effort has been placed on reduction of free form text and increased use of pre-populated tables where the values (attributes) could be used to describe courses or sections of articulation on an agreement. Free-form text within legacy ASSIST has hindered the expanded use of ASSIST data for other educational systems. In Next Gen, instead of free-form text to describe course attributes, course articulation, course groupings of articulation, etc., we will use table driven values (attributes). This will allow the extremely valuable data held within ASSIST to be extracted and made more readily available to degree audit systems, education planners, and other career guidance tools. These external systems, aka downstream systems, can be programmed to accept predefined attributes rather than free-form text.

  4. How many attributes are available to CSU and UC articulation officers right now?


    5. Response: Tables for attributes have not been populated other than for proof of concept and demonstration purposes. Attribute table entries will be managed by the ACS team with the opportunity for input from the articulation community.

  5. Are attributes campus specific?


    6. Response: The current plan is that attributes will not be campus-specific.

  6. Can we print from the preview screen? Or would we have to add to the cart?


    7. Response: Print from preview screen will be available from Next Gen in addition to printing from the cart.

  7. Can you view just a specific discipline, and not by major?


    8. Response: Yes, both are viewable.

  8. What's the pink portion of the online Agreement? Do the colors download to the Word files?


    9. Response: Various visual cues have been used on agreements to help differentiate course groupings and conjunction blocks. Color is one of those cues. What you see on the screen is what will be downloaded to MS Word files including colors.

  9. Does the major search bar match text directly, or does it search by keyword/index?


    10. Response: The major search box will support keyword searches.

  10. If there is no current agreement for any particular school, will it show the most recent agreement or will the institution just not show up in the area search list?


    11. Response: Where there is no current agreement for a particular school, a message will be provided that an agreement does not exist for the selected criteria.

  11. CSU GE - can we also view by department?


    12. Response: CSUGE, IGETC, and CSUAI are all viewable by discipline.

  12. Will the history and dates be shown (approved, removed course from GE categories).


    13. Response: Yes, all the details will be added to maintain a full course history.

  13. Can the CSU GE View Agreement screen be printed and/or downloaded?


    14. Response: Yes, it will have printable output.

  14. Can you search by CSU GE area?


    15. Response: Yes, courses are displayed by CSU GE area selection.

  15. When is the rollout of ASSIST Next Gen?


    16. Response: The rollout for general usage is tentatively scheduled for January 2015. This date may be updated as development continues.

  16. Will the campuses be able to demo assist before the launch?


    17. Response: A request for some colleges to assist with Beta testing should be sent out in late summer 2014. In addition, hands-on training will be provided.

  17. Will the launch for students be on a different date?


    18. Response: Colleges will have access to the Next Gen system prior to the time students will be asked to rely solely on Next Gen for reported agreements. College personnel will be setting up Next Gen prior to students using the Public Site.

  18. How do we select previous years?


    19. Response: The year / term drop-down box allows users to select desired year / term.

  19. Could we see an agreement between a CSU & a UC for GEN ED purposes?


    20. Response: General Education agreements between CSU and UC are a part of development but have not yet been addressed.

  20. 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?


    21. 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.

  21. Is it possible to see major prep agreement between CSU and UC?


    22. Response: Major agreements between CSU and UC are a part of development but have not yet been addressed.

  22. So, if colleges went through radical renumbering, the old number information will still be available, right?


    23. Response: Yes, if the renumbering was completed in ASSIST then it will be part of the data conversion and if the renumbering was done in ASSIST Next Gen then the history would be maintained there.

  23. Can you clarify what you mean by "curriculum information" being transferred over?


    24. Response: Course numbers, prefixes, descriptions, active terms, outlines, texts, prerequisites, co-requisites, information for IGETC, CSUGE, and CSUAI, are all being termed as curriculum information for the sake of conversion. All this is part of the programmatic conversion for all ASSIST history.

  24. If the current year is selected and it's not in the system yet, will the system default to the most current available agreement as it does now with ASSIST?


    25. Response: I dont think that has been addressed yet but it certainly seems to be an expected behavior of the new system.

  25. Can you show how the tool will help users search for a particular transferable course that also articulates to a UC/CSU degree program? For example: a Computer Science major seeking student trying to find a transferable and/or articulated Python course taught at a CCC. How would they use this tool to find such a course that may be required for their UC/CSU degree programs? Furthermore, will they be able to see whether the course articulates to a specific major(s) desired at specific UC/CSU campuses desired?


    26. Response: This functionality is not part of the current plan. It could potentially be discussed as an enhancement to include during Phase 2.

  26. If a CSU or UC has a major that we do not have any courses articulated to, can you show that there is a major but no courses articulated. This would be a great improvement


    27. Response: The system has the capability. The CSU and UC articulation officers control what is placed on the major agreements. They certainly could show the major in question with no courses articulated.

  27. How will ASSIST work on smart phones?


    28. Response: Focus has been on formatting displays to fit 1024 x 768 and have not yet addressed mobile device versions.

  28. To revisit Articulations by Major, at SFSU we have some 'pseudo' articulations specific to majors. For example, we list them as 'course equivalent to anatomy' on the SFSU side and then list the approved course on the transferring school side. Will these be carried over??


    29. Response: A solution still needs to be determined for the scenario described. Currently, all items must be articulated with a data element, and we need to determine how these types of articulation could be handled. Resolution will be determined in Phase 2.

  29. Will the ASSIST Info Center be on the Next Gen and will all of the same capabilities be available?


    30. Response: Yes, the Info Center will be part of the programming for Next Gen. Similar capabilities will be carried over.

  30. If we joined late, will we be able to access the recorded webinar? If so, where can we access that?


    31. Response: A link to the archived webinars can be accessed through the ASSIST Information Center page under the ASSIST Next Generation area. Alternatively, you can access archived webinars from CCC Confer under the Archive tab on the CCC Confer site. 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.

  31. Will the approval and removed dates still be posted for GE courses?


    32. Response: Yes, the approval and end dates will be included.

  32. If all the functionality is not available in the new assist, will users have the ability to access functionality that is in the old assist? For example course to course articulation?


    33. Response: At this time, each college should anticipate that legacy ASSIST will not be available once Next Gen goes live. This may change before the live date but this is your safest approach.

  33. Is it possible to re-order the transferrable course list? Also, will the Date Removed column continue to appear?


    34. Response: There is currently no interactive functionality built into the reports. The Date Removed will continue to appear.

  34. Is there a way to skip the introductory screen?


    35. Response: Yes, users will be able to go directly to the page most important to them.

  35. How will the information from years before this version appear? 2012-13 for example?


    36. Response: Prior year articulation agreements will appear in PDF format.

  36. Have you thought of listing the academic year as 2014-15 rather than 14-15?


    37. Response: Yes, the academic year for the drop down selections will appear as CCYY in the final Next Gen product.

  37. Request: viewing only a PDF for prior years will be unwieldy and time-consuming for the first several years of Assist Next Gen. Is there a way to revisit this decision?


    38. Response: At the time of deployment for Next Gen the options are limited for displaying prior year agreements. Historic articulation information is not being programmatically converted. Volume is too much for any other type of entry. The only alternative to displaying past agreements from within Next Gen at this time is by displaying a PDF version.

  38. Will the system also show us General elective transfer courses?


    39. Response: Yes, part of the remaining development.

  39. Will there be a way to run a report of requirements for the same major at different universities (a matrix??)


    40. Response: Yes, a matrix or grid report will be available for such comparisons.

  40. Will articulation by discipline be available? Not just by major but say a listing of all biology course articulation between two colleges?


    41. Response: Yes, articulation by discipline will be included.

  41. Can you spell out the abbreviations at the top (IGETC, CSU GE, CSU AI)? Or maybe a mouseover with an explanation?


    42. Response: Tooltips will be added as part of the project. This is a good example of where they would be used.

  42. What is the most current academic cycle Assist next gen report display in Jan 2015? 2014-15? or 2015-16?


    43. Response: The assumption made is that this is referring to the academic year selection box where users will determine within which academic year they are working. The default year and oldest year available really has not yet been determined.

  43. On the lists of transferable courses (CSU or UC), will the GE area show, as it currently does?


    44. Response: Yes the GE areas will be displayed.

  44. Will we be able to find out what courses might articulate as major prep at other community colleges? Often students take courses at multiple colleges in order to get major prep done.


    45. Response: Yes, by clicking the various college listings in the center column under Explore Majors, you can look at the major prep for each. This can be easily compared by adding to the cart.

  45. Any plans to include the number of times a course may be repeated or the max number of units that may be completed for repeatable courses?


    46. Response: Yes, that is one of the attributes that will be available in Next Gen.