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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Pending Regents approval, tuition and fees setup

With the passing of the higher education bill, our Budget Office is preparing the University budget along with final tuition rates for 2017-18 for Board of Regents approval. Once the rates are approved, the Office of Student Finance (OSF) and ASR-IT will be working on tuition setup and packaging. We expect that packaging, tuition calculation, awarding, and disbursement will be able to be completed on schedule for the fall term as long as the rates are approved by the Regents by the end of June.

Classroom renovations and technology upgrades

Since June 2015, Tate Lab of Physics has been offline for a full interior renovation. It is scheduled to be completed August 2017. All existing spaces were removed and reconfigured, and new space will be added along the Church Street side of the building. To see photos of the ongoing renovation, visit the OCM Classroom Projects page.

While visiting the classroom projects page, also learn about several partnering projects on campus to streamline scheduling and updates to furnishings and technology. Over 70 rooms will receive furnishings or technology updates.

Make class changes now before orientation

June 6, 2017 is the start of full-year freshman registration. Now is the time to update class information (cancel, change, or add). Please note: changes made to meeting times, enrollment capacities, and requested room capacities will result in the loss of the classroom assignment. Please consult with the Scheduling Unit in Office of Classroom Management if you are adding classes during peak times to ensure that a classroom will be available.

Assign instructors to courses

A presentation of the internal audit for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions was given at the February 2017 Registrar’s Advisory Committee meeting. The conclusions of the audit were that the system is doing its job, but some users are frustrated. Class schedule data entry errors were highlighted, noting that the 300+ system-wide Collaborative Class Scheduling (CCS) users impact the quality of data. Specific audit findings of note:
  • 725 of 1,101 (65%) graduate students were entered as Primary Instructor instead of Teaching Assistant
  • 2,234 of 7,521 (30%) classes with no instructor listed
  • Meeting patterns set up incorrectly

Two bullets highlight the importance of instructor information for students. Please input instructor information, grade access and meeting patterns in CCS on the Meetings tab. See the UPK on meeting pattern set up.

NR grade process update

An item from the Campus Solutions audit indicated that ASR has a clear process to post NR grades when final grades are missing after the deadline. However, ASR should also notify instructors once NR grades have been posted, and notify colleges when NR grades have been pending for an extended period of time.

For the spring 2017 regular session, just over 11,000 NR grades were posted on May 18 and instructors were notified that afternoon. This generated a high volume of inquiries to the ASR Training & Support Team, but approximately half of the NR grades were resolved within 24 hours. As of May 24, 77.4% of NR grades have been resolved.

After consulting with the associate deans, we learned that they would like to receive this information approximately one week after the instructors are notified rather than wait an “extended” period of time. Emails to the associate deans were distributed on Thursday, May 25.

Diploma names, addresses, and timelines

As discussed at the May 2017 Registrar’s Advisory Committee meeting, students must update their diploma name and address in MyU. Step-by-step instructions are available on the One Stop website. There is no need for students to contact the Office of the Registrar (OTR) to make these changes. If a student does not update this information, their primary (legal) name will appear on the diploma and it will be mailed to their home address on file. Once all degrees have been posted, OTR will order the diplomas from Printing Services and mail them out shortly after receipt.

End-of-term dates for colleges, spring 2017

Below are dates for probation and suspension, academic standing, grades due, bracketing, and degree clearances. These can also be found on the Academic Support Resources site under New and dates > Important dates.

Thursday, June 1
Deadline to place P3 service indicators in PeopleSoft (end of day)

Monday, June 5
Summer financial aid disbursement begins

Wednesday, June 7
Undergrad degree clearances due

Monday, June 12
Summer term begins; degrees posted by OTR

Thursday, August 24
Academic Standing clean-up run for spring 2017

Academic Standing update

A working group of college and ASR representatives met during the spring term to discuss the various issues and opportunities regarding the Academic Standing process. The group’s goal was to share best practices, working towards a more consistent review process and documentation standard across colleges, specifically regarding summer term.

Amber Cellotti will take over facilitation of this group from Mike Brown who has moved to a new position in ASR-IT. The group will reconvene soon to finish discussions of the summer term review processes and firm up any next steps. If you have any questions about academic standing, please contact Amber at knap0071@umn.edu.

Grading and transcripts policy

The Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP) will hold a small work group meeting this summer to continue the review of the Grading and Transcripts policy, including when to lapse incompletes, the appropriate use of X and K grades, and updating other policy language. If you have feedback on this policy or other educational policies, please contact Stacey Tidball at tidball@umn.edu.

FERPA Q&A

Q:  Your college wants to post event photos on its website. Is posting these photos permissible under FERPA?
A:  Depending on the photos, the college may be able to do so. At the University of Minnesota, photos are not directory information, so students need to grant permission for them to be publicly displayed if they can be identified in the photos. If the photo is a large group photo where faces cannot readily be identified, it may be posted on the website. Otherwise, student permission is required.

Monday, May 1, 2017

Updates to the 13-Credit Exemption Request form

Revisions have been made to the online 13-Credit Exemption Request form that students use to request exemption from the 13-credit policy to be charged a per-credit tuition rate. During the recent internal audit of the 9.0 Upgrade, opportunities were identified to improve instructions and communications on the form. The following changes have been implemented:
  • New introductory instructions
  • A "completion window" and confirmation email when the form is submitted
  • Following submission, students are routed back to the Academics tab of MyU instead of the Student Center in PeopleSoft.
There are plans to evaluate additional changes utilizing Peoplesoft 9.2 functionality.

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions upgrade underway

The effort to upgrade PeopleSoft Campus Solutions from version 9.0 to 9.2 started the first week in April. This project is on a much smaller scale than "The Upgrade"/ESUP that was completed in 2015. The upgrade to 9.2 will finish June 2018 and will be completed in two phases.

The first phase is the technical upgrade in which we will move from version 9.0 to 9.2, to be completed September 24, 2017. Students, faculty, and staff will notice little-to-no changes as a result of this first phase. The second phase is the functional upgrade in which process improvements and tools will be implemented. Components of this phase will be released on an ongoing basis, with the project concluding in June 2018. You can learn more about the upgrade on the project website.

Preferred name and gender on reports

Academic Support Resources is gathering feedback regarding student records reports, specifically about the use of preferred name and gender. There may be changes to certain reports to reflect students' preferred name instead of primary, and remove gender from reports if the information is not required. If you use any of the reports listed below, please take a few moments to fill out the associated survey. Some reports already utilize preferred name and APAS and Grad Planner now use students' preferred name if they have entered one in MyU.

Survey for first set of reports:
  • Degree Information for Colleges
  • English Language Proficiency - Eligibility for Tas
  • Faculty Role Detail - Advisor
  • Graduate Education Degree Award
  • Official Degrees Granted
Survey for second set of reports:
  • Rochester Student Roster
  • Student Photo
  • Student Roster Detail List
  • University of Minnesota Foundation Detail
For questions, contact Stacey Tidball, tidball@umn.edu.

End-of-term dates for colleges, spring 2017

Below are dates for probation and suspension, academic standing, grades due, bracketing, and degree clearances. These can also be found on the Academic Support Resources site under New and dates > Important dates.

Saturday, May 13
Last day of exams (end of term)
Undergrad confer date

Wednesday, May 17
Grades due

Thursday, May 18
Grade bracketing begins (runs through 6/13, with decreasing frequency)
Academic Standing clean-up run for fall 2016

Friday-Thursday, May 19-25
Academic Standing Calculations running

Tuesday, May 23
Spring 2017 SAP run

Thursday, June 1
Deadline to place P3 service indicators in PeopleSoft (end of day)

Monday, June 5
Summer financial aid disbursement begins

Wednesday, June 7
Undergrad degree clearances due

Monday, June 12
Summer term begins; degrees posted by OTR

Thursday, August 24
Academic Standing clean-up run for spring 2017

One Stop website updates

Summer fee information is now on the One Stop website. This information was housed on the CCE website for many years. The redesign of both the CCE website and the One Stop website created a natural opportunity for summer information to be moved to One Stop.

New content for financial wellness was published to One Stop for Twin Cities. The financial wellness pages include information about financial wellness counseling, classroom presentations, and personal finance resources for students. The new financial wellness content takes the place of th

Leave of Absence and Makeup Work policy changes

Two policies were recently revised: Makeup Work policy (changes will be effective Fall 2017) and undergraduate Leave of Absence policy. During the 30-day review period, the Makeup Work policy received mostly positive feedback. There were no comments made during the review period for the Leave of Absence policy. Both policies can be viewed in the policy library.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Is it a violation of FERPA to withhold an official transcript and diploma from a student since these items are part of his/her educational record?

A: No. FERPA requires that students are allowed to ‘inspect and review’ their education records; they are not entitled to copies of those records unless they are at such a distance from the institution that they could not reasonably be expected to come to campus in-person to inspect and review records. That being said, a copy is just that a copy, not the official version of the transcript or the diploma.