West Bank One Stop office under renovations through January 12

The West Bank One Stop Student Services office will be closed through January 12 for renovations and reopen on January 16. The other One Stop locations will be open as usual. See One Stop Student Services hours.

Graduation rates

Graduation rates are in and we are seeing increases in percentages of graduation rates in all three cohorts (graduating in 4, 5, and 6 years). For the first time ever, our 6-year graduation rate is above 80%. The 4-year graduation rate increased to 68.4% (up from 65.2% last year). The next goal set by the Board of Regents is to reach 82% graduation rate for the 6-year cohort in 2021 (students admitted in fall 2015).

Data center maintenance—services affected

From 6:00 a.m., Saturday, January 6, until noon on Sunday, January 7, 2018, certain systems will be unavailable for planned, annual maintenance. The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has provided a full list of affected services. Note that PeopleSoft and MyU are included.

You can also check the IT Service Status that Saturday and Sunday morning for live updates. As work is completed, outages will be removed.

Reminder: fall grades due by December 28

The final grades for fall are due December 28 at 11:59 p.m. Please encourage instructors to submit grades as early as possible. For support regarding grades, contact ASR Training and Support at srhelp@umn.edu or 612-625-2803. Resources are also available on the ASR website.

First Campus Solutions 9.2 Upgrade Phase II project completed

As of December 17, the first of the 16 initiatives in the second phase of the Campus Solutions 9.2 has been completed: Direct Deposit Set-up Improvements. View the latest project dashboard for more details on this initiative as well as the other 15 initiatives still in progress.

Updates in Parchment, transcript vendor

The University’s vendor for ordering transcripts online, Parchment, got a few updates on December 5. There are two main changes to note:

1. When making an order, students can now search for and select an institution’s address in the system. This will help reduce typos and shipping errors. Manual entry is still available for addresses not included.
2. Students may order duplicate diplomas through Parchment now. (Previously this was done only via PDF form.) Ordering a duplicate diploma through Parchment is now preferred, but the PDF form will continue to be available. The cost, delivery options, and eligibility for a duplicate diploma remain the same. More information on duplicate diplomas can be found on the One Stop website.

Policy update: Undergraduate Degrees with Distinction & Degrees with Honors

The President's Policy Committee (PPC) reviewed and approved the change to the Undergraduate Degrees with Distinction & Degrees with Honors policy. The change will allow honors program students to receive latin honors if they are within .100 of the GPA requirement and have an exceptional thesis. The policy will be available on the policy website for review and comment prior to implementing the change for the 2018-19 academic year.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Can I email students with their final exam or paper grade?

A: Yes, provided you are sending to the individual student’s umn.edu email account and no other students are copied on the message. If you are using Moodle or Canvas, encourage students to look up grade information securely using those systems. Students can obtain their overall course grade information in MyU once it has been posted. For additional information on the safe handling of grade information, visit the ASR website.

Fall grades due by December 28

The final grades for fall are due December 28 at 11:59 p.m. This may be a challenging time for some, but please encourage instructors to submit grades as early as possible. For support regarding grades, contact ASR Training and Support at srhelp@umn.edu or 612-625-2803. Resources are also available on the ASR website.

Incomplete contract form is available

The Grading and Transcripts policy indicates that the assignment of an Incomplete or “I” grade requires a written agreement between the instructor and student. If your department does not have an existing contract, you may use the Incomplete Grade Contract form for fall 2017 grades. If your department already has a contract or process for documenting such agreements, you may continue with that process.

Limited hours for some One Stop offices

Due to staff events and office renovations, certain One Stop Student Services offices will be temporarily closed during the times below:

• Tuesday, December 5, closed from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• West Bank, St. Paul, University Veterans Services
• Thursday, December 14, closed for the day at 1:30 p.m.
• West Bank, St. Paul, University Veterans Services
• December 22—January 12, 2018, closed for renovations
• West Bank

The East Bank One Stop Student Services office (333 Bruininks Hall) will remain open as usual during these times. See One Stop Student Services hours.

New Apostille request form

The Office of the Registrar (OTR) created a new form for students to request Apostille for their student records. You can find the form on the One Stop website forms page, in the “Student records and personal information” accordion.

The Notarization and Apostille page on One Stop has also been updated to reflect the new request process. While students are able to obtain Apostille themselves, OTR can facilitate the process which may make it easier for students. For questions about the Apostille request process, contact otr@umn.edu.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Can you discuss a student’s behavior or mental health with their parents if the student granted them parent/guest access?

A: If granted, parent/guest access allows us to respond to the parents’ inquiries on specified topics. It does not allow us to reach out to the parents. If there is an urgent concern about a health or safety emergency (posing a threat to campus or to the student), there is an exception under FERPA. In these cases, there are several resources on campus for assisting students in distress.

New GPA calculator

A new GPA calculator launched last week that was modeled after Rochester’s calculator. Reach the calculator at gpacalc.umn.edu or by visiting One Stop and navigating Academics > Grades and transcripts > Viewing grades. Students can either manually punch in their information, or Twin Cities/Rochester students can log in to have the calculator pull their information from PeopleSoft.

The FAFSA is available and the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) is back

The 2018-2019 FAFSA is available for students. The good news is that the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) that was disabled back in March has been restored. Students and/or parents can use the DRT to complete the 2018-19 FAFSA, but not for earlier years.

Staffing change in GSSP

Chris Abts, former Graduate Student Services & Progress (GSSP) Coordinator, has transferred to a business analyst position within ASR's Continuity and Compliance department. Taking his place is former One Stop counselor Brittany Rams. Brittany holds a BA in Art History with minors in Management and Italian Studies, as well as an MA in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, focusing on Higher Education. For GSSP-related questions, you can still contact gssp@umn.edu. years.

Technology & Transfer AACRAO calling for presenters

The Technology & Transfer AACRAO Conference will be held Minneapolis in 2018. It is the perfect opportunity to showcase emerging technologies and pioneering solutions that help to improve services and facilitate student success. The priority submission deadline is November 15. Check out AACRAO's website for more information.

WiFi network "UofM Secure" to retire

The WiFi network "UofM Secure" is scheduled to retire at the end of December 2017. You should now continuously connect to eduroam, the preferred, secure network for students, faculty, and staff. UofM-Guest is available for guests and visitors. OIT-managed devices will continue to connect to UofM Secure for the near future until all areas and places have been transitioned.

Veterans appreciation events

In November there are two events to honor our student veterans. On November 8 the Thanking Student Veterans booth will be open on the Washington Avenue bridge, and on November 15 the 11th Annual Student Veterans Appreciation Day event will take place in the Great Hall at Coffman Memorial Union. Guest speakers of the event include 2017 Tillman Scholar Britt Johnson and Brigadier General David D. Hamlar. Both events are free and open to the public.

FERPA Q & A

Q: A faculty member expressed concern about a student in their class who appeared to have had a seizure. The instructor wonders if it is acceptable to contact the parents of the student to make sure they are aware of the situation. The instructor has heard of the health and safety emergency clause within FERPA and believes this might be acceptable as a result. Can the instructor contact the parents?

A: No, the health and safety emergency applies when a student is going to be a harm to him/herself or the campus community. The faculty member could, however, get written permission from the student to contact the parents.

FERPA Q&A

Q: What should you do if you receive a request to confirm a degree for a student in your program?

A: You have a couple of options. First, you can always direct these inquiries to the Office of the Registrar at otr@umn.edu. Second, if you want to verify this information you must first check if the student has a suppression on his or her record. If the student has a full suppression you cannot share any information about the student, including confirming whether they attended the university. If the student does not have a full suppression, you may release the information.

9.2 technical upgrade was a success

The upgrade of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions from version 9.0 to 9.2 was successfully completed on Sunday, September 24, smoothly and on schedule Technicians confirmed this even in light of recent, unrelated issues with PeopleSoft that occurred after the upgrade was completed. Thank you to the many people in ASR who were part of the effort!

The project now moves into its next phase, which goes through June 2018. During this phase, functionality will be released on a monthly basis rather than on one, final launch date. You can expect to see process improvements utilizing available delivered tools. More details are available on the project website.

New OCM website to launch in October

The Office of Classroom Management (OCM) will launch a newly designed website on Tuesday, October 3. The site's domain will remain the same (www.classroom.umn.edu), however specific page URLs will change. When the site launches there will be redirects (instances that redirect your browser from one URL to another) in place for commonly accessed pages so you can continue to find what you need. Additionally, a feedback form for the new site will be available.

The site has a new menu structure for better navigation and pages with streamlined content. Content includes classroom technology instructions, scheduling applications, and information about Classroom Technical Services (CTS) including audio/visual equipment design and installation information.

OCM's new site has been built on the Drupal 8 content management system and provides a better mobile experience for users.

B-term spring 2019 changes

In looking at the academic calendar, it came to our attention that there is not enough time in the spring 2019 semester for the b-term to start after spring break. In spring 2019, B-term will start the day immediately after the a-term ends (a Tuesday) and then first Monday class will be after spring break.

CCE to become CCAPS

As of Monday, October 2, the College of Continuing Education (CCE) is changing its name to the College of Continuing and Professional Studies (CCAPS, pronounced see-caps). The name change will be reflected on their website, social media channels, and emails. Implementing the official name change in University systems will be done at a future date, yet to be determined.

If you have links to CCE on any web pages or communications, note to update them after October 2. There will be redirects in place for each of the old URLs. For more information, contact Stephanie Platteter, Executive Director of Marketing of CCAPS, at platt013@umn.edu.

PCAS fixes and enhancements

On September 24, several fixes and enhancements went into the Program & Curriculum Approval System (PCAS). In PCAS, you will notice the following changes:

• When selecting the "Update Type," the order of the radio buttons are now reversed. The most commonly used selection, "Create a proposal affecting only future students," is now first and is set as the default selection.
• When sub-groups and sub-lists are added to a proposal, "Display this subgroup/sublist name in the catalog" is now checked by default. You will need to uncheck the box if you want the name not to display in the catalog.
• When the "Delete Proposal" button is clicked, new wording on the confirmation page provides more clarity.
• Within Program Requirements/Step 4, the "Other requirements, if applicable" textbox character limit is increased to 4000 characters.

For questions or support regarding PCAS, contact the ASR Training & Support Team at srhelp@umn.edu.

Refresher—what’s RAC?

As a refresher, or if you are new to the University, the Registrar's Advisory Committee (RAC) serves as a consultative body to the director of Academic Support Resources (ASR) and meets monthly. RAC members collaborate with ASR to improve critical services for students, faculty, and staff including:

• Process improvement
• Policy clarification and recommendation
• System enhancements
• Reporting features

Attendees of the monthly meeting come from each college and many departments throughout the Twin Cities campus. Meeting minutes are made available shortly after each meeting. Join the RAC Google group if you are interested in receiving the monthly agenda and meeting minutes. You are also welcome to attend the monthly meetings.

PeopleSoft unavailable September 23-24

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (Student Records) will be unavailable over the September 23-24 weekend due to a planned system outage for the upgrade from PeopleSoft 9.0 to 9.2. From Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, students, faculty, and staff will not have access to functions such as registration and grading. Other systems such as email, Moodle, and Canvas will have regular availability.

While this timeframe was selected to minimize impacts to the University community, we would like to hear from you if there are activities that will be negatively affected by this downtime. Please contact project manager Carrie Otto (zast0020@umn.edu) with details. System changes as a result of this upgrade are minimal and restricted to the look and feel. Preview these changes.

Cancel classes for fall 2017 with zero enrollments

There are classes on the fall 2017 (1179) class schedule with a room assignment but no enrolled students. Please cancel the class directly in CCS if you do not plan to offer it. For classes with low enrollment that you plan to cancel, email ocmsched@umn.edu to process your cancellation. If your college requires collegiate approval for cancellation with low enrollment, refer to your college procedures. Remember to always notify enrolled students directly before requesting a class cancellation. Visit the OCM blog for more information.

New process for in-progress coursework in APAS

The Academic Progress Audit System (APAS) team has seen an increase in requests to move old in-progress courses from APAS reports. In the past, the team would wait until the student was at the point of degree clearance, but that has been causing some other issues. To resolve this, there is a new process for updating old in-progress courses in APAS. Read more about moving IP courses on APAS.

New LE APAS

The Academic Progress Audit System (APAS) team has created a new Liberal Education (LE) Course Check APAS that can be found in the "What If" APAS list for each college. The purpose of the course check is to show how any course in a student’s enrollment history could fulfill specific LE requirements. While all other APAS reports will only allow you to see the minimum courses needed to fulfill an LE requirement, with the first applicable course filling the slot, this APAS reports all the courses on a student's record that might fulfill each LE requirement.

This is helpful if you have a student who is debating withdrawing or afraid they might fail a course that is currently fulfilling an LE. The new APAS will show if there are any other in-progress or completed courses that could be used to fulfill the requirement instead. No exceptions are necessary in order to see what other LE-fulfilling courses are available within a student's course history.

GSSP content transition to One Stop

On August 24, 2017, Twin Cities Graduate Student Services and Progress (GSSP) content moved from the Graduate School website to the One Stop Student Services website. GSSP content appears under the Academics tab on One Stop in the following pages:

• Degree completion steps
• Examination committees
• Doctoral oral exam scheduling 
• Thesis/dissertation submission and formatting
• Contact GSSP

GSSP forms are now housed on the One Stop Forms page. Application for degree and other information related to graduation have been updated on the Apply to graduate and Checklist for grad students pages that had already existed on One Stop.

Users looking for GSSP content on the Graduate School website are automatically redirected to One Stop instead. Faculty and staff content will remain on the Graduate School’s website. Only Twin Cities websites have been included in this transition. The goal of this content transition is to better serve students by housing content in one place and making navigation easier. Integrating GSSP with One Stop also better aligns with GSSP’s organizational structure. Please communicate this change with students, staff, and faculty who may not be aware. Contact Chris Abts at cjabts@umn.edu with any GSSP questions.

Supplemental Class Search Tool being retired

As of October 1st, this tool is being retired and users are directed to use Schedule Builder class search.

Two new forms for students

Last month ASR released two new electronic forms for students. The first new form is Cost of Attendance Appeal (for both undergraduate and graduates). The second is the Request to Change Expected Graduation Term. Both are available on the One Stop website from the Forms page. Please direct students to use these forms when the need arises. Contact One Stop Student Services at onestop@umn.edu with questions.

Both forms require authentication; students use their University Internet ID and password to access the form, and various data points are pulled in from PeopleSoft to help make submissions more accurate and to decrease processing time both for students and staff.

Please note that the Request to Change Expected Graduation Term is a new form; previously students made these requests via email to One Stop. Now they can fill out the form and it routes directly for processing.

The two forms were built using TransForm, a new online form program. The pilot program for TransForm was a collaborative effort between ASR units and Office of Information Technology (OIT).

Helping U desk

One Stop Student Services and the Office for Student Affairs have partnered to enhance the Helping U desk in Bruininks Hall. At the Helping U desk, student-staff have been trained to connect fellow students to University-based resources such as academic support, career help, and health services.

The desk is open Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. If you know a student or department who may benefit from the Helping U desk, please share this information.

Study Space Finder

Study Space Finder has launched for students that includes images, building features, and locations. Students can find computer labs, coffee shops, and study spaces for individuals and groups via the map markers on East Bank, West Bank, and St. Paul campuses. The Study Space Finder will be housed at studyspace.umn.edu and will also appear as a link on sites with study space content.

This is a joint project between the Office of Classroom Management (OCM), University Libraries, Student Unions, Office of Information Technology (OIT), AHC Classroom Services, and University Services. Technical fixes are still in progress, but issues should be resolved shortly. Please share with students and contact studyspacefeedback@umn.edu with questions.

FERPA Q&A

Q: I’ve been contacted by a military recruiter for student information. How do we respond to these requests? 

A: Per the Solomon Amendment, military recruiters can receive student directory information. The Office of Institutional Research is the designated campus department that fulfills these requests.

Fall tuition calculation

Fall tuition calculation will be turned on for all careers on the Twin Cities campus, except the Medical School, on August 11, 2017 (tuition calculation for the Medical School will be turned on August 2, 2017). This means that students will be able to view their fall tuition and fees after this date.

High enrollment projections impacting class access

The University is anticipating higher-than-projected New High School (NHS) enrollments for fall 2017 with about 300-400 additional students. This could have an impact on class access. If you are an advisor, please communicate specific courses that you see filling faster or earlier than usual. Email Katie Russell at russellk@umn.edu. We anticipate some courses will fill as they always have.

First-year writing is aware of the increase in students and believes they have scheduled sufficient WRIT 1301 sections to serve the large incoming class. If needed, they will investigate the possibility of adding a section or two for spring 2018.

Enrolling students in chemistry classes

The Department of Chemistry does not anticipate removing a high number of students from CHEM 1061/1065 based on placement score. Students should continue working in ALEKS with the goal of earning 100%. On August 15 the Department of Chemistry will review where enrolled students are at, do some normative analysis, and determine what the final cut-off will be to ensure student success.

Please continue encouraging students who are working in ALEKS and nearing 70% or 80% to enroll in CHEM 1061/1065 if that is the most appropriate course for them. With transfer student orientation beginning next week, there are 10 seats reserved in each section of CHEM 1065 for NAS students. If an NAS student is not able to access a particular section or you need more seats, please contact Nancy Thao (thao@umn.edu) in the Department of Chemistry.

Academic calendar changes

Beginning with the 2018-19 academic calendar, the spring term will change from having 74 instructional days to having 70 instructional days. This change means that fall and spring semesters will have the same length going forward, and there is room for an additional study day for students in the spring term.

The full calendars for 2018-22 can be viewed on the University Senate page.

Spring 2019
January 21 (Monday) - MLK holiday
January 22 (Tuesday) - Classes begin
March 18-22 (Monday through Friday) - Spring break
May 6 (Monday) - Last day of instruction
May 7, 8, and 12 (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday) - Study days
May 9-11 and 13-15 (Thurs.-Sat. and Mon.-Wed.) - Final examinations
May 15 (Wednesday) - End of term

Note that spring term will continue to start on the Tuesday after the MLK holiday, the second half of the term will still begin the Monday after spring break, and there will be no finals on the Sunday of finals week.

Because some classes may have 1 to 2 fewer meeting dates (depending on meeting pattern), syllabi may need to be reviewed. Please communicate these changes to those within your departments so that they are able to prepare accordingly.

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.2 upgrade

The PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Technical Upgrade (moving from version 9.0 to 9.2) is progressing as planned. Go-live for this phase is still on track for September 24, with system downtime starting September 23.

The Functional Upgrade (implementing process improvements) has been scoped to these initiatives. Project teams have already begun chartering and planning their work. More information about the entire upgrade effort can be found on the project website.

Canvas announcement

In June, it was announced that Canvas was selected to be the successor to Moodle. As the U begins the transition process, Discover Canvas events will be held each Thursday this summer. Members of the Canvas transition team will be available in-person and online to help faculty and staff explore this new learning environment.

Board of Regents budget updates

The Board of Regents reviewed President Eric Kaler's recommended fiscal year 2018 budget at its June 8 meeting. After receiving feedback from the University community and public, Regents approved a budget during a special meeting on June 20.

During the June 8 meeting, the board also:

• Approved the FY18 annual capital improvement budget, with projects totaling $275.5 million to begin design or construction in FY18,
• Approved a system-wide strategic plan framework, and
• Reviewed new sexual misconduct policies.

In addition to the Board of Regents updates, more information is available about the University’s budget at twin-cities.umn.edu/our-budget.

Spring 2017 diplomas mailed

Staff from the Office of the Registrar have been busy processing diplomas for spring 2017. All diplomas will be mailed out by the end of day Friday, June 30.

Transcript notation change

Students who dropped all of their classes prior to the start date of the term used to receive a “Cancelled” notation on their transcript. Based on feedback from students, this notation will no longer appear. The transcript logic was changed so that this applies to fall 1999 and forward for all students.

Tuition and fees for 2017-18

Now that tuition and fees have been approved by the Board of Regents, staff in Academic Support Resources are busy setting up these items in PeopleSoft so actual financial aid can be packaged and tuition can be calculated.

As happens every summer between mid-June and mid- to late-July, estimated financial aid packages have been removed so actual packages can be created and presented to students. Students should begin seeing actual financial aid packages around the third week in July. 

Tuition calculation for Twin Cities students will occur around the second week in August.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Does FERPA classify some student educational data as more private than other types of data?

A: No. Under FERPA, data is classified as either directory (public) or non-directory (private). Directory information may be released to any third party upon request, unless the student has limited the release of that information. Non-directory information may not be released to a third party without written permission of the student, unless the third party has a legitimate educational interest in the data to perform his or her assigned job duties.

In addition to FERPA, Minnesota state law and other requirements regulate public and private data. For more information, consult the data classification information and University policy regarding information privacy.

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.

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.

MyU and PeopleSoft outage

On Saturday and Sunday, April 1-2, an upgrade to the PeopleSoft development platform, PeopleTools, will occur. While the upgrade work is underway, MyU and PeopleSoft applications will be unavailable. Specific impacts to note:

• PeopleSoft (and dependent applications)
• APAS
• Grad Planner
• MyU (and dependent applications)

Aside from downtime during the weekend, no significant impact for end users is expected. No action is required as a result of this upgrade. Access to Moodle courses and University email will not be affected.

The upgrade ensures that our PeopleSoft systems remain stable and secure, and is needed to retain vendor support. We encourage you to mark your calendars for the upgrade weekend so that you can plan around the service outage accordingly. During the weekend of April 1-2, updates will be available on the University’s Service Status page.

Student email lifecycle

Recently we learned that a student may not have an active email address, even though it is displayed in APLUS. Subsequent investigation revealed two issues: 1) APLUS displays an email address as a formula of Internet ID + @umn.edu rather than pulling email addresses directly and 2) many email accounts had been suspended as part of a clean-up effort during the December Google Application upgrade. Additionally, it was discovered that students with a leave of absence status were being deactivated. Since this is not desired, Academic Support Resources (ASR) is continuing to work with OIT to change this.

For those of you who use APLUS, please note that email addresses listed in APLUS cannot be assumed as active because of the aforementioned way that data is populated.

Schedule Builder enhanced with class search

March 20 marked a soft launch to surface class search filters in Schedule Builder for all campuses. Two rounds of formal usability were completed prior to the launch and an informal feedback form has been embedded into the pages of Schedule Builder for users to provide feedback as they interact with the new filters.

Changes related to preferred name and gender

APAS and Grad Planner now use students’ preferred names if they have entered one in MyU. Analysis is being done on how student records reports display preferred and primary name and gender, and how this information is used. We will be working with stakeholders to evaluate whether we should make changes to reports to reflect preferred name or to remove the gender column.

Internal audit

The executive summary from the internal audit of the Campus Solutions 9.0 upgrade is available to view. As a reminder, two surveys were developed to seek input from advisors and faculty go-tos (faculty support) on various aspects of the upgraded student system. Feedback was organized into three categories: general survey feedback on areas of concern, system issues, and common enhancement requests. If you would like to review the entire report from the internal audit, contact Sue Van Voorhis at vanvo002@umn.edu.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Can a company know who from their organization is taking classes at the institution? And, can they know the grades a student has earned?

A: It depends. If the company is paying for the students to attend and part of the contract between the student and the company is to share final grades, you could share this information. Before doing so, however, you should have a copy of the signed contract between the student and the company. If you want to report in the aggregate the number of students from a company, as long as it is over 5, you may do so.

Change to April graduation application date

Due to a planned PeopleSoft outage, the April 1 deadline for graduate and professional students to apply for graduation has changed to Monday, April 3, 2017. Note that the change is applicable only for the month of April; the following deadlines will continue to be on the first of the month. The change has been reflected in dates and deadlines on the One Stop website.

Policy update

The grading & transcripts policy is under comprehensive review and we are gathering feedback from multiple groups as well as presenting to the faculty Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP). While the changes will be mostly cosmetic, one substantive change is being considered: whether incompletes should lapse earlier. In the current policy, incompletes lapse after one year, but this can negatively impact degree progress. The current proposal is to lapse incompletes after 15 weeks, but the discussions are continuing. Please email tidball@umn.edu with your feedback.

The policy that email is the official means of student communication is also due for review. We do not anticipate any substantive changes at this time but are interested in your feedback. Please email tidball@umn.edu or attend RAC meetings to discuss this policy and others.

SCEP and the Policy Advisory Committee have approved changes to the makeup work policy (see unpublished draft). After review by the President’s Policy Committee, the policy will be posted for a 30-day review and comment period.

Estimated Financial Aid Award Notices for NHS students

Estimated Financial Aid Award Notices (FAANs) for admitted new high school students (NHS) for the Twin Cities campus were generated the week of February 13, and the Office of Student Finance began mailing them to these students the week of February 20. Twin Cities undergraduate transfer students should begin to receive estimated FAANs in late-March. As usual, actual financial aid award notices for incoming freshmen, transfer and continuing students will be provided in late July after tuition and fees are approved by the Board of Regents.

Commencement on events calendar

For departments and colleges: If you have not done so already, please add your commencement information to the University events calendar so that the latest information is available to students and parents.

One Stop website updates

Dates and deadlines on One Stop has been extended to include fall 2017, spring 2018, and summer 2018 dates for students on Twin Cities and Rochester campuses.

A transcript key has been added to the Transcripts page for all system campuses. The key is a copy of the text found on the back of University transcript paper. Having the transcript key online will enable third parties such as academic institutions and employers to verify information more easily.

Final exam, class schedule, and dates and deadlines archives

Final exam schedule archives
Archives of past final exam schedules are accessible through the University Digital Conservancy (UDC). The final exam schedule archives are public domain as part of the UDC, and are searchable.

Class schedule and dates archives

The archive PDFs of class schedules, enrollment policies and procedures, and dates and deadlines can be accessed through the ASR site. Visit asr.umn.edu, and navigate to News and dates > Class schedule and dates archives.

FERPA Q&A

Q: Should separate class sections be combined in Moodle or other online learning technologies?

A: No. While students’ identities are not private within a class section, the students’ information should not be exposed to other classes—students’ class schedules are private student data. By combining sections, students could see the information students outside their registered class section.

Makeup work policy change

The Senate Committee on Educational Policy and the Policy Advisory Committee has recently recommended changes to the policy on MakeUp Work for Legitimate Absences. If given final approval, there will be two changes to the policy: (1) official student representatives’ attendance at required University governance meetings such as Board of Regents meetings will be a legitimate excused absence, and (2) instructors will be prohibited from requiring verification for single-episode medical absences, such as a cold that causes a student to miss a single class.

TransForms pilot

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) and University colleges are partnering with Academic Support Resources to pilot TransForms, a new product that could help create efficiencies in electronic form submissions for University students and staff. In this pilot, staff are creating two electronic forms: Cost of Attendance Appeal (both for both graduate and undergraduate students), and Request to Change Graduation Date for Undergraduates. If successful, this product could be used for other forms in the future. ASR anticipates the launch for the two pilot forms to be later this spring.

Request: only one student per email

Effective immediately, Graduate Student Services and Progress (GSSP) is asking that documents for multiple students be submitted in separate emails to gssp@umn.edu (in other words, one student per email). This change is an effort to better align GSSP business practices with FERPA best practices.

Cance/add refund chart on One Stop

In December, we published a chart with cancel/add and refund dates to the One Stop website. You can find a link to the chart from Dates and deadlines. The chart provides similar information to the chart that used to be on the old One Stop site, however modifications have been made to the display of information based on accessibility needs and overall design standards for the new site.

Form updates for GSSP

Graduate Student Services and Progress (GSSP) has recently updated the graduate forms listed below. The changes range anywhere from general reformatting to modifying the language and information on the form to reflect the most recent business practices. The forms are available on the Graduate School site, or you can use the links below. Email gssp@umn.edu with any questions.

• ​​Language Department Certification of Foreign Language Proficiency (OTR192)
• Graduate Program Certification of Foreign Language Proficiency (OTR193)
• Letter of Certification Request Form (OTR196)
• Thesis or Dissertation Hold Request (OTR197)

FERPA Q&A

Q: We would like to publish a list of students on the Dean’s list. How should I handle this for students that have suppressed their information?

A: Student's names and honors/awards are public information and can be published, unless they have selected directory or full suppression of their records. In that case, you should not publish their information unless you have the student’s written permission.