New Coursedog prompts

The Curriculum Administration Best Practices Working Group has approved new Coursedog prompts related to modality and assessment. These changes are effective July 1 for Twin Cities and Rochester Fall 2025 and later proposals. Please direct questions to oue@umn.edu. 

Coursedog modality definitions

The modality selections available for courses in Coursedog will be updated and effective on July 1 to align with those in PeopleSoft. This update impacts all University of Minnesota campuses. Changes will not be made to previously approved courses, but courses should be updated to reflect the appropriate modality selections when updates are being made through standard processes. 

Please direct questions to oue@umn.edu. 

2024-2026 Undergraduate catalog

Every two years, the University produces a catalog that requires all programs to review their curriculum and submit a proposal with a fall 2024 effective term. Any revisions necessary to reflect fall 2024 requirements should be entered, approved at the collegiate level, and ready for review at the Provost’s level by March 1, 2024. Undergraduate programs should review the Undergraduate Catalog Checklist. 

Program requirements should be rebuilt in Coursedog to minimize any formatting issues that may have occurred during the data import. See the Coursedog Catalog Guide for additional guidelines on how to enter this information.

Coursedog update

Coursedog successfully launched on August 21. Thank you to the many people on all campuses who contributed to the success of this project! Moving forward, Coursedog will be managed by a support team in ASR and governed by a systemwide Curriculum Administration Best Practices Working Group. 

The Coursedog support site provides information like training courses, supplemental guides, access role information, and a link to the Coursedog ARF (Access Request Form). The support team can be reached at coursedog@umn.edu for any questions or issues.

Coursedog launches August 21

Coursedog—the integrated course and program approval workflow system replacing ECAS, PCAS, and University catalogs—will launch Monday, August 21. All previous users of ECAS and PCAS will automatically have equivalent access in Coursedog and individual invitations to required training have been sent to them. Any new access will need to be requested after Coursedog launches. Post-launch information on requesting access, completing training, and support contact information can be found at z.umn.edu/coursedog-support.

ECAS and PCAS will be available as view-only for several months as a historical reference.

In addition to changes in the curriculum management workflow, there will be significant changes to the University catalog and the links to individual programs. The main page for catalogs will remain catalogs.umn.edu, but users will select which campus they want to view. The links for each program within the catalog (starting with https:/onestop2.umn.edu/pcas) will be different. Any website currently pointing to an individual program page in the catalog will need to manually update them to the new link. More information about this is on the Coursedog Project webpage.

If you have questions, please direct them to coursedog@umn.edu.

Coursedog update

The Coursedog project is moving towards our August 21, 2023 launch date. Thank you to all of our fabulous project team members and stakeholders who have provided their time & expertise throughout the project. Without campus support, this transition from ECAS & PCAS to Coursedog would not be possible.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

This month, 18.5% of current ECAS & PCAS users in the University community participated in UAT testing to validate that the Coursedog system fulfills business requirements. These participants represented almost every TC college and each campus. A post-test survey found that Coursedog scored better or about the same as ECAS & PCAS in all of the following: look & feel, intuitiveness, accuracy, time/number of steps required to complete a task, and help functions.

Upcoming milestones

• Coursedog "freeze": June 2, 2023
• The project team will be locked out of the Coursedog system as they work to copy over our Coursedog testing environment configurations and settings to a new production environment.
• ECAS & PCAS “freeze”: July 8, 2023
• The data transfer between current systems and Coursedog begins. Extensive data validation is completed, and ECAS and PCAS users of all levels will no longer be able to make any changes in current systems.
• Coursedog Training Modules available: July 2023
• Coursedog training modules will become available in Training Hub starting the end of July 2023. Current ECAS & PCAS users will receive an email invite as soon as they are ready.
• Coursedog go-live: August 21, 2023
• Coursedog will become available to previous users of ECAS and PCAS at equivalent access roles.

More information, including a project timeline and sneak peak videos, are available on the Coursedog project page.

Update on Graduation Planner replacement

In April 2022, the Stellic project (to replace Graduation Planner and Schedule Builder) was paused because we were not confident in the project’s launch based on its progress, and we needed to shift resources to the Coursedog project. At the conclusion of the pause, it was determined that there was not a good path forward to launching Stellic. The contract has now been terminated. 

ASR is currently evaluating potential options for a Graduation Planner replacement. This includes working with Purchasing to determine if we need to re-issue an RFP, or if we can look to the 2nd and 3rd choices from our previous RFP. ASR will also be reviewing the tool offered by CollegeSource (our vendor for APAS) to learn what improvements have been made to their product since the RFP.  

The timing of a new project is dependent on several factors. In addition to the potential of needing to complete a new RFP, resources are currently dedicated to the Coursedog project, and there is other work that needs to be completed after that concludes. For these reasons, the earliest a project could be launched with an identified solution would be in 2024. Until a replacement is in place, Graduation Planner and Schedule Builder will remain available. 

Coursedog update: Timeline adjusted

The project team is currently completing Quality Assurance (QA) testing for configuration and data integrations into the Coursedog curriculum and catalog products. While their QA testing is almost complete, the team encountered more issues than initially expected. As a result, they’ll need more time to resolve the issues, and the go-live date will need to be adjusted. Coursedog will now go live at the end of August 2023 (originally June 2023).

The team’s primary goal is to ensure that the Coursedog product is of the highest possible quality for University staff at go-live. The additional 8 weeks of time will allow the team to deliver a best-quality product for users participating in User Acceptance Testing in May 2023. This will result in a better product at launch in August. Over the next week, communications regarding this change will be sent to current ECAS & PCAS users and additional stakeholders.

DegreeCat update

After a thorough RFP process that involved representation from all campuses and extensive testing for usability, Coursedog was selected as the vendor to replace ECAS, PCAS, and the University catalog.

Some highlights of Coursedog:

• Intuitive design with course and program workflow approval systems in the same interface with data deeply connected Ability to upload PDFs (e.g., syllabi) or other documentation
• System allows for publishing of accurate curricular data beyond the official catalog (e.g., department and collegiate websites, Admissions, major exploration tools, reporting tools)
• The product design approach makes it easier to implement configurations and handle University complexities
• University staff can easily configure workflows and forms without vendor support
• Robust reporting interface with features that allow for better reporting and data analysis

Updated project timeline

The implementation of Stellic—the new tool for graduation planning and schedule building—has been delayed. The initial timeline was created without a full understanding of the work required to have our system integrations working well. The project is prioritizing “getting it right” over “getting it done soon” because there is a need to establish trust in the system; we are taking the time to get accurate, actionable data into Stellic.

As before, a small group of University colleges and campuses—called Wave 1—will launch first. The new timeline for Wave 1 would have their students using Stellic as soon as May 2022. On the Twin Cities campus, CBS is in Wave 1. The rollout to remaining undergraduate students is targeted to be complete around the start of the fall 2022 semester. Regardless of when a college begins using Stellic, advisors will have access to the system prior to students in order to become familiar and comfortable with it.

Information about the project is available at DegreeCat Project and questions can be sent to degreecat@umn.edu.