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The ASR UX team is gathering feedback from readers about their experience with our newsletters. If you would like to participate and give feedback on the Record, fill out The Record Questionnaire. The questionnaire should take around 5-10 minutes to complete.  

New class cancellation email

As of December 15, students who are enrolled in a class that is canceled will receive an email notifying them of the cancellation. The email process runs daily from PeopleSoft for students at Crookston, Duluth, Rochester, and Twin Cities. Below is a sample of the email sent to a Twin Cities student (note that the contact information in the email is personalized for each campus):

If you have questions about this information, contact Stacey Tidball, Director of Continuity and Compliance, at tidball@umn.edu.

Transfer guides for coursework within University system

Transfer guides are now available online for liberal education coursework completed by students who want to transfer to the Twin Cities campus from another University system campus. Students and advisors can access the transfer guides from the Admissions site: Liberal Education Course Transfer Guides. There, each campus has a dedicated page under Minnesota (MN) schools: Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Rochester.

Withdrawal guide on One Stop

A withdrawal guide (formerly called the withdrawal checklist) has been added to the One Stop site for Twin Cities and Rochester students. To navigate to the page, go to onestop.umn.edu > Academics > Leave, transfer, return > Take a leave of absence. From there, students can learn about maintaining active status, and can branch out to either apply for a leave of absence, or review the withdrawal guide.

Academic Support Resources technical projects updates

The ASR Technical Projects resource has been updated with new planned, in-progress and recently completed projects. This information is being compiled on the ASR Technical Project Updates webpage. These projects largely address issues that our users have identified related to their work with the Office of the Registrar, the Office of Student Finance and the Office of Financial Aid.

Mid-term notifications start February 10

University Senate Policy requires instructors of 1xxx-level courses to provide in-progress notifications to students who, based on performance in the course thus far, appear to be in danger of receiving a grade of D, F, or N. Instructors can enter mid-term grades starting February 10, 2016 by going to the "Grade Rosters" tab of MyU's Faculty Center. A "Mid-Term Grade Entry" quick start guide is available to help instructors.

FERPA: What should I do if I accidentally share a student’s private information with another student?

Unfortunately, even when we are careful, privacy breaches happen. For example, mis-typing a student’s email address can result in inadvertently sharing private data. If this happens, you should email abuse@umn.edu to report the incident. For more information, see the Information Security policy.

Grade entry best practices

As a reminder, fall 2015 grades (full semester and second 7-week session) are due on Wednesday, December 30 (see the complete list of grading due dates). Grades should be entered online by 11:59 p.m. on the date that they are due.

Verify access to grade rosters
Faculty, instructors, and their proxies should verify that they have access to all of their assigned grade rosters before the last day of instruction. To do this, access your Faculty Center in the MyU: Teaching tab and view the Grade Rosters for the classes you teach. When grade rosters are created (generally about twelve days before the last day of the term), those with access will see an icon that looks like a person inside a square next to the class in Faculty Center. Click that icon to view the roster. If you do not see the grade rosters you expect, please contact your department scheduler.

Class rosters and grade entry for courses owned by the School of Public Health are available only through the School of Public Health grading system. Faculty within the Medical School and the Law School typically do not access their grade rosters electronically and should contact their administrative support if they have questions.

Uploading grades directly from Moodle
Final grades entered in Moodle can be transferred directly into the grade roster within the Faculty Center. This guide to uploading gradebooks from Moodle to the final grade roster in PeopleSoft outlines the process. Those using this option should make sure that the final grade roster has been created prior to uploading from Moodle. It is important to note that once the grades have been transferred, they still must be reviewed and approved in Faculty Center.

New “NR” grade replacing grades that are left blank
Once the grading deadline has passed, NR (Not Reported), will be given to students who are not assigned a grade by their instructor. The NR will be treated like a blank grade was in the previous system (e.g., zero grade points, zero credits).

Additional resources available on One Stop Faculty website
How-to guides on entering grades, making changes to grades, and more are available in the Grades section of the One Stop Faculty website. Grading due dates, frequently asked questions, and grading and transcript policies are also available.

Tech tips

• A good first step for those encountering difficulties is to clear their browser’s cache.
• Browser type and version can affect grade entry. Those having trouble should try updating their browser or using another one. 
• Grade entry will work on mobile browsers (e.g., phones, tablets). Some pages have been designed to respond to multiple screen sizes, and some have not. Non-responsive pages should still function, but may be less aesthetically pleasing and could present anomalies. 

Auto-enroll waitlist process for spring 2016

The auto-enroll waitlist process for the Twin Cities campus began Monday, November 23 (a previous message said November 22) and will run through the first day of the session. Students can add themselves to a waitlist through the first day of the session.

If you encounter any issues with waitlisting or the auto-enroll process, please contact the ASR Training & Support Team at srhelp@umn.edu. More information on how students can add themselves to a waitlist can be found in this guide.

FERPA: May a faculty member include a student’s grade in an email if the email is sent to multiple students?

Suppose a faculty member needs to communicate midterm grade information to two of her students, Mary and Bob. The faculty sends an email, with both students email addresses on the “to” line, and in the body of the message gives information about Mary’s grade and Bob’s grade. This would violate FERPA because it discloses private student data. Faculty and staff should take care to only include private student data in an email when the recipients are allowed to view that information. Incidents such as these can be referred to abuse@umn.edu.

Policy update (October 2015)

Updates to the Promoting Timely Graduation policy passed the Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP) at the committee’s October meeting. Next, the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) will consider the updated policy. The intention is for the policy to be retitled and to include updated language to better support students’ timely progress to degree. If passed, the policy will also replace the Declaring and Pursuing an Undergraduate Major policy.

Spring 2016 registration

Students will have access to their spring 2016 registration queue time starting November 2. The spring 2016 registration time table can be found on the One Stop website. As a reminder, spring 2016 registration begins Tuesday, November 10 for students admitted to degree and certificate programs. Open registration begins Friday, December 4. One Stop and the Academic Support Resources Training and Support team will be hosting refresher sessions on the student registration experience on:

• Thursday, November 5, 2015 from 2 to 3 p.m. in Peik Gym, room G55
• Wednesday, November 11, 2015 from 2 to 3 p.m. in Alderman Hall, room 415 (St. Paul campus)
• Tuesday, November 17, 2015 from 10 to 11 a.m. in Peik Gym, room G65

These sessions will be of interest to advisers and student services staff who would like to review how the registration process works for students. Topics will include class search, waitlists, auto-enroll, and the shopping cart. There will be time for questions as well.

Please complete this short form is you are planning on attending one of these sessions.

You are invited to the 9th annual Student Veterans Appreciation Day

Join us for the 9th annual Student Veterans Appreciation Event on Tuesday, November 17 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. in Coffman Great Hall. Say “thank you” to student veterans, participate in some games, and grab a slice of pizza. Everyone is welcome! Can’t make it? Stop by our booth to write a thank-you message to our veterans. Dates and locations are available on the One Stop website.

New Schedule Builder available

A new version of Schedule Builder is now available. Under the new version of Schedule Builder, students will have the option to explore, plan, and see a calendar view of their schedules. With the start of spring 2016 registration quickly approaching, we anticipate this new version of Schedule Builder to be highly accessed and we encourage you to notify your students, faculty, and other staff members about this change. If you have any questions, please contact help@umn.edu.

FERPA: How should we work with parents that want to help their child with a disability transition to the University of Minnesota from another college or university?

Since this student is not yet accepted to or enrolled at the University, he or she does not have the ability to give his or her parents access via the University's online tools. In these instances, it is appropriate to work with the student to send or fax a signed letter stating that he or she grants your office permission to speak with the parents about the student's process, educational record, outstanding requirements, etc. Unless the student has an activated University of Minnesota email address, you cannot accept an email from the student granting this permission. And, simply because the student has a disability doesn't mean that FERPA doesn't apply nor can you work with the parents without the students express written permission to do so.

New report available: My Advisees (Midterm Grades)

A new PeopleSoft query report is now available by going to MyU > Reporting Center > Student Services > Advising > My Advisees - Midterm grades. Here, you can find your advisees with midterm grades for the selected term and midterm grade.

Mid Term Alerts in the new system (now, In-Progress Notifications)

University Senate Policy requires instructors of 1xxx-level courses to provide in-progress notifications to students who, based on performance in the course thus far, appear to be in danger of receiving a grade of D, F, or N. The process for doing this has changed with the University’s PeopleSoft Upgrade, and the former mid-term alerts system has been retired. The new process was made available on October 1, 2015 and takes place in the “Grade Rosters” tab of MyU’s Faculty Center. The ASR Student Records Training & Support team has created a “Mid-Term Grade Entry” quick start guide to help instructors.

Registrar's Advisory Committee meeting on October 5

The next Registrar's Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting will be held on Monday, October 5 from 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m. in Humphrey, room 50B. The agenda can be found here.

Destiny One Registration System update

The Destiny One Registration System (DORS) is live and the rollout continues across the University community. There has been $395,000 in registration revenue with 1,423 enrollments in 107 different courses and 179 sections.There are currently nine units live in production with 12 more testing and soon to be live. There have been more than 200 users trained in the system and the interest keeps growing. Duluth will be the first system campus to utilize the Destiny One Registration System.

One Stop Student Services and ASR Training & Support team begins with a busy start of the term

One Stop's fall traffic has been feeling the effects of Upgrade-related changes in business processes and the system's early-term problems. Within the week prior and the first week of classes there were 6,058 calls answered, 6,566 walk-ins, and 6,677 emails sent to customers. Overall, this is approximately a 15% increase in traffic from last year at the start of the term.

Similarly, the ASR Training & Support team continues to be busy with regular and Upgrade-related questions. During the week of September 8th, they fielded 214 questions from University staff and faculty, which is double the volume for the first week of term pre-Upgrade.