[Degreeworks-l] What's Coming in the DegreeWorks Universe
Leask, Jane
jeleask at samford.edu
Tue Nov 24 11:00:42 CST 2009
Last week I attended the DegreeWorks Symposium 2009 in Seattle. One of the sessions was titled the DegreeWorks Roadmap and discussed the tentative release and upgrade schedule for the next couple of years. All dates and planned releases are of course subject to change, especially so far in the future, but this is what the SunGard/DegreeWorks folks are planning, nonetheless:
The following info comes directly from the PDF (see reference below), with my notes in dark red:
DegreeWorks Product Roadmap and Calendar
* For the seven product enhancement Patch releases targeted through May 2012, a naming nomenclature has been adopted based on the Greek alphabet. [Don't ask me why; I personally find it a bit confusing. Aside from this presentation and the PDF document, I'm not sure they will be referencing the Greek letters that often, but in case they do...you've been informed. FYI: The September patch to DW 4.0.4 was actually called Sigma.]:
L LAMBDA ServicePack March 19, 2010 [could possibly be February 2010]
D DELTA Minor Release DW4.1.0 August 27, 2010
Q THETA ServicePack December 17, 2010
Y PSI ServicePack May 27, 2011
Z ZETA ServicePack October 28, 2011
W OMEGA Minor Release DW4.2.0 May 31, 2012
* Future functionality releases are always targeted, but the further out on the horizon, the less likely the target will be met.
DegreeWorks Features - What's Up Ahead
* A few Highlights:
-Enhanced Student Planner THETA [will eventually drop the split screen look that advisors see; overhaul templates]
-Pre-Requisite Checking with Banner Registration LAMBDA
-Generalized Data Bridge LAMBDA/OMEGA
-PC Interfaces moved to Web LAMBDA/DELTA/OMEGA [all 3 PC Tools-Scribe, SureCode, & Transit-will eventually be Web-based, using Adobe Flex]
[Note about PC Tools on the Web: At this time, the use of Adobe Flex (which utilizes Flash) requires the Tomcat server (which they claim many DW users have but don't necessarily use). However, the DW folks plan to make it available for users on Oracle. By the end of 2010, they hope to have ALL three PC Tools available in the Web-based environment. One benefit of the Web-based PC Tools is that we would no longer need to install them individually on a user's computer, which is currently the case for those who access them in Student Records and EAG.]
-STENO Replacement DELTA
-Introduction of 64-bit version DELTA
-Adoption of UTF-8 character support (Unicode) DELTA [this will be good since Banner 8 is now UTF-8 compatible]
-Support for Jasig-CAS Secure Authentication LAMBDA
-Support for Open-Source Database PSI
-Athletic Eligibility Audits OMEGA [the possibility of specialized audits for compliance use is great; plus CPA reports from that data will helpful]
-GoalChaser PSI [this sounds really helpful; see the PDF for more detail]
-Integration with ODS/EDW PSI
For more info on the items listed above, see the PDF of the presentation labeled DegreeWorks Roadmap, available at either of the following W: drive locations (depending on which folder you have access to). There are 16 PDFs in all:
W:\Workgroups\DegreeWorks\Conference Docs\DegreeWorks Symposium 2009 (PDFs only)
or
W:\Academic\DegreeWorks\Conference Docs\DegreeWorks Symposium 2009 (PDFs only)
Some of the others sessions dealt more specifically w/Exceptions, Course Equivalencies, the Student Educational Planner, Graduate Studies, the Curriculum Planning Assistant (reporting tool), Athletic Eligibility Audits, etc. There was also a good session on desired product enhancements-kind of like your Amazon.com Wish List-but there was no PDF to accompany that. Some requested items mentioned included:
* the ability to 'freeze' an audit once a student has been cleared for graduation
* more search functionality (such as the ability to search on students w/a grad application on file, for those that use the Banner Grad App feature)
* concentrations tied to a major in the What-If fields (currently they are not)
* recently viewed students in a drop down list
* major GPA in the GPA calculator
* for the SGHE DegreeWorks listserv, a possible 'blog' and/or message board format
So, maybe we'll see some of these items in a future release/service pack. We can also submit RPEs (Request for Product Enhancements) ourselves, so if anyone has an idea for something, let me know, and I can pass it along.
Some other notes from the symposium:
* Last year, there were approximately 60 DW sites. This year, 167 and counting.
* Purdue University is working w/SGHE on Signals, a new early intervention system to help find students who are at risk in a class or program. The latest e-mail from Banner referenced this as well in their newsletter: http://www.sungardhe.com/Micro/Newsletter/page04.html
* Tied in with this and other DW features, instant messaging might be possible in the near future. One screen shot showed a sample IM-type conversation between a student and advisor, w/ the advisor having the chance to quickly view the student's academic stats and audit.
Other new features planned for a future release:
* Degree Source in the Find Screen (apparently this will be helpful when tracking students coming from recruiting or admissions data)
* Enhanced and configurable CourseLink (formerly called AdviceLink)-the Course Information pop-up screen when you click on a course in an audit
* CourseLink enhancement should allow a list of courses to be pulled when clicking on an attribute in the audit (currently, this is not the case)
* Athletic Eligibility Audits - May be able to customize them for the compliance officer and athletic director-different from the one for the main academic advisor and student; an advisory group is currently consulting w/SGHE on what's needed. But nothing will be in place until probably December 2010, so we'll have to work w/what we have for now.
I have single-sided original printouts (B&W) of all the PDFs, so if you'd like a single or double-sided copy of your own, let me know and I can make a copy for you from the original. You can print your own, of course, but it might save a bit of paper if used my original.
The symposium had three plenary sessions, but about 15 individual sessions, many of which ran simultaneously, so I couldn't attend all. Please check out the PDFs if you want to see what else was going on. You can even look at the PDFs from last year's DW Symposium and see what was planned (Product Roadmap) and compare it to what actually has happened.
FYI: References to WebTreQ don't apply to us. This is a separate feature within DegreeWorks that requires a separate license fee. We didn't buy it and don't plan to. From what I can tell, it provides more detailed audit assistance regarding transfer work. Some of the features in the revised CourseLink will only apply to WebTreQ Users (one screen showed the course needed, but then listed the local community colleges that offered an equivalent course), but since we won't be using that, just disregard those particular references.
That's all I can remember right now. Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks, Jane
Jane Leask
Assistant Registrar (Certifications, Publications, and Programming)
Office of Student Records
Samford University
800 Lakeshore Drive
Birmingham, AL 35229
(205) 726-2912
jeleask at samford.edu<mailto:jeleask at samford.edu>
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