Guidance on Unresolved Issues:
Plan of Study DSS

Initial stakeholder meetings on the Plan of Study DSS revealed differences among stakeholders on what the scope of the system should be and how the system would be used.  Additional meetings were held with the university administration, and agreement was reached on the following:
  1. The scope for the initial build will be limited to supporting the development of one or more feasible plans of study that satisfy degree requirements for a selected major.  Advising on choice of major and career is to be considered out of scope.  However, links should be provided to Advising, Career Services and other sources of information on these topics.  Planning course offerings is to be considered out of scope, but designers should plan for future use of plan of study data in forecasting demand for courses and planning course offerings.
  2. The first build of the system will allow a student to select a set of courses and the semester in which each will be taken.  It will compare the courses against the catalog listing of when the course is usually offered (fall, spring, summer).  It will compare the proposed courses against degree requirements, using the degree audit rules for the catalog year under which the student is planning to graduate. Courses already taken will be included in this analysis. The system will identify requirements not met, courses planned for semesters other than the ones listed for that course in the catalog, and semesters in which the student is planning an overload.
  3. Students should be able to develop, save, and compare several plans of study.  Students should be able to develop plans of study for more majors other than the one in which they are enrolled.  If a student develops a plan of study for a major that has a competitive entrance requirement (e.g., a GPA requirement; admission application), this should be noted.  If an entrance requirement is not met (such as courses taken or GPA), the student should be notified.
  4. An optional future enhancement to be considered if the initial build is successful is to provide some indication of the likelihood that classes will run, and also the likelihood that the course will be closed due to overenrollment.  This could be an estimate of probability, or it could simply be a categorization (e.g., required courses that will run regardless of load; electives that are rarely cancelled; electives that frequently are cancelled; new courses with no prior data).  Stakeholders have requested that the design team suggest one or more options for stakeholder review.
  5. An optional future enhancement to be considered if the initial build is successful is to provide the ability to recommend one or more feasible sequences of courses that satisfy degree requirements for a given degree.
  6. The system should provide the ability for an authorized person (advisor; department chair) to enter an approval for aspects of a plan of study such as course substitutions, waivers of requirements, or authorized electives.  Approvals should propagate to the student's degree audit.  
  7. The system can be accessed via a web browser.  Students can access their own plan of study. Advisors can access plans of study for their advisees. Chairs and program directors can access plans of study for students in their programs.