Meeting Minutes 3-8-2010

Present: (no particular order) Diana Jaramillo, Russ Sommer (Note taker), Christina Aumann, Christopher Noll, Jeanne Herman, Enrica Holder, Deri Leong-Miller, Elizabeth Erickson, Michael Kurland (Chair), Heather Cartagena(Ex-officio).

1. Discussed Recently Completed Updates


1. Progress Audit Icons – took a total of 8 hours (2 over estimate)


1. Resulted in a bit of confusion but overall no major complaints or concerns


2. May decide to hide these buttons in preferences and view during Audits


2. Mid-term Alert Emails


1. Received well by all departments


2. Plans to add line breaks to emails in the future


3. Multiple Email Attachments – this item is in-progress


2. Budget Status


1. February – 14.25 hours used total


2. With Jan/Feb excess – leaves 32.50 hours for March


3. Latest Quotes


1. Custom Report Fields (24-26 hours)


1. The entire Report system will be rebuilt with this time


2. Which includes all items presented including Department Fields and Pictures


2. SIS Data Displays


1. Academic Status – 4 hrs

1. Semester by semester status updates instead of just ‘N’
2. Allowing Advisors to better track students on probation


2. Holds/Activity Descriptions – 7 hours

1. Holds will result in hyperlink to descriptions
2. Too much data to include in Student Profile


3. SAP Status – 2 hrs

1. Translated labels in profile


4. Testing / Debugging – 2 hrs


5. Total Estimate – 15 hrs


3. USC Intranet/VPN Requirement Issues with Student Access – 2 approaches (currently students need to download VPN and subsequent programs to make appointments and via Course Plans on OASIS -> this is a confusing and difficult process for many).


1. Provided detailed packet of information in response to options


2. Create a new student portal server – 32 hours

1. Cheaper than purchasing a new server
2. Would partition one of the two current servers and allow students to access off-campus


3. Create a separate website for student access – 8 hours

1. Less secure – NOT RECOMMENDED


4. DISCUSSION – Likely to proceed with creating portal server perhaps in summer. Though few departments use appointment scheduling (partially due to this difficulty) in the future more items may be placed in MyUSC for students – so the need will likely grow


4. No longer seeking new ITP position despite interviews


1. Appears to be more cost effective to continue working with vendor


5. Future Plans


1. Move forward with Custom Reports updates (March)


2. Move forward with all SIS Data Displays (borrowing time from April if needed)


6. Future Meeting


1. Expected Late – April. Michael will send invites soon.


2. Discussion topics:


1. VPN Virtual Server


2. Revisit original list and reprioritize future plans

*NEW* Progress Audit Icons

Trying to figure out if your processed all of your students in the latest round of progress audits? Two new icons and search filters have been added to the system to help you keep track of your completed (or uncompleted) progress audits. Here are the specifics:

Two new icons (a green and white "3" and a blue and white "5") have been added to each student's record. The icons are based on the presence of an email in the student’s record marked “3rd Semester Audit” or “5th Semester Audit”.

Since the email categories are also relatively new (as of July 2009), the 3rd semester audit icons have been activated only for students with an entry term of 20083 or later and the 5th semester audit icons have been activated only for students with an entry term of 20073 or later. For students with earlier entry terms, these icons will always appear as "off".

Each icon also has a field in the search filter list under the ACADEMIC FIELDS section. They are called "3rd Semester Audit" and "5th Semester Audit". Each search field is a checkbox. Searching with the box checked will find all students with the icon "on" (audit not completed), and searching with the box unchecked will find all students with the icon "off" (audit completed).

Be sure to use these new search fields in combination with your programs and the "Entry Term" field.


TIP: Oops! Did you accidentally send your audit email as an "Advising" email instead of a 3rd Semester or 5th Semester Audit email? This means that the corresponding icon for that student will still be "on" even though you've completed the audit. Here is what you can do:

Open up a new individual email for the student, but change the student's email address in the TO: line to your email so the student doesn’t get a duplicate message. Next put what you would usually put in the subject line for an audit, and put something in the body like, “Audit email mistakenly sent as Advising email on” whatever the date was. Be sure to tag the email as “3rd Semester Audit” or "5th Semester Audit" and when you hit send the corresponding audit icon will turn off.