Longwood University is upgrading their degree audit program within the next year to help students complete their degree requirements in a time they deem appropriate.
“Degree Works is an upgraded version of CAP,” said Longwood University Registrar Vikki Levine. “It aids students in preparing a path to graduate.”
According to Levine, this upgrade provides a pleasurable viewing experience, graphically it’s much easier to understand and the new audit has hyperlinks.
“So if you’re going to register for a Goal 3 course, you can click on the audit and it will take you to the Goal 3 section of the catalog,” said Levine.
According to IT Audit Manager Aneicia Stimpson, Degree Works shows a better view in tracking the students through their major. It helps make sure that students are taking classes that are going to meet
“We want to give you all of the tools you need to successfully lay out your graduation plan,” said Levine. “We want to make sure students have all of the tools they need to graduate in four years.”
“Degree Works is easier to use and read,” said Stimpson. “I think that it will be a lot more user- friendly, and it is going to be a great tool to make sure students are on the right track.”
Degree Works has been developing over the past year working with academics, IT and Digital Education Collaboration (DEC). “IT maintained the infrastructure and made sure everything was in place for the registrar’s office,” said Stimpson. “IT did go through training and can support the new program as well.”
IT also played a big role in branding Degree Works for Longwood University; they built servers and software so that the registrar could place information accordingly.
“Right now, everything is in a test environment. In late April all of the production servers will be built,” said Stimpson. “We will do a final test to go live May 5 so that the freshmen can use it during orientation.”
This new program will provide midterm grades, placement scores for language, expected graduation date and advisors will be hyperlinked for contact information,” said Levine.
Degree Works will only be available to incoming fall 2014 freshmen as a pilot program.
“We intend on training students pre-orientation so students will come into orientation with more [knowledge about] how registration and CRNs work through Degree Works,” said Levine. The DEC and Registrar will be running this program in an attempt to foster the incoming freshmen class, so they are not as confused.
“We cannot release to the entire Longwood population,” said Levine. “We need an opportunity to start with a small group of students so we can ensure that it produces accurate results before we release it to the rest of Longwood.”
“This is something that is probably going to be under development for the next three years,” said Levine.
Degree Works will be compatible with all computers, but it will work better with certain browsers. “We will be sending out instructions once it gets closer to release. As of now we are internally testing which browsers work best so we can make recommendations to students,” said Levine.
“I think it’s important that even though Degree Works isn’t available now, CAP is,” said Levine.
She continued, “This process to make Degree Works happen was a collective process. Longwood has a shared vision to always ensure our students are successfully graduating in a time frame that they consider acceptable.”
