Graphic by Ethan Gerling The University of Indianapolis has been working on a new project that allows students to check their progress in their classes.
DegreeWorks is an online tool that is designed to help students, advisors and faculty, help monitor the progress towards a student’s degree completion, according to the My.UIndy page established for program. Students who started at UIndy before the 2017-2018 academic year will not have access to the program.
DegreeWorks includes information such as students’ GPA, courses they have taken, their degree progress and requirements, classes they could take to fulfill their requirements and a GPA calculator.
The degree requirements come from UIndy’s curriculum guides. The program also includes a “What if?” option, according to Frequently Asked Questions guide on My.UIndy. This option is designed to show students what could happen if they wanted to change majors or minors or add classes.
According to Registrar Joshua Hayes, students are not the only ones benefiting from this new program. Advisors are also jumping on this opportunity to help out their advisees.
“It’s an easy program for the students,” Hayes said. “Even the advisors find it helpful for themselves. It tells them almost the exact information to give to their students. It’s a win-win.”
According to Hayes, this program helps arm students with tools for their success. He said it is helpful for a student to know what their requirements are and how much they are progressing in a certain amount of time.
“We did have a degree audit system with very limited functionality that had actually been discontinued, no longer supported by the venue. So in some ways we went to DegreeWorks because that technology was going away,” Hayes said. “But really, DegreeWorks offers so much more in terms of the information we can provide the students.”
Faculty have been working with DegreeWorks since Fall 2017. According to Assistant Director Center for Advising and Student Achievement Sunni Manges, it has not been an easy project. The time and dedication the faculty has put in is what made the program a success.
“It’s been a long and tedious process,” Manges said. “But we’ve really taken the time to make sure the tool is accurate, effective, and reliable. As students and faculty advisors begin to explore DegreeWorks, I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised by the amount of logic built into the audit system.”
As of right now, only freshmen and sophomores have access to DegreeWorks. This is because of the limited amount of space in the systems, upperclassmen do not have access to the program so their audits are still completed the previous way.
“It’s kind of a bummer that I don’t get to see what it’s like,” senior social work major Sara Tuttle said. “But I’m leaving soon so it doesn’t really affect me that much.”
Sophomore history major Charlotte Plake said she thinks that the software is brilliant because of how easy and user-friendly it is.
“It’s quick and easy to check what core and major requirements I have left to complete,” Plake said. “It even has a ‘What-If’ category. You can get on it and enter in something you would like to explore. You can see what it would be like if you were to switch majors but you’re not actually changing it.”
