About the Initiative

 

The degree audit is a tool which takes several inputs including, but not limited to, enrolled courses, transfer and exam credit, program curricula, and individual advising approvals, and turns it into usable reports to show degree progress, plan future enrollment, aid in student success projects, and streamline manual processes. The scope of the Degree Audit Initiative is two fold: 1) to update and maintain the Degree Progress Report and simplify its use, and 2) update and maintain transfer credit rules to work toward faster transfer credit finalization.

The large scope of the project includes key stakeholders in Undergraduate Education, ITS, the Office of the Registrar, the Office of Admissions, the Academic Senate, and Disciplinary Divisions. Key constituents of this project are students, college and major advisors, and divisional curriculum analysts. Though these are the groups most likely to use the degree audit, a truly robust system will provide use cases for nearly all students, staff, and faculty on campus. Throughout the project, input from these groups will be crucial to stay on time to project completion and ensure the end result is one that meets the needs of our campus.

Degree Audit Project

Though they share the same name, the Degree Audit Project is a piece of the greater Degree Audit Initiative. The goal of the Degree Audit Project is to update the Degree Progress Report (DPR, formerly known as the Academic Advisement Report, or AAR), from the 2021-22 catalog onward. This includes updating every major, concentration, and minor within those catalog years. In addition to updating the DPR, processes will be put in place that ensure annual maintenance is performed on the DPR to ensure its accuracy with each new published catalog. The project goals are:

• Provide electronic degree audit capability for all undergraduate majors, minors, and colleges by Fall 2025
• Provide students, staff, and faculty an intuitive user interface to access accurate and complete degree progress
• Provide staff an intuitive interface to access aggregate degree completion information
• Reduce manual effort required by staff to support the degree audit by 30%
• Create realistic plans for maintaining degree audit data into the future and provide transparency into the process
• Improve cross-campus collaboration in support of degree audit

Transfer Credit Rule Building Project 

Transfer rules are one of the most important inputs to the degree audit. With a significant percentage of incoming students each year bringing some transfer credit, it is crucial this be processed as soon as possible so students know how their courses will count toward their degree. To make this process faster and more accurate, the Transfer Credit Rule Building Project aims to update and maintain transfer rules for all California Community Colleges (CCC).

• Update transfer articulation rules for all California Community Colleges
• Create a plan to maintain transfer articulation rules into the future
• Reduce time and effort required for admissions staff to clear records/process transfer credit by 30%
• Increase adoption of course articulations across campus

Update	Improve	Expand
Update degree audit for all programs to the current catalog year Update transfer articulation rules through the current academic year Maintain up-to-date status through improvements to processes and policies Explore changes to catalog update process	Implement new processes which streamline all inputs to the degree audit Create a more user-friendly visual experience Improve logic to create a smarter, more dynamic degree audit Add additional features where desired and feasible	Consider the implementation of additional software which leverages the DPR in Peoplesoft Potential new features could be designing degree plans, building schedules, and automating manual processes