Progress & Updates

Teams in the Office of the Registrar and Undergraduate Admissions are working hard to update the Degree Progress Report and transfer articulation rules. You can track the progress of the Degree Audit Initiative using the interactive dashboard below.

Monthly Updates

Subscribe to our monthly updates

Fall Quarter Update from VPDUE Richard Hughey

I write with an exciting update on the Degree Audit Initiative. We have made great progress on automating the recognition of transfer credit and degree progress reporting thanks to collaborations with the advising offices, Information Technology Services (ITS), and the Division of Undergraduate Education, including Campus Advising Coordination, the Office of the Registrar, and Undergraduate Admissions. These improvements will provide students with comprehensive, real-time insights into their academic progress, helping them understand what requirements they have completed and what they still need to complete. 

Seeking to better support students with increasingly complex educational histories, we are automating the recognition of articulated course work within the campus degree audit system. More than half of incoming California Community College (CCC) coursework is now covered by this project. These rules will provide students with rapid knowledge on their progression through campus academic requirements. The changes will significantly speed transfer credit evaluation and posting for new students, allowing their enrollment in courses without special permission or exceptions, relieving a significant summer workload for advisors in many programs.

Today, 85% of students using catalog years 2021-22 onward have an accurate Degree Progress Report (DPR). This means that these students, and their advisors, have self-service access to their progress and things yet to do, 24/7, so that discussions with peer mentors, academic advisors, and supporters can focus on how best to complete remaining requirements in support of their academic and life goals.

Majors, minors, and concentrations within the Division of Social Sciences are 100% completed — thank you to everyone who made this possible for your students!! By the end of October, we expect that over two-thirds of all majors, concentrations, and minors will be accurate, a massive accomplishment.

In partnership with ITS, the Degree Audit Initiative Team has worked with students and advisors to release an extensive and highly impactful visual overhaul of the DPR. The work makes clear to students and advisors current status overall (including GPA and units), the specifics of their degree objectives, and requirement status. I particularly appreciate the use of universal design principles for the new icons and formats, and the close work with ITS to ensure clarity on the desktop and mobile version of MyUCSC, and especially the detailed review in support of users who may see colors differently or who may use screen readers and other tools.

I’d like to give a big thank you to the Degree Audit Initiative Team, including Ajay Damisetti (ITS), Erica Simpkins (ITS), Paul Bauman (ITS), Christine Seely (UE), Kaci Kobayashi (Undergraduate Admissions), K Sheerin Go (Office of the Registrar), Hans von Rautenfeld (Office of the Registrar), Linnae Davenport (Office of the Registrar), Lawrence Warren (Office of the Registrar), Chris Paradies (UE), and Allison Havelda (UE), the degree audit working group, and their many partners and collaborators, for the incredible work and remarkable progress over the last several months.

Last week, in distributing the Academic Advising Council’s annual report, I asked that we all work together to ensure the full maintenance of the DPR so that all students know at all times what they have done and what they have yet to do. This transformation will only be possible with the help of all programs and colleges, working in collaboration with the degree audit team, including to identify areas that may need new processes or presentations. I thank the many advisors who have already begun using the DPR. I, and the teams involved in this initiative, are heartened to see their hard work is being put to good use for you and our students, and that adoption of the DPR as a tool to serve students is increasing.

The Degree Audit team is always receptive to ideas and feedback, by email, in meetings, and through the Student Satisfaction Survey. Since August, the team has received more than 100 student comments and suggestions, many of which are currently under development and others are planned for the future. In the coming year, we are planning to begin loading various placement exam scores into MyUCSC/AIS, allowing them to satisfy academic requirements in the DPR and enrollment prerequisites (when applicable), further reducing the need for exceptions and special enrollment permissions. Additionally we will create new reporting capabilities and allow students to see how currently enrolled courses will satisfy degree requirements. By this time next year it is our goal to have 100% of majors, concentrations, and minors to have an accurate DPR through the 2024-25 catalog.

The Degree Audit Initiative Team is continually updating its reference and training materials and the Academic Advisement Team holds weekly DPR OpenLabs to answer questions and familiarize staff users with the DPR; I invite you to access these important resources, or to contact the team, or me, with thoughts and suggestions.

Please join me in celebrating the remarkable milestones outlined above,

Richard Hughey

Vice Provost and Dean

Undergraduate Education and Global Engagement

UC Santa Cruz

August 2023

This month AA team finished updates to the 2023-24 catalog for all programs which had previously been updated to the DPR. 47% of all majors, concentrations, and minors have an accurate DPR for the 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24 catalogs. In addition to completing all of the initial updates, the DPR for the Art Department was released. With the help of our partners in ITS we launched a student satisfaction survey for the DPR. Finally, we are working with teams across the Office of the Registrar, ITS, and the Teaching and Learning Center to better represent placement exam scores in AIS. Currently placement exam scores are limited to math placement (ALEKS), however several placement exams are administered by various departments and divisions. By creating a way to load these scores into AIS we can use them for enrollment prerequisites and to satisfy requirements in the DPR. This will drastically reduce the reliance on other credit and individual exceptions.

July 2023

This month the AA Team began updating all previously updated DPRs to the newly released 2023-24 catalog. Over 70% of the initial updates to the 2023-24 catalog are complete. The user interface improvements are going through final review. These improvements will greatly enhance the usability of the DPR. Our ITS partners created two new sections in the report, Academic Summary and Academic Objectives. These sections provide a quick glance of vital information including current plans, expected graduation term, GPA, total credits, and more. We are conducting accessibility testing on these improvements, and are sending them to our mobile vendor, Pathlock, to integrate them with the mobile version of MyUCSC. Our team has targeted the beginning of fall quarter for release.

June 2023

With June's updates, 50% of UCSC students now have an updated DPR. With the 2023-24 General Catalog publishing in July, we are pausing new updates to further update all previously released DPRs. Our partners in ITS were able to compile data on DPR usage.  A slide deck with more details is available . This usage data further reaffirms the importance of this work and the use of the tool going forward.  Transfer credit rules for nine additional schools are on the pathway to production. These nine schools account for 19% of all transfer credit received from California Community Colleges in Fall 2022. Combined with the 14 schools moved into production in May, the equivalent of 47% of all CCC transfer credit is covered by these updated rules.

May 2023

This month we reached the one year anniversary of the project and have exciting milestones to share.  At the end of May, updated transfer articulation rules for 14 schools were moved into production. These 14 schools accounted for roughly 30% of all courses transferred from California Community Colleges in Fall 2022. With recent releases at the end of last month, one-third of all majors, concentrations, and minors have been updated to the new DPR. Finally, a new section of the Degree Audit Project website is being developed which features resources and training materials for both students and staff. We anticipate rolling that out in June.

April 2023

Visual modifications to the Academic Advisement module have been created in the developmental environments of AIS. We will be soliciting feedback from advisors and students on these changes to share with our ITS partners.  Transfer Articulation Rules for 15 California Community Colleges are on their path to production. These schools account for roughly 40% of the Fall 2022 incoming transfer cohort.  DPRs continue to be updated with over 10 additional majors, minors, and concentrations releasing in the next one to two weeks.  Finally, we are in the preliminary stages of requesting an update to the existing Statistics and Senior Residency sections of the DPR. These two sections are PeopleSoft modifications that display UC GPA, cumulative credits, pass/no-pass percentages, and senior residency compliance. These important requirements will be moved to the top of the DPR and add additional requested information such as current program status, expected graduation term, and academic plans. Our hope is that these types of continued improvements will solidify the DPR as a one-stop location for all degree requirements.

March 2023

A steering committee has been established for the Degree Audit Project consisting of key partners from the Office of the Registrar, Undergraduate Admissions, Advising, and ITS. The committee will review recommendations made by the project team in collaboration with its stakeholders. The initial pilot programs have been released and are available to students and advisors.  The University and General Education requirements sections have also been updated for all students in the 2021-22 catalog onward.  We have developed a progress page on our website so anyone can track the status of our work at any time.

February 2023

All pilot programs have been moved to production using future effective dating. This method allows the build to exist in production while not allowing students access to the updated DPR. Going forward, our process will be to build all DPRs in production using future effective dating rather than building in the testing environment then duplicating work to move to production. We anticipate our pilot programs to be made active for advisor and student use in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 catalog years in the next month.  As reported in our January update, we worked with ITS to propose visual improvements to the entire Academic Advisement module in AIS.  Current planning estimates these improvements to be in production in the Spring Quarter.

January 2023

The degree audit has been renamed the Degree Progress Report (DPR). Though the underlying system for the audit is still the same, many changes have been made to improve the funcationality, so distancing it from the previous name, Academic Advisement Report, is necessary. We have established visual standards for the updated DPR which provide better readabiilty and understanding of degree requriements for end users. Further modifications for visaul improvements such as the use of new colors and icons, are being explored. Our pilot programs have been coded and testing is ongoing. 

December 2022

Sierra-Cedar has been working with the Academic Advisement Team to mock-up several versions of degree audits based on industry practices and the requests from advisors. We are balancing the biggest requests from our users with the feasibility and limitations of Campus Solutions (AIS/MyUCSC).

November 2022

A pilot group of programs has been determined for the inital updates to the degree audit. These are Anthropology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Computer Science and Engineering, History of Art and Visual Culture, and Literature. These five programs represent each division and a diverse range of curriculum complexity. At the end of the month Sierra-Cedar began working with the various teams of the degree audit project to understand the wants and needs of campus and the current state of the degree audit.

October 2022

We have entered into a contract with Sierra-Cedar, a consulting firm, to assist in the degree audit project. Sierra-Cedar has already been working with Undergraduate Admissions on the transfer articulation rule building project. Having one consultant for both pieces of the Degree Audit Project will ensure cohesion between the two integral parts. Sierra-Cedar will guide the teams across UE, Office of the Registrar, and Undergraduate Admissions to update all degree audits, provide training and documentation, implement automated graduation processes, and other technical modifications in PeopleSoft. The Degree Audit Working Group was formed and consists of 16 major and college advisors and preceptors. This working group gives a space for advisors to provide feedback and input in the degree audit project. The project team has also been working through processes with the Office of the Registrar on situations where the degree audit deviates from the published catalog, and how to establish communication channels between programmers, departments, and students.

September 2022

The Degree Audit Team has worked closely with the Academic Advisement Team in the Office of the Registrar and Processing and Articulations team in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to increase communication and transparency into each others processes. Admissions continues its work with Sierra-Cedar to create transfer credit rules. The Academic Advisement Team is creating a processes to more easily track curricular changes from year to year and is developing a coding schema template to serve as the foundation for all current and future AAR updates.

August 2022

The Academic Advisement Team in the Registrar's Office is now fully staffed and new hires are training in the Academic Advising module. Admissions is making progress with their transfer credit rule buidling project with the aid of their Sierra-Cedar consultants. The work will pull data from assist.org and create transfer credit rules which automate many of the current manual processes. The project is on track to complete on time in December 2022.

July 2022

Work began in June 2022 on the degree audit overhaul project. Team members have been working with partners in Admissions, the Registrar's Office, and Advising to assess the scope of the project and the many inputs that go into the degree audit. It is clear there are several inefficient processes which hinder AAR updates, cause duplicative work for advisors, and leads to a poor user experience for both staff and students. The team is compiling relavent data to inform its first steps.