2015-2016 Office of the Registrar Annual Report

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2015-2016

ANNUAL REPORT



FROM THE

REGISTRAR The Office of the Registrar has been actively engaged with the campus community this past year, and as such I am very pleased to share our 2015-2016 Annual Report. This report highlights a few of our collaborative efforts and accomplishments. As a service organization for the University, the Office of the Registrar has the fortunate opportunity to be involved in many facets of University life. I hope you will find this Annual Report informative, and as always, I invite you to contact me if you have questions or comments that you wish to discuss.

Our time and attention this past year was guided by the goals, objectives, and tactics outlined in our 2014-2017 Strategic Plan. These goals focus on our commitment to increasing four-year graduation rates, staff excellence, productivity and efficiency, providing effective technology solutions, customer service, effective use of our fiscal resources, and ensuring accuracy and integrity in operations. These are fundamental to consistently carrying out our responsibilities in a proactive and conscientious manner. More information about our Strategic Plan, who we are, and general information about the Office of the Registrar is available on our web site (http://registrar.utexas.edu/about/). The pages that follow highlight just a few of the accomplishments this past year, and by no means, is an exhaustive list. Of particular note is these initiatives were accomplished due to the participation and strong partnership with many sectors of the University

community. The Registrar’s Office is quite fortunate to work with so many talented and committed students, faculty, and staff across the institution. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of these projects as well as the activities for which the office is routinely involved.

Our attention now turns to the 2016-2017 academic year. The upcoming year will build upon our accomplishments from 2015-2016 and also allow us to look ahead as we begin work on crafting our 2017-2020 Strategic Plan. While it is too early to know for sure what is store for us between now and 2020, we do know we will continue adherence to our core values: accuracy, integrity, customer service, communication, and teamwork. I appreciate the strong relationships that the Office of the Registrar has developed with our campus partners in serving the University of Texas at Austin community. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about any of our services or if you have suggestions regarding how we may better meet the needs of our campus. All the best,

V. Shelby Stanfield Vice Provost and University Registrar


Our Mission

The mission of the Office of the Registrar at the University of Texas at Austin is to create, maintain, certify, and protect University records of courses, degrees, and students.

Our Vision

The Office of the Registrar strives to • Recognize the importance of each person we serve. • Hold the trust and confidence of students, faculty, and staff for our quality of work, collaborative solutions, and administrative foresight. • Care for our employees by promoting a friendly and stimulating office environment with opportunities for professional development. • Earn national respect for excellence in academic services and our use of technology to benefit our campus and the higher education community.

Our Values

The Office of the Registrar emphasizes • Accuracy, to maintain exceptional quality in our records and processes. • Integrity, to demand responsibility, confidentiality, and honesty in our work. • Customer Service, to help people in a timely and caring way. • Communication, to share expertise and listen to our clients and each other. • Teamwork, to foster a collaborative work environment and coordinate the intricacies of our collective mission.

Our Core Functions

The core functions of the Office of the Registrar include • Campus Support Activities • Catalog Production • Certification of Athletic Eligibility • Course Inventory Administration • Course Scheduling • Degree Audit • Diploma Services • Document Management • Enrollment Certification • Final Exams • Registration • Room Scheduling • Student Academic Records • Transcript Services • University Academic Calendar • Veteran Certification

The Provost’s Mission

The primary mission of the Provost’s Office is to secure the vitality of the University’s academic life, to foster the intellectual well-being of students, staff and faculty, and to marshal and allocate resources in support of academic excellence, and in doing so, to serve as an educational asset for the benefit of the state and the nation.

The University of Texas at Austin Core Purpose To transform lives for the benefit of society.




GOAL 1

FOUR YEAR GRADUATION RATES & STUDENT SUCCESS 1.A.1 MyUT UT Austin launched a new student portal called MyUT (my.utexas.edu) in June 2016. The 8,500 new students who attended orientation this summer were encouraged to use MyUT as their landing page, and it will serve as a central site for finding all the online services that a student could typically need, including applying for financial aid, paying tuition bills, reading secure academic notes, and registering for classes. The Office of the Registrar assisted MyUT by providing student specific data concerning registration dates and bars. Bars are both financial and non-financial and will prevent a student from registering for classes: an example is a bar for failing to update emergency contact information yearly. By making the existence of any bars prominent on MyUT, and by making the number of days until registration prominent, we hope to enhance student readiness for registration without unnecessary delays. The outreach via the student portal also aligns with strategic goal 5: enhance customer service through strong partnership with the academic community. Efforts to ensure students will register as early as possible, unhindered by complications such as bars, align with strategic goal 1: Four-Year Graduate Rate and Student Success.

1.C.1 New Room Scheduling Software Scheduling of institutional space has a significant impact on affordability, as a large portion of the core operating costs at a typical institution relates to effective use of classrooms. The most direct way to improve time to completion of a degree is to ensure students can get seats in the courses they need. We developed and published a Request for Proposal this past year for room scheduling software that will help us optimize classroom space using a variety of algorithms and provide analytics in regard to the scheduling of general purpose classrooms. We were able to select a vendor that will best fit the complexity, wide variety, and unique needs of a Tier 1 research, AAU institution such as ours. Our next steps will be to begin the purchase process. Once purchased, we will fully develop a project management plan that will define our implementation timeline, requirements, and major milestones of each phase, and help us ensure successful and seamless implementation of the software.


1.D.1 Registration Improvements and Reports

Over the past year, the Office of the Registrar implemented changes to registration and reporting functionality in support of University initiatives surrounding course availability. These changes, most notable during new student orientation, allowed students attending orientation to register only during their orientation week. This change provided students who attended later orientation sessions the ability to register for classes without the potential of students from earlier orientation competing for the same classes. In addition, the Registrar’s Office worked collaboratively with the four-year help desk to provide data and reports regarding course availability and demand so that the University could better plan for and schedule additional sections as needed for students to register.

Thank you for all you do to support the students of UT. It was an honor and a pleasure to collaborate with you all this summer at the UT Services Desk. Thanks in large part to your problem solving, many a student left orientation feeling supported and with a solution in hand. We are fortunate to have colleagues like you! — CASSANDRE ALVARADO, Director of Special Initiatives in Enrollment and Graduation Management, and the Graduation Help Desk Team




1.E.2 Removal of the undergraduate in absentia fee In response to the four-year graduate rate initiatives, the Office of the Registrar implemented the removal of the $25 fee for undergraduate students registering in absentia, initiated by the Educational Policy Committee and approved by the President in May 2015. The purpose of removing in absentia fee was in acknowledgement of reducing potential financial impact on students, allowing them to finalize the graduation process. The Office of the Registrar continues to work closely with college representatives to explore opportunities to support the University’s four-year graduate rate goal and student success and removing this fee represents just one small example of this.


GOAL 2

STAFF EXCELLENCE 2.A.3 Stretch assignments, cross-training and staff rotation Investing in the staff of the Office of the Registrar is an important element of staff excellence within the Office. Members of the management team frequently facilitate and provide opportunities for staff to participate in stretch assignments and cross-training to assist in the staff members’ professional, knowledge, growth, and development. The Office of the Registrar values and strives to emulate an environment that is collaborative, thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating, and inquisitive. Staff are encouraged to understand the “why” behind what we do along with the “how” of the services we provide to our campus community.

2.A.4 Classes, Workshops, Conferences The Registrar’s Office encourages the use of currently available professional development resources by organizing group training opportunities It’s an exciting and unprecedented time to work at the University; we are amidst a multitude of significant and simultaneous change on multiple fronts across our institution. With these innovations and new ideas comes the need for the ability to balance our attention to the ongoing operations of our core functions, apply creativity and ingenuity to improving our services, provide assistance and support to others on campus as they work, and play a crucial role in advancing key initiatives for the University.



On-going training and professional development is essential for our success in achieving our mission as it relates to the University and our campus stakeholders. Everyone in our office, from entry-level staff to senior management are encouraged to seek out opportunities as they are able. Over the past year, we have actively sought out and accessed the wealth of high-quality and free training on Lynda. com across the office. We find it is an excellent

resource that many staff can use and collaborate to find new ways to excel. We’ve also arranged group training sessions for ASMP software releases, such as UTLearn, customizing the training to the needs of our office for efficient and effective group training opportunities. Finally, as management schedules are jam-packed, we’ve scheduled our own internal ‘lunch and learn’-type free training over lunch for our management team, watching and dis-


cussing webcasts on topics such as managing diverse teams. This provides a relaxed, social setting in which we can share a group professional development experience amongst our management team without requiring us all to be away from the office simultaneously during a busy work day.



GOAL 3

PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY 3.A.4 Core Curriculum Undergraduate students are required to satisfy a set number of credit hours in core areas such as history, communication, and math in order to graduate from a public university in Texas. Much work was done this year to streamline how UT manages the state core curriculum. Credit for having taken courses which satisfy the state-mandated core curriculum requirement will be attached to students’ permanent academic records- as of Fall, 2016. Previously core credit was attached to a list of courses as specified in a specific catalog, and since the list could be altered the student was not guaranteed to retain core curriculum credit if the student changed to another catalog. As of Fall, 2016, students will be guaranteed to

keep any core curriculum credit at the time in which it was earned. Additional changes have been made to ensure that classes that satisfy the same degree requirements will bequeath the same core curriculum credit even if only one of the courses was officially designated as a “core” course. Changes were also made to optimally evaluate transferred course work for awarding students core curriculum credit. These changes to the granting and recording of core curriculum credit also aligns strategic plan goal 1: Four-Year Graduate Rate and Student Success and at the same time greatly simplifies and streamlines our administration of the core curriculum.

The recent addition to the registrar’s course record system of core curriculum indicators, or “core attributes”, for each course approved to count in the core curriculum is a tremendous improvement on many fronts. This will help all undergraduate students seeking to fulfill core requirements know during registration which courses will fulfill each core area, it will allow advisers to help students select courses more efficiently, it will greatly increase degree audit speed and accuracy, and it will support the addition of core course markers on UT Austin transcripts. The School of Undergraduate Studies views this development as one of the most significant changes in student records management on this campus in many years. — LARRY ABRAHAM, Associate Dean, School of Undergraduate Studies


3.A.2 Expansion of veteran portal to encompass Hazlewood exemption recipients We expanded the veteran portal to include all students who receive Hazlewood exemption. Historical information of all students who received exemptions since fall 1995 was moved into this portal; in addition, the system also supports adding new students by assigning guest EID’s to veterans who have never been students at this institution. The status of the file of an applicant requesting Hazlewood exemption can be tracked from receipt to completion. This allows other staff members outside the Office of the Registrar to access this data and help students with their questions. A feature added to this portal gives us the ability to effectively communicate with the Office of Accounting the eligibility of a student for posting exemption to the tuition bill, without use of paper. Access to easily downloaded reports from this portal allows monitoring of workload and provides a way to share data when requested by other offices. Some of the other functionalities included are to auto-update Hazlewood hours and amounts used by Hazlewood exemption recipients from the tuition bill. Administrators within the office have full control of running a report to retrieve data in the format required by the Texas Veteran Commission allowing us to meet important deadlines.

3.A.5 PDF Transcripts Over the course of this past year the Office of the Registrar has been working to create a secured PDF transcript option for current and former University of Texas at Austin students.

This new service, based on the DocuSign software suite, will provide students an option for same day transcript delivery without the use or cost of an expedited shipping service. The PDF transcript will have the exact appearance and formatting as the traditional paper transcripts mailed from Office of the Registrar. The student requesting the transcript will create and send to the recipient an access code that is required to receive and open the PDF file. Once the PDF transcript has been opened it will be viewable for 30 days. Additional security controls include removing the ability for the PDF transcript to be copied, saved, or printed. Neither the request, nor the delivery of the PDF transcript will require manual intervention from the Office of the Registrar; this will lead to increased effectiveness and efficiency of transcript operations. The PDF transcript option will be available Fall 2016.

3.B.1 Minors A new University minor credential for will be available for students to pursue effective fall 2016 as specified in the 2016-2018 Undergraduate Catalog. In November 2012, the Senate of College Councils passed S.R. 1211; IN SUPPORT OF A COMPREHENSIVE MINOR POLICY. The Office of the Registrar has been actively engaged and working with the minors workgroup, which includes representatives from all undergraduate colleges, to design, develop, and implement systems and processes to support this new academic credential. To date, the Committee on Undergraduate Degree Program Review has approved 74 new minors and certificates. Students will be able to search for minors, apply for minors, and work with their major




college advisors to add a minor to their appropriate major degree plan. Students and advisors will be able to run a single degree audit to reflect the major and minor requirements to see the student’s progress towards degree. At the time of graduation, minors that are attached and conferred with the student’s major will show up on the student’s transcript. More information about minors can be found at http://registrar.utexas.edu/staff/minors.

3.B.3 Dell Medical School First class day for our new Dell Medical School (DMS) students was June 27, 2016. Working closely with colleagues from the Dell Medical School, Student Accounts Receivables, Office of Financial Aid, Institutional Reporting Research and Information Systems, we successfully rolled out the initial processes and systems to load the DMS curriculum and student records in our student information system, registered the students for their first summer/fall 2016 term, and coordinated with campus partners to see their financial aid was packaged and their tuition bills were generated and payments received. Next, we now have projects underway to receive and record grades for their first term as well as generate transcripts, publish the DMS academic calendar, and compile and publish the policies comprising the DMS catalog. Each of these are slated for a December 2016 production date.


GOAL 4

STRATEGIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS 4.A.1 CourseLeaf Improvements This year we completed a conversion from a non-standard format to a more standardized format for receiving electronically transmitted data from CourseLeaf, the vendor that hosts our online course inventory management system. We also took over some of the business processes that had been anomalies for the vendor to maintain. These changes should reduce data errors and simplify maintenance in the short run, and they are a significant step toward positioning our inventory for a conversion to a new SIS in the next few years. Our inventory currently contains over 9,000 active courses. Goal 1.B (Four-year Graduation Rate: Assess and modify University catalog and degree plans to increase usability) stipulates that a major goal is “to implement solutions that will allow processes to be more flexible, responsive, and agile to meet the changing needs of the campus.” The ability to receive inventory data in a format standard to most other universities reduces the time spent reconciling our inventory with the vendor’s database. Controlling business processes such as updating CIP codes on our end also reduces confusion and maintenance delays, thereby allowing us to finish processing of new inventory with accuracy and timeliness.




4.A.1 Reverse Transfer with NSC We just completed our first full year of using the National Student Clearinghouse Reverse Transfer data exchange platform to support Texas’ degree completion agenda. Now three semesters later (fall 2015, spring 2016, and summer 2016), we send each semester an average of 10,000 transfer student records from over 200, two-year institutions to the Clearinghouse to determine eligibility for an associate degree. This process greatly simplifies and streamlines our current process for supporting reverse transfer as required by HB 3025 (2011). Reverse Transfer is the transfer of credits from a fouryear institution to any two-year institution from which a student transferred. It doesn’t matter if the student transferred across state lines. If eligible, the student is awarded an associate degree.

Last year, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board announced their new higher education plan, 60x30TX. The plan strives for 60 percent of the 25- to 34-year old Texas population to hold a certificate or degree by 2030. Our approach to reverse transfer will contribute significantly to the State’s 60x30TX goal. Lone Star College was thrilled to have worked with University of Texas at Austin on a national solution to receive and process reverse transfer transcripts. Not only does the NSC solution cross state boundaries, but it also expedites the process of evaluating the transcripts, executing the degree audits, and awarding the degrees – all leading to increased student completion. Lone Star College was able to graduate 42 University of Texas at Austin students because of reverse transfer. — CONNIE GARRICK, Lone Star College System Director of Records and Enrollment Services/Registrar


GOAL 5

CUSTOMER SERVICE 5.A.2 CONNECT Sessions A key aspect of our office’s commitment to staff excellence is a focus on expanding opportunities to assist employees in achieving their professional goals. One of the ways we do this is through our monthly CONNECT sessions. This year over twenty-nine registrar staff volunteered to participate by leading general topic sessions available to all staff. Conducted on the first Tuesday of every month, CONNECT ses-

sions provide an opportunity for staff to learn from one another, hone their public speaking skills, share takeaways from professional meetings and conferences, and expand our awareness and understanding of topics outside our immediate area of responsibility. This past year CONNECT Sessions were offered on the following topics: • Discussion of Reverse Transfer • Updates on Canvas and How it Affects Our Scheduling Department • Generational Differences in the Workplace • NCAA conference feedback • Takeaways from the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers conference


• Putting Your Strengths to Work • Takeaways from the Southern Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers conference • Professional Development Day feedback • Lynda.com • Dynamic Communication – Clearly Communicate with Others • Thriving in the Chaos of Change While attending CONNECT sessions is completely voluntary, these sessions have become one of the cornerstones of our office’s staff development program.


5.A Enhance customer service through strong partnership with the academic community

The Registrar User Request Advisory Committee (RURAC), composed of college representatives from outside the Registrar’s Office, was created to assess and prioritize special requests submitted by the schools and colleges. David Platt, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in the McCombs School of Business, chairs the committee. RURAC has reviewed and prioritized over 100 requests from across campus, and as a result the Office of the Registrar implemented a new Waitlist Notification System which allows waitlist administrators to send a secured academic note (SAN) to students on a waitlist for a class (i.e., individual unique number) or all waitlists for a course. In addition, early in the Fall 2016, the Registrar’s Office implemented changes to the on-line course schedule which ceased showing classes as waitlisted on the Course Schedule after the 4th class day. Also, students were notified on the 4th class day, via a SAN, that waitlists are no longer being processed and as such they will not be promoted via the waitlist system.

After being initiated by the Registrar in Fall 2015, the Registrar User Request Advisory Committee (RURAC) has been effective in prioritizing and promoting key user-generated requests for system changes. The functionality of the current system might easily be overlooked amid higher-profile projects like the medical school, and yet it is critical to the experience of our students and the efforts of our staff. I applaud the Registrar for creating and supporting this group. — DAVID PLATT, Associate Dean for the Undergraduate Program, Red McCombs School of Business




GOAL 6

REVENUE TO ENHANCE OPERATIONS 6.A.3 Transcript fee Effective fall 2016, the transcript fee has been raised to $20 per transcript from $10. It has been fifteen years since the transcript fee was raised; the $10 rate was set in 2001. This revenue covers various aspects of the operating and technical expenses related to the administration of the student academic record. The transcript is a representation of the student academic record. The Office of the Registrar is the official data custodian for student data at UT-Austin. This responsibility means we are the primary campus department responsible for producing ‘official’ University documents displaying student academic records; including transcripts. Examples of official University documents include: (1) official & unofficial transcripts, (2) academic summaries, (3) diplomas, (4) degree verifications, (5) enrollment verifications, (6) third-party certifications, and (7) notary service of university-related documents. As technology continues to offer solutions to meet the needs of a modern student and institution, the Office of the Registrar recognizes a major reinvestment strategy is needed to keep up with the staffing and technology costs associated with managing the student academic record and related document services. In addition, there is a shift on the reliance of paper-based documents to one that requires official


data to be portable, accurate, authenticated, reliable, and secured for students, campus data consumers, and external resources. These requirements create a need for significant technology upgrades and result in a lasting trend of diminished demand for the traditional paper-based official documents. These combined impacts an Office of the Registrar funding model used to provide student and curriculum data, including infrastructure support.




2015-2016 ACADEMIC YEAR

BY THE NUMBERS Transcripts Issued Grades Processed

Registration Documents Imaged Grade Changes

Certifications Issued Diplomas Issued

Documents scanned into the Imaging System Course Inventory Changes

90,410

457,800 26,369 13,206 11,961 14,939 92,729 5,179

Event Reservations

31,147

Classes Scheduled

26,954

Course Schedule Changes CSU Requests Processed

Hazelwood Exemptions Processed GI Bill Requests Processed

11,189 10,248 2,402 2,061


2015-2016 ACADEMIC YEAR

COMMITTEE PARTICIPATION Academic Calendar Committee Academic Counselors Association Administrative IT Leaders Group Administrative Business Leaders Admissions and Registration Committee of Faculty Council ASMP 2.0 Steering Committee ASMP 2.0 Customer Steering Committee ASMP 2.0 Student Module Liaison ASMP 2.0 Integrations SME and IT group Association of Student Affairs Professionals Business Services Committee Campus Safety and Security Committee Canvas LMS Steering Committee Committee on Undergraduate Degree Program Review Compliance Officers Group Council on Academic Support Programs Course Availability Registration Slotting Committee Curriculum Management Committee Data Governance Committee Degree Audit Users Group, chair Document Management Customer Services Committee Educational Policy Committee Enrollment Management Policy Implementation Group, chair Identify and Access Management Committee ITS Analyst Training Program Education Team ITS Education Program Advisory Group ITS Software Developer/Analyst Apprentice Committee Legislative Review Committee Minors Work Group, chair MyUT Portal Group Online Policy Task Force Policy Office Advisory Group Proposal Tracking Committee Provost’s Office Communication Group Python Infrastructure Advisory Group Registrar User Request Advisory Committee SIS Executive Steering Committee SIS Selection Advisory Group Staff Council Student Dean’s Committee Technology Classroom Committee Undergraduate Management Council Veterans Services Committee Workday Design Partner Group




2015-2016 ACADEMIC YEAR

SPECIAL REQUESTS The Office of the Registrar filled special requests received from the following: Assistant Deans Council Continuing and Innovative Education Cockrell School of Engineering College of Education College of Fine Arts College of Liberal Arts College of Natural Sciences College of Pharmacy Dean of Students – New Student Services Degree Audit Users Group Dell Medical School Division of Recreational Sports Graduate Coordinators Network Graduate School Information Technology Services International Office Office of Student Financial Services Project 2021 School of Nursing School of Undergraduate Studies Services for Students with Disabilities Student Government/Senate of College Councils Student Success Initiatives Texas Athletics University Health Services


Web Site

registrar.utexas.edu

Mailing Address

The University of Texas at Austin Office of the Registrar PO Box 7216 Austin, TX 78713-7216

Campus Location

Main Building, Room 1 Campus Mail: Registrar, M5507

Phone Number 512-475-7575

Fax Numbers Administrative Certification Transcripts

512-475-7515 512-475-7520 512-475-7681

Office Hours

Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm

PHOTOS BY MARSHA MILLER


Campus Support Activities 512-475-7510

Catalog Production 512-475-7607 offpubs@austin.utexas.edu

Certification of Athletic Eligibility 512-475-7634 athcert@austin.utexas.edu

Enrollment Certification

512-475-7644 studentacademicrecords@austin.utexas.edu

Final Exams

512-475-7600 scheduling@austin.utexas.edu

Registration

512-475-7656 registration@austin.utexas.edu

Course Inventory Administration

Room Scheduling and Final Exams

Course Scheduling

Student Academic Records

Degree Audit

Transcript Services

512-475-7607 offpubs@austin.utexas.edu 512-475-7604 course.schedule@austin.utexas.edu 512-475-7618 degreeaudit@austin.utexas.edu

Diploma Services

512-475-7619 diplomas@austin.utexas.edu

Document Management 512-475-7678 david.cole@austin.utexas.edu

512-475-7600 scheduling@austin.utexas.edu

512-475-7644 studentacademicrecords@austin.utexas.edu 512-475-7689 transcripts@austin.utexas.edu

University Academic Calendar registrar.utexas.edu/calendars

Veteran Certification

512-475-7540 certification@austin.utexas.edu


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