As chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures (FLLT)
Undergraduate Studies Committee, Jorge Cubillos' challenge is to plan
and implement courses of study and ensure that accurate information reaches
students, faculty and advisors.
While some online advising tools exist—UDNotes, Advance Registration
Advisement Express, Senior Checkout Express—none specifically
help students navigate requirements and develop a structure for their
entire program. Because of this, Cubillos was motivated to develop a
new online tool that better helps students and their advisors plan coursework.
"I was
interested in devising ways of assisting undergraduate students to navigate
through our Major requirements.
Inspired by existing online financial programs, I set out to find a
way to empower undergraduate students to make similar 'calculations'
about their course work," says Cubillos.
Now, Spanish
majors have access to the web-based UD Online
Advisement Planner, a program designed to help students explore
the ideal paths and options leading to graduation.
Students
respond to a series of questions about their preferences and academic
background (desired courses, study abroad destinations, projected graduation
date, etc.). The Online Advisor then provides the student with a layout
of courses leading to graduation. The plan of courses can be printed
or forwarded through email.
"This tool has the 'collective knowledge and wisdom'
of every advisor in our department," says Cubillos. "Now,
all students have access to this wisdom, and can reliably explore their
coursework options whenever and wherever they want. Advisors are called
on to provide follow up and resolve problems."
Cubillos' initiative required
the expertise of department advisors and technology personnel, as well
as the staff of the PRESENT, who programmed the tool. This year-long
concerted effort produced the UD Online Advisement Planner, which
can be modified to suit the needs of any department.
To make the Advisement Planner
available to students, Cubillos "first had to gather the
necessary
course data. Second, I met with our technology people to come up with
a possible structure for this advisement tool. Third, I involved the
entire Spanish faculty in the review of the pertinent data . Then, I
turned to the PRESENT for programming help."
PRESENT staff
member Jeff Whisler used PHP3 to program the tool, which works in conjunction
with a MySQL database. To make its use possible, FLLT needed its own
server with PHP3 and MySQL installed. The department developed the database
of course information necessary to make the tool useful. Using a database
facilitates the process of updating course offerings as they change
over time.
After the program was ready, "I had to implement Jeff's program in
our server environment which already runs PHP and MySQL, and create the
appropriate database," said Tom McCone, Director of the Foreign
Language Media Center.
"The program's
knowledge of each of the Spanish options covered by the planner is hard
coded, which means that it must be revised substantially by a programmer
to be serviceable for other course requirement structures," added McCone.
According to Janet de Vry,
Manager, Instructional Services, User Services, the
tool is still being refined, but eventually will be available for customization
by other departments. In
general, departments interested in implementing Cubillos tool will need
the following technical specifications to run the online advisor:
- a
departmental server
(any platform)
- system
administrator (an understanding of PHP and MYSQL helpful)
- MySQL
database
- knowledge
of HTML to code some departmental specific information.
If your department
has these resources and a faculty or staff member able to devote the
necessary time to gathering the department specific information, contact
the PRESENT to discuss how
to get started.
Jorge Cubillos