We need several updates to our college Student database and Applicant Review database that are instigated by state reporting requirements. Our plan is to implement these changes to meet reporting goals while improving the clarity and utility of the college databases for their primary purposes: advising students and reviewing applications.
Basic Skills Assessment
The college needs to provide test scores as evidence of basic skills competency for students applying to programs that lead to Washington state teacher certification.
Our implementation will start by configuring which programs generally lead to certification and show expected certification, basic skills, and prerequisites on the relevant application pages. Where specific certification and endorsements follow from the program records will be generated automatically. Student Services staff will have the option to adjust or remove certification from specific applications (e.g. student is applying to a certification path program, but not pursuing certification).
Finally the system will automatically match applicable test scores to basic skills categories following a selection priority provided by the college.
Placement Record Updates
Placement records in the college Student database will be updated to support reporting while simplifying the fields of a Placement record. We’ve eliminated fields that were unused or that could be reported at program level.
Reporting requirements have changed for cooperating teacher mentors that work with our students. Our college database will be updated to collect the right information and expose missing data.
Applicant Enrolled
We are adjusting the system so it displays the fact that applicants have enrolled earlier. This will help support onboarding and add clarity about what will happen to specific applications when retention period passes (for enrolled applicants, important material will be available in the college Student database).
Tracked Issues
Several flags and notes in Applicant Review become “Tracked Issues” in the college Student database when an applicant enrolls. But that life-cycle is ambiguous.
We are adding a “Tracked Issue” feature to Applicant Review and those tracked issues (and only those) will become part of the Student record at enrollment. Having a component with the same name and same behavior in both systems should make the life-cycle easier to understand.
Reports
We will be adding several new reports to these two college database that highlight missing records or problem areas. This will help staff research and complete the records and surface issues that need attention.