EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE
Minutes
October 18, 2007
Attending: H. Dettmer (Chair), M. Gilbert, K. Hall (committee staff),
J. Menninger, M. Niño-Murcia, M. Reagan, A. Segre
Excused Absence: S. Birrell, J. Cox, R. Honey, R. Ketterer, J. Kimberley (student member)
Guests: Guests Tom Kruckeberg and Julie Fell, the Office of the Registrar; Jane Omann, the Registration Center; Sue Nickels, Information Technology Services, Administrative Information Systems
- The minutes from October 11 were approved with a minor correction.
- Tom Kruckeberg began by summarizing progress currently being made to replace “the thirty year-old home grown mainframe-base student information system with a new integrated web-based system,” referred to as MAUI (Made at The University of Iowa). This “ hybrid or “best of breed” system” allows “integration of currently available software products into UI-developed components.” Rather than buying a complete system from a vendor, UI is creating a system that fulfills the needs of the University rather than the University changing its practices to fit the sometimes limiting ability of software now being used by a many other institutions. Some schools have been very unhappy with these products and have spent great time and effort trying to undo their limitations. In the long run, UI is better off spending the time now to get a workable system. Aspects of MAUI have already been launched in Admissions and in, for example, the new workflow course approval process. A course repository is now being built for all course information and this repository will feed into other systems such as those that check for prerequisites and/or construct degree audits.
Sue Nickels showed EPC what a new degree audit might look like, and EPC was impressed with the amount of information on the audit and its readability. The audit also has a print feature, and in the future will have the ability to print audits for a group of students. For now, it is very important to get a simpler format launched, adding to its complexity as resources permit. For example, EPC members appreciated the graphs and charts on the degree audit showing a student’s progress, noting that the information given to students visually can be very meaningful. This might need to be a second-generation addition because of the resources required to construct this information for each student.
EPC next looked at the issue of prerequisites and co-requisites, with Tom Kruckeberg suggesting that these somewhat confusing terms be replaced within the concept of course enrollment rules. Some course enrollment rules will pertain only to single course offerings which may be added or removed during the registration period as they are now. Other rules will be attached more permanently to the courses themselves and will be approved through the course approval process. These rules will be enforced by the MAUI system, with instructors having override ability or the ability to add a student by “consent of instructor.”
Enforceability of prerequisites has been requested by Iowa faculty for some time and is thus a priority for the new system. Enforceability does create many complications, including greater demand on instructors’ time if asked to make more exceptions to rules by students. Helena Dettmer stressed the importance of departments reviewing all prerequisites and considering carefully whether or not a current prerequisite is actually a recommendation. Jane Omann noted that at other institutions with enforced prerequisites many prerequisites gradually disappear as faculty discover their impact on course enrollments and on the number of exceptions requested. Faculty should be aware of both the benefits and the limitations of enforced prerequisites.
EPC agreed, noting that the usefulness of enforced prerequisites might partly be by discipline, with the sciences, for example, finding them very workable. EPC also discussed related issues, such as how instructors should be notified that a student is requesting special permission to take a course, with some arguing for email/workflow notification and others wishing for personal contact. It was hoped that both requests could be accommodated by the system. EPC also discussed waitlists and registration issues and in what situations students would be blocked from registering or dropped from an enrollment if the prerequisite previously in progress was dropped. Additionally, EPC again stressed the need for rules that allow courses to be required before an enrollment as well as before or during an enrollment.
Helena Dettmer and EPC thanked the guests for giving their valuable time to the committee, inviting them to return for continued discussion of faculty and student needs in relation to the new MAUI system.
Respectfully submitted,
Mark Reagan
EPC Secretary