Transforming Academic Advising with Degree Works

Students at SUNY have an opportunity to use a customized version of Degree Works, a web-based, degree planning and auditing software that will allow parents, faculty advisors, and admissions counselor to quickly see how far along a student is toward completing degree requirements and to see how that status may vary depending on the institution or degree program they select.

This powerful tool enables students to quickly see their progress toward degree completion at their "home" or even at a potential "transfer" campus via a user-friendly online tool. Likewise, faculty advisors and admissions counselors have a terrific new resource to assist them in guiding students about next steps.

The vision:

• Every SUNY student will have comprehensive, interactive degree planning services at every SUNY campus.
• Students interested in transfer will be able to search for programs of interest across the SUNY System, and perform degree audits at their potential transfer campus to see how the credits they have already earned at their home campus would transfer into a particular program.

Why does it matter?

Research on student success shows that college students are more likely to complete a degree in a timely fashion if they:

• choose a program and develop an academic plan early on; and
• have a clear road map of the courses they need to take to complete a credential; and
• receive guidance and support to help them stay on the plan.

Academic planning is a key challenge for students, impacting time-to-degree, cost, and most importantly, degree completion:

• “Logistically, just obtaining all of the information needed to make wise course choices can be difficult. Information about course content and prerequisites is often located in one place, while course schedules are in another place, and the requirements for specific degree programs are spelled out in yet another location” (Scott-Clayton, 2011).

Degree Works can help by pulling together all of the necessary information for academic planning into a single, interactive software solution.

• The program has each students academic history preloaded. This allows every student to develop a personalized academic plan showing exactly what courses they need to complete based on what they have already completed and their individual academic goals.

New functionality developed by SUNY called ‘Student Outcome Tracking’ provides warnings to students if they make course selections that may adversely impact their Financial Aid. This will help keep students on track and on budget to complete their degrees successfully

Progress to Date:

Currently, training is complete and IT infrastructure has been created for all participating [1] SUNY campuses (58).

• 38 campuses are currently using Degree Works with students and staff.
  • Approximately 250,000 students have access to the software service.
  • The remaining campuses are expected to be coming online on a rolling basis through 2016-17.
  • During the 2015/16 academic year, usage increased nearly 244%, with over 2.8 million logins system-wide.
  • Over 180,000 students and advisors used the software during the 2015/16 academic year, adding an average of 11,000 new users per month.

[1] The following campuses are not participating in Degree Works: Alfred University, NYS College of Ceramics, the four NYS statuory colleges at Cornell, and SUNY Optometry.  Students at the statutory colleges at Cornell and Ceramics use the student systems of the host private institutions. The registration, planning, etc. is integrated with the private students at these institutions. Optometry does not have undergraduate students, and at present, these advising tools are only being implemented for undergraduate programs.