The Degree
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Audit Responsive Dashboard is a new, modern interface that houses the familiar information of the Degree
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Audit tool. Degree
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Audit continues to be Northwestern's tool for tracking and planning student progress on degree requirements, to be used collaboratively by students, advisors, and other staff.
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Adding Courses Using the Sidebar |
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Student Audit
The three large boxes at the top of the page contain your ID number, name, and degree. If you have more than one degree, the degree box will be a dropdown menu, from which you can select the degree you wish to see. Keep in mind that this only applies to multiple degrees, not to multiple majors. Multiple majors will appear on the same audit.
There are also a few important pieces of information above your information.
You will see "Date refreshed" at the top left. This tells you when the data on the audit was last generated. Normally this will reflect the last time any data was changed (curriculum, grades, registration, etc.).
There is an option to print the audit at the top right.
There is an option to email your primary advisor at the top right.
There is another menu of options in a "three dots" icon at the top right. The most relevant options from this menu are the GPA calculator (which you can use to help with calculations related to your GPA goals) and the Class History, which is a shorthand summary of classes taken at Northwestern.
Underneath the top boxes is a string of information called the "Student Header." The Student Header shows data that has been deemed important to display on the audit, including your curricular information as well as pieces like Academic Standing (which should always display the current term's standing), Registration Holds, and your Advisor(s). When you do not have any data in one of these categories, you will not see a label for it. For example, if your audit has nothing about Registration Holds in the student header, you have no registration holds, at least as of the last time your audit was refreshed.
Underneath the header, there are some high-level pieces of information about your progress.
The degree progress percentage indicator displays the percentage of requirements that are complete. This is calculated based on the percentage of requirements (not credits) that you have completed. The progress percentage must be at 98% for you to have all remaining requirements in progress, and it must be at 100% for you to be finished with all requirements.
Your overall GPA.
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Degree Requirements
The main section of the degree audit lists the degree requirements. The requirements are organized in blocks, each of which contains a coherent set of requirements. For most bachelor's degree programs, you will see the following blocks:
Degree (contains overarching requirements for the degree, such as the required number of UNW credits and the GPA requirement)
Core Curriculum or General Education
Majors
Minors (if applicable)
Concentrations (if applicable)
Electives (courses that do not fulfill any specific requirements but may contribute to the degree requirement for total credits)
Insufficient (if applicable–courses with grades that do not award academic credit or courses that have been repeated)
In-progress (courses that are currently in progress–these courses will also appear in the relevant section(s) of the audit)
Exceptions (exceptions to the standard requirements granted for you as an individual student–these will also appear in the relevant section of the audit)
Each block will indicate either complete or incomplete status at the top. Blocks will also display the number of credits required, the number of credits applied, the catalog year, and the GPA for courses applied to the block.
In the Responsive Dashboard, blocks can be collapsed and expanded. You can choose to "Collapse All" and simply view the list of all blocks (see below).
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In the body of each block, you will see the requirements listed in the left column. Requirements will usually be complete (checkmark), incomplete (empty red circle), or in progress (half-moon shape). The right column contains additional information about the requirement, such as courses that can be used to fulfill a requirement, courses already applied to a requirement, or additional notes about the requirement.
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What-If
Degree Audit allows you to run a one-time audit based on a hypothetical new curriculum. For example, you could see what the audit would look like if a second major or minor was added. You could also see what the audit would look like if you changed majors.
The "What If" link is just underneath the Student Header. The menu that appears prompts you to enter a catalog year and a program. After you enter the program, the rest of the information should populate automatically. If you wish to see a hypothetical audit with a second major or minor, you must first enter your current program information (in this case, do NOT check the box for current curriculum), and then underneath, enter the additional major or minor in the "additional areas of study" section.
Degree Works allows you to run a one-time audit based on a hypothetical new curriculum. For example, you could see what the audit would look like if a second major or minor was added. You could also see what the audit would look like if you changed majors.
The "What If" link is just underneath the Student Header. The menu that appears prompts you to enter a catalog year and a program. After you enter the program, the rest of the information should populate automatically. If you wish to see a hypothetical audit with a second major or minor, you must first enter your current program information (in this case, do NOT check the box for current curriculum), and then underneath, enter the additional major or minor in the "additional areas of study" section.
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Degree Works allows you to run a one-time audit based on a hypothetical new curriculum. For example, you could see what the audit would look like if a second major or minor was added. You could also see what the audit would look like if you changed majors.
The "What If" link is just underneath the Student Header. The menu that appears prompts you to enter a catalog year and a program. After you enter the program, the rest of the information should populate automatically. If you wish to see a hypothetical audit with a second major or minor, you must first enter your current program information (in this case, do NOT check the box for current curriculum), and then underneath, enter the additional major or minor in the "additional areas of study" section.
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Mobile-Friendly
The Responsive Dashboard is mobile-friendly. If you wish, you may view your degree audit on your mobile device. The same information is available, but it condensed for a mobile device's screen.
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Academic Plans
Degree Audit gives you the ability to plan future coursework and see how that future coursework will fulfill specific requirements on the audit. Degree Audit refers to this tool as Academic Plans, but it is also known simply as "Plans." You can access your plans by clicking the "Plans" link at the very top of the Degree Audit interface.
After you navigate to this link, you will see a list of plans that have been created. There may be no plans or there may be several. However, if you have any plans, there should only be one plan that is designated as both "Active" and "Locked." This is considered your "official" academic plan.
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To view the contents of a plan, simply click on the plan description.
Underneath the student header information, you will see the main plan information. Notice that you can click "Add term" at the top to add another term to your plan. You can also click the three dots to the right of a given term to view a menu that includes the option to remove that term from the plan.
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Adding Courses Using the Sidebar
The left-hand column of the academic plan is a sidebar with three different ways to add elements to a plan.
The default option is the Requirements list. This is the most versatile option, but it is not the most efficient option for simple planning (see below). It allows you to add Course requirements (the most common item on a plan), Choice requirements (a choice between multiple options, perhaps due to scheduling flexibility or multiple options within degree requirements), and other less common requirements. A Placeholder (essentially an open text box) can be used to enter some text that stands in for a requirement that you do not wish to enter in a more specific way.
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When you click the left arrow, you will see the Courses option. This option allows you to search the course catalog, either by typing in search criteria (recommended) or by simply scrolling through course subject prefixes and course numbers. This option is not useful in most situations, but there may be times you wish to identify a specific course in this way.
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The final option in the sidebar, which can be accessed by clicking the right arrow, is the Still Needed option. This is the most efficient way to create a simple academic plan. This option identifies all requirements not completed on your audit and excludes any requirements that are already planned. By clicking into the requirement categories until you can identify the specific course that is required, and then dragging each course requirement into the plan, you can make a comprehensive plan to fulfill all outstanding requirements.
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Courses on a plan do not contain information about specific Banner sections, so it is not possible to enter a section number or "CRN" for a course in a plan. This makes sense because in most cases a course will be planned before the class schedule has been published. However, Degree Audit has a separate ability to identify when each course is planned to be offered, and UNW maintains this information for all courses. If you attempt to add a course to a term in which it is not planned to be offered, you will see an error message.
Even though planned courses do not contain section information, Degree Audit plans are pulled into Banner Registration.
Viewing the Plan and Adding Notes
To the right of the sidebar, there is a space for academic terms. Each term is represented by a column, with the later terms farther to the right. Underneath the name of each term, you can add requirements, which are listed vertically. The example below has both course requirements (with a blue line on top) and choice requirements (with an orange line on top).
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On a laptop with an average screen resolution, you will be able to see three terms. You can click the left and right arrows at the top to scroll between terms. You can also click the menu button above the sidebar to minimize it, allowing you to see an additional term. Finally, you can click the "full screen" button at the top right of the plan to eliminate the Student Header information and focus on the plan itself. If you have access to a larger desktop display and minimize the sidebar, you can see almost six terms.
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Notes can also be added to plans. Notes are simply text information that is important in relation to some aspect of the plan. Notes can be added to an entire plan, a term, or an individual requirement. Notes are identified by a "sticky note" icon. Clicking on the icon allows you to see any notes that have been entered and to add new notes.
Academic Plan Audit View
If you would like to verify that all requirements are represented in the plan, or see where planned requirements will go on the audit, you can click the "Audit" link just above the main plan information. This link will pull up a new window with your audit, including all planned courses. The audit below shows completed courses (with final grades), in-progress courses (with "IP" grades), and planned courses (with the word "PLAN" in place of the grade).
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Academic Plans and Banner Registration
Plans that are created in Degree Audit are pulled into the Banner Registration interface. One of the tabs at the top of that interface is "Plans." You can select a plan from Degree Audit. When you select a plan, Banner Registration will search the existing sections for that term to find all sections of the planned courses. You can then simply select the preferred section of each course and add it to your registration.