ASSISTance: April 2020

General Updates

• Upcoming Office Closure - ASSIST Central Services (ACS) will be closed on Monday, May 25, 2020, in observance of the Memorial Day holiday.
   
• Ensuring Transfer Success (ETS) Conference - ASSIST will offer a session during the Ensuring Transfer Success (ETS) Conference, which is a collaborative project of the University of California and the California Community Colleges. The ASSIST presentation will include an update regarding the ASSIST public site, Explore Majors, the next steps for ASSIST, and available resources. ASSIST will present on Tuesday, May 5, 12:00pm - 12:30pm. A recording of the presentation and a transcript will be made available some time after the conclusion of the conference.
  For more information on this event, please visit the ETS website.
   
• ASSIST Stakeholder Input Groups - In alignment with the goals of the ASSIST Strategic Plan, and in support of stakeholder-informed future activities, ASSIST has scheduled five, one-time group meetings in May 2020. Specific dates can be found on the ASSIST Resource Center Activities Calendar.   Recruitment for participation in each group is complete and additional details about the nature of each group are available below:
   
  • Public Website Group (CCC Participants)
    This group is composed of CCC ASSIST public site (www.assist.org) users who will provide focus group type feedback to help prioritize the order in which core public site development is completed in the next fiscal year, and identify areas to target for future improvements.
     
  • Public Website Group (CSU/UC Participants)
    This group is composed of CSU and UC ASSIST public site (www.assist.org) users who will provide focus group type feedback to help prioritize the order in which core public site development is completed in the next fiscal year, and identify areas to target for future improvements.
     
  • Explore Majors Group
    This group is composed of representatives from various areas of the CCC, CSU and UC systems who have used the legacy ASSIST Explore Majors application and can provide focus group type feedback. The input received will help ASSIST identify how a variety of users interacted with that legacy application, the most critical components, and where improvements might be made in the future in order to prioritize development efforts.
     
  • Data Uniformity Group
    This group is composed of representatives from various areas of the CCC, CSU and UC systems to provide focus group type feedback regarding data uniformity across the following three student serving platforms: ASSIST, transcripts, and college catalogs. A lack of data uniformity has great implications for whether students are credited appropriately during the transfer process. The input received will help ASSIST gather points of student impact, potential barriers to data alignment, and other information that will help evaluate where ASSIST policy development is needed.
     
  • Web Services Group
    This group is composed of data-minded representatives from the CCC, CSU and UC systems, as well as outside vendors, to provide focus group type feedback regarding ASSIST web service needs. The input received will help ASSIST refine data sharing requirements and options, identify important use case scenarios, and gather other information that will help evaluate ASSIST system development and policy needs.

For Articulation Officers and Data Managing Users

• Fall 2020 Curriculum Update Publishing - ASSIST has provided recommended guidelines with regard to a publication timeline for curriculum updates. In alignment with those guidelines, it is recommended that F2020 curriculum updates be published by May 15th to ensure that course additions, changes, and terminations can be appropriately managed in articulation agreements, and provided in a consistent and reliable timeframe to www.assist.org users. In an effort to support institutional tracking of completed updates, ASSIST has provided a shared spreadsheet posted in the ASSIST folder of the CIAC shared drive for each campus to indicate when curriculum updates for a specific term are finalized. Having this information helps CSU and UC AOs confidently move forward with articulation building and maintenance in preparation for the next academic year.
   
• Upcoming UC TCA Review Cycle - For California community colleges: the annual UC Transferable Course Agreement (UC TCA) review cycle is fast approaching. Within the next few weeks, the UC Office of the President (UCOP) will provide more information on this process. The actual submission of your courses takes place in the ASSIST Curriculum and Articulation Management system so here are a few ASSIST-specific tips:
   
  • Courses will be reviewed for the upcoming academic year, 2020-21.
    In ASSIST, this means you should be managing outlines using the Fall 2020 term (or later if submitting for a brand new course that will not be offered on your campus until a later term):
    
    
     
  • In Workflow, you should use the 2020-21 academic year when creating your UC TCA proposals:
    
    
     
  • In Workflow, the term you select for your proposal should match the term in which you marked the outline as complete in the Curriculum area. In most cases for the upcoming review cycle, this means using the Fall 2020 term:
    
    
    
    
     

You can find a list of the required steps for submission in ASSIST in the short document: Tips for Submitting Courses.
You can find a detailed, step-by-step description of necessary actions for course submission in ASSIST beginning on page 38 of the ASSIST User Guide for CCC AOs.