ASSISTance: December 2019

General Updates

• Strategic Planning - In December, the ASSIST team met to further refine goals as part of a three year ASSIST Strategic Plan to provide direction and transparency as we work to grow and improve the resources offered in support of articulation and student transfer. Developed with input from system users and executive leadership from all three systems (CSU, UC, CCC), we are excited to put ideas into action and continue making progress on the new ASSIST system. Once the plan is finalized it will be made available for viewing on the ASSIST Resource Center.
   
• Upcoming Office Closures - In the month of January, ASSIST staff will be out of the office Monday, the 20th, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
   
• General Education Breadth Agreements on ASSIST - The ASSIST team is working with developers to resolve an issue that is preventing new (17-18 and beyond) General Education agreements from appearing on www.assist.org. Please contact the specific university of interest should you have General Education Breadth articulation agreement questions (for contact information, please refer to the ASSIST Resource Center Contact page).
   
• Articulation Analysis Workgroup (AAW) Wrap Up - December included the final meeting for the AAW group. Thanks to the time and input from articulation officers, software developers can now create valuable project plans for improving the articulation management component of the ASSIST system.
   
• CSU General Education and IGETC Review Cycle - In addition to normal ASSIST activities, at this time of year the ASSIST team is involved in supporting CSU and UC system reviewers in the course review process until its completion in approximately late Spring. 
   
• New Announcements Feature on ASSIST Available January 27, 2020 - In order to communicate important ASSIST public website information and announcements to www.assist.org users, a messaging feature has been developed that will appear on the public website beginning Monday, January 27, 2020.  In order to provide some advance familiarity with this feature, a week before the release an email will be sent to articulation officers, as well as other campus personnel working directly with students, to provide a description and screenshots of the messaging feature.
   
• Interim Explore Majors Feature Available January 27, 2020 - The alternative exploring majors tool developed in partnership with Los Medanos College will become available to the public on Monday, January 27, 2020. While CSU and UC Articulation Officers are in the process of providing updated major information, the process may take place over time. When you visit www.assist.org on January 27th you will find a link to the exploring majors tool in the new ASSIST messaging feature. Widespread communication regarding the availability of this tool will accompany the release.

For Articulation Officers and Data Managing ASSIST Users

• Data Integrity Documents - ASSIST team member Liz Sanchez is actively working on data corrections including courses that are currently suppressed from applicable public site transferability lists. Institutions will be notified as these courses are returned to displaying on www.assist.org. In the meantime, ASSIST provided each articulation officer with a spreadsheet in October that contained institution-specific curriculum identified during the data integrity review process, including which courses are currently suppressed. No additional action is required of articulation officers other than being aware of which courses from your campus are currently suppressed and sharing the information with campus staff as appropriate until the course issues are remediated. 
   
• Curriculum Corrections and Administrator-Only Functions - In addition to cross-listing changes, reactivations, and prefix changes, please continue to send any back-dated curriculum corrections (for example, a title changed in Fall 2002 and it never got changed) to your assigned Articulation Specialist. Back-dated curriculum corrections are sophisticated and may require additional ASSIST admin actions.