ASSISTance: Winter 2024

Upcoming ASSIST Closures and Important Dates 

Please note the following office closures and important dates for ASSIST Central Services (ACS):

• Cesar Chavez Holiday (ACS closed)
  • Friday, March 29
• ACS is attending the California Intersegmental Articulation Council (CIAC) Annual Conference (normal business hours and response time will be affected)
  • Tuesday, April 2 - Friday, April 5
• Memorial Day (ACS closed)
  • Monday, May 27
• Juneteenth (ACS closed)
  • Wednesday, June 19

Normal ACS business hours are Monday-Friday, 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.

New Program Director - Welcome, Micaela Morgan!

ASSIST is pleased to announce we have a new program director: Dr. Micaela Morgan! Micaela joins us from UC Santa Barbara, where she served as the K-12 Programs Director at the Office of Education Partnerships for several years. 

At ASSIST, Micaela is leading the strategic direction, intersegmental collaboration, and ASSIST Central Services management work necessary to continue to advance ASSIST's mission to facilitate California student transfer and commitment to being the official repository of California transfer and articulation information. 

Micaela has already been with ASSIST since early January, so please join us in extending one more “WELCOME” to the ASSIST program!

Articulation Modernization Project 

Over 790,000 articulation agreements have been published to assist.org for the 2023-2024 academic year. This is in contrast to the 710,663 agreements published to assist.org for 2022-2023. We are proud to support our CSU and colleagues, who continue to work diligently in the Modernized Articulation Application to provide this critical articulation information for assist.org users.

• Did you know that beginning with 2023-2024, you can now view Department and Prefix agreements by community college curriculum? This is handy when you are familiar with  the community college prefix and department names, but not with the university’s.
  
   
• Upcoming Development - we expect the following system updates to be available soon for articulation data managers:
   
  • “Roll Forward” - Provides data managers with the ability to copy articulation data from one academic year into the next. This means previous articulation data will be pre-populated when you begin working on articulation agreements for the 2024-2025 academic year.
     
  • “Notification Center” - Provides data managers with a dashboard to receive and organize notifications of course updates that may impact articulation. For example, a community college combines previously separate lab and lecture courses into one offering, causing an update to the course content and units. A university data manager would likely need to update the articulation. This will streamline articulation updates data managers need to know about in real-time. 

California Intersegmental Articulation Council (CIAC) Annual Conference

The ASSIST team will attend and host a breakout session at the CIAC Annual Conference, held the first week of April in Palm Springs. ASSIST will offer a “backstage pass” at the music festival-themed ARTICU-Chella conference at 2:15 pm in the Palm Canyon A&B. The “backstage pass” will serve as a chance for ASSIST users to meet or reconnect with the ASSIST team in person for the first time since the 2019 conference. The conference will also serve as a crucial opportunity to listen and participate in discussions centered around current and future legislative initiatives that will impact ASSIST. 

Finally, the ASSIST team will also have the opportunity to meet in person and collaborate on the completion of its next 3-year strategic plan. You can find information about our previous strategic plan and updates on the new strategic plan as they become available at the ASSIST Resource Center. 

Legislative Initiatives and Workgroups

Speaking of legislative initiatives, ASSIST continues to be actively involved in numerous groups and discussions, both as presenters and as listeners. Participation in these groups plays a vital role in ensuring ASSIST continues to meet the needs of its varied audiences and stays aware of potential mandates that necessitate changes to the ASSIST system. Recently, ASSIST has partnered with:

• University of California (UC) Admissions-California Community Colleges (CCC) Webinar
• CCC Articulation Officer (AO) Regional Representatives Spring Meeting
• CCC Transfer Center Directors Regional Representatives Spring Meeting
• ASSIST Advisory Committee Spring Meeting
• Cal-GETC Implementation Workgroup
• Cradle-to-Career Technology Workgroup
• Southern & Northern CIAC Meetings
• Common Course Numbering Development and Technology Workgroups
• CCC Bachelor Degree Program (BDP) AO Group

Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) Integration

We are progressing steadily towards integrating the first cohort of AICCU participating member institutions (PMIs) into ASSIST.

Interested AICCU institutions recently returned their MOUs, signifying their official intent to join ASSIST. We are expecting 28 participating institutions in this first cohort! The next steps are:

• Completion of an initial course data import service
• User training for the designated ASSIST data manager(s) of each institution

After training, these institutions will be ready to begin building 2024-2025 articulation agreements in ASSIST.

For more information and a list of participating member institutions, visit the AICCU page of the ASSIST Resource Center.

ASSIST Data Sharing Coming Soon

ASSIST is pleased to share that a self-service data portal will soon be available for data subscribers. Additionally, for the first time in ASSIST history, articulation data will be shareable via API.

Keep an eye on the Data Page of the ASSIST Resource Center for updates and more information.

ASSIST Season of Surveys

ASSIST is committed to constantly improving, whether with system updates, services for our unique users, or providing new resources. One of the ways we stay informed of various needs is through gathering user feedback via surveys. Currently, there are two surveys that we would appreciate your time in completing:

• User Survey - The purpose of this assist.org User Survey is to gather specific information on the types of users visiting assist.org and how our users are accessing and using ASSIST data in the scope of their work or to meet personal transfer goals. The data compiled from this survey is vital to supporting ASSIST goals and strategic planning as we evaluate how best to support our diverse user groups. The survey will take approximately five minutes to complete and will close on April 10, 2024. Please share widely with anyone you know who uses ASSIST!
   
• General Feedback Survey - This survey is ASSIST’s general feedback questionnaire available on assist.org (in the Support section). It is always open and offers users a chance to provide feedback on their experiences using assist.org.