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Q-0002 Ability to see individual student's progress toward a degree
The Degree Audit /Advising Focus Team researched options for a degree auditing system and has selected to continue using PACE based on its capabilities compared to other products and on feedback received from the university community. It has served as a reliable, concise and user-friendly advising tool for staff and faculty across the university. An interface will be built for the current version of PACE to function with GoSOLAR, and we will plan enhancements to PACE to continue meeting the needs of students and advisers.
Q-0003 Ability to have self-supporting or specialized programs on the system (e.g., IEP) and account for varying tuition/fees?
GoSOLAR Student includes a "Student Type" field to create and maintain any number of values/codes. Some values are delivered as Georgia Data and maintained by the University System of Georgia. A code could be identified to flag students in a special program, which then could be used to calculate fees. A corresponding special fee code would need to be defined for the particular program.
Q-0004 Ability to handle double majors/dual programs (e.g., so that students can receive correspondence, etc. from both units)
GoSOLAR Student includes the ability to capture Dual Degree information and track students in dual programs. Dual Degree students can be identified as a population using specific selection criteria and then any type of correspondence is possible.
Q-0005 Statistical info on student demographics at the college, dept, school, program levels
Q-0006 In degree audit, ability to run "what if' situations (for both advisors and students)
PACE currently has "what if" capability for advisers, and it will be kept in the new version of PACE. An enhancement is planned for students to run their own "what if" audits as well.
Q-0007 Ability to generate email addresses and mailing labels -for customized groups, e.g., by major, GPA cutoff, hours completed, specific courses completed or not completed.
GoSOLAR Student includes the ability to identify and group entities in the database (for example, students). You may define selection criteria for identification of the "population selection" and extract a subset to use for reports, processes, or correspondence. Generation of e-mail addresses for students is an issue/policy to be determined outside of GoSOLAR Student. GoSOLAR Student includes the ability for multiple types of addresses, including an e-mail address.
Q-0008 Reporting flexibility
Q-0009 Ability to download extracted data into other software
Q-0010 Pre-requisite checking?
GoSOLAR Student includes the ability to establish prerequisite checking. This topic is currently under discussion regarding phasing it in over several terms.
Q-0011 Ability to control the use of course enrollment holds at the departmental level (with security)
Q-0012 Student tracking (e.g., when a student leaves a program)
Q-0013 Faculty access (read-only) to student info (i.e., curricular, performance data)
Q-0014 GSU-bestowed email addresses whose mail students are responsible for reading and an easy-to-use way to send email to naturally groups of students, e.g., students in a course or in a section of a course. This differs from the email access in item Q-007 above. Item Q-007 will likely require using a report or Statware screen. The capability in item Q-0014 should be automatic by virtue of a lookup in the email address directory
Web for faculty includes the ability for the faculty member to email to the entire course section.
Q-0015 Record keeping regarding concentrations and specializations with a major - both undergraduate and graduate (e.g., MBA)
Q-0016 Access to grade rolls, sorted in alphabetical order
Q-0017 When will reporting capabilities be implemented?
Q-0018 Access to student records (e.g., so that faculty can withdraw a student)
Q-0019 Who has access to grade rolls and when - real time? Can they be sorted by various parameters (name, student id, etc.)?
Q-0020 Authorizations - who can place them and who can release them?
Q-0021 GSU-bestowed email addresses for graduates so that there is an easy way to maintain relationships with alumni. The email address could be the ones they had when they were a student.
Policy is that a student retains their student email account as long as they are eligible to register for classes.
Q-0022 Transfer credit
The Transfer Articulation Focus Team is working to facilitate a smooth conversion of current transfer table information and processes to GoSOLAR. It appears that the university's full transfer articulation table will be able to be converted, and only minor modifications will be necessary to current transfer equating procedures.
Q-0023

When it is implemented, can prerequisite checking be done by level? Can it be turned on only for lower-division courses but not for upper-division or graduate?
GoSOLAR Student includes the ability to establish pre-requisites by course. Once prerequisites have been entered for courses, an indicator is set to either "check" or "not check" for prerequisites during the registration period. There is no in between. It's based on what has been established in the curriculum record.

Because we have decided to initially include prerequisites in the course description field rather than the prerequisite field we now have a way to check by level. Each college/department can decide which level of prerequisites to have checked. A particular unit, for example, could activate only graduate level prerequisites while another could choose to activate only undergraduate. This will be a college decision. [Please see additional discussion on prerequisite checking]

Q-0024 How will lab and lecture times be scheduled for science classes? Lab sections, breakout sections?
Q-0025 Will GoSOLARhave a screen for e-mail addresses?
GoSOLAR Student includes the ability for multiple types of addresses, including an e-mail address.
Q-0026 Ability to add sections at the last minute during the registration cycle.
Q-0027 How will room assignments be made?
Room assignments for most courses are currently made using the Schedule25 software. We will continue to use this software, along with its complement Resource25, with GoSOLAR.
Q-0028 How will large classrooms be assigned?
Q-0029 Training - will a CD ROM version be available?
The current plan is to post the training materials on the GSU GoSOLARWeb site so end-users can download them. If users are unable to download the materials, they can request training materials on a CD ROM.
Q-0030

Easy to use flexible degree audit system
The Degree Audit/Advising Focus team recognizes the importance of the university having a flexible, user-friendly (for faculty advisers, staff advisers and students alike) and reliable tool for auditing a student's degree progress and has selected to continue with PACE based on the success we've had with thus far. Enhancements that will increase its functionality will be planned to use PACE to the fullest extent possible.

Q-0031 Training for generating non-standard reports (ones not included as standard options)
Q-0032 Will system work fast enough - especially with multiple screens?
The GoSOLAR system was load tested at 100, 500 and 1000 concurrent students performing a mixture of course searches, adds and drops. At the 100 and 500 concurrent user level response times were under ½ second. Response times were under 2 seconds at the 100 concurrent student levels.
Q-0033 Will Georgia mods be added to TLab before we go live?
The Georgia Mods version 5 module will be added to TLAB as soon as the Board of Regents Office of Information and Instructional Technology (OIIT) release it in June or July 2001.
Q-0034 Will it be possible to access GoSOLAR from the Web?
The GSU and SCT recommendation is the Internet Native Banner client. The Citrix client will be eventually phased out.
Q-0035 Foundation accounts are now accessed through OASIS - where after GoSOLAR. (IFIS user).
Q-0036 How can departments prepare for maintaining the integrity of student records in case the worst happens? Print paper copies of Pace, etc.?
The current implementation plan includes an overlap of OASIS/PACE and GoSOLAR. The OASIS "switch" won't be turned off until the implementation team is certain that the integrity of student records has been maintained in GoSOLAR. So, we'll have the ability to PACEs via OASIS up until the point we are certain all records and capabilities have successfully transferred to GoSOLAR.
Q-0037

What kind of desktop configuration is needed to optimally run GoSOLAR?
Click < GSU Hardware and Software recommendations for GoSOLAR> for IS&T's recommended system requirements for use of GoSOLAR.
The minimum requirements are for use of GoSOLARon existing machines. IS&T recommends that new purchases for machines that will eventually be used for GoSOLARaccess should meet or exceed the recommended configuration. Please note that Windows 2000 is the recommended operating system supported by IS&T. Typically, IS&T does not recommend or support adoption of a new operating system until it has been out for 6 months or so. We do not want to be the test for early releases! Thus, Windows 2000 was not recommended for the first six months. Now that it has been out and tested it is the recommended choice and is supported by IS&T. The same recommendation will probably hold for Windows XP. It will not be recommended during the initial release but will likely be supported after a few months. IS&T's policy can be found at: http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwccs/docs/pcosrecommend.htm

Macs will be able to access GoSOLARwith a web browser using Internet Explorer and Apple Applet Runner (v. MRJ 2.2.5 or later -- available free from: www.apple.com/java/)

Q-0038

Will I be able to use the GoSOLARsystem using an Apple Macintosh computer?
Apple Applet runner and MRJ are OS 9 applications that will run on OS X in classic mode. At the present time there is no native OS X support for the Internet Native Banner client.



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