DARS User Group Meeting Minutes
May 31, 2001
Present: Sue Bayerl, Pat Carmody, Mary D’Andrea, Fred Forseman, Gin Forseman, Michelle Frenzel, Shawn Handwerk (guest), Daryl Johnson, Donna Marzolf, Ann Nelson, Laurie Tralle, Larry Uhlir
- The minutes of the Feb. 27, 2001 meeting were reviewed.
- The status of adding catalog year/term to ST1104 and ST1105 is uncertain. MnSCU personnel will attempt to determine the status of this item.
- More targeted security access to DARS will be explored after the Miami University User Conference in June. One of the items at the conference is DARS security, and MnSCU will have personnel in attendance. Specific suggestions & ideas will be sent out to the User Group via email.
- The next basic encoders training will be held Oct. 8, 9, & 10, with follow-up on Oct. 25 & 26. Training will again be held at the ETC building in St. Paul.
- An advanced special topics training session on exceptions was held on March 11, and another special topics training session on condition codes will be held on June 27.
- The next DARS TA training session will be held on June 18, 19, & 20 at the ETC building in St. Paul.
- It was determined that at least the following fields on ST1111UG be used with DARS: FICE, Name of College, and the group of fields in the lower right portion of the screen (earned, transferred, attempted, quality and quality points). The YRTR of Acceptance fields are used in various ways on the campuses. It was suggested that there be a “best practice” developed. If a college did not choose to follow the “best practice”, they could have available some type of “yes” or “no” switch to choose from. If they chose “no”, then they would be responsible for their own data entry of those fields rather than downloading from DARS. Mary, Fred and Laurie will continue to work on this area.
- Over the next few months Laurie will be contacting colleges to help determine the overall DARS status on each campus. This will help determine additional training needed, where efforts need to be made by DARS/CAS project staff, etc.
- A DARS Fall Institute is tentatively planned for October 18 and 19 at the Anoka Community College Conference Center. Laurie Tralle shared the general topics that most likely would be part of the Institute, and asked for input from the group on other topics that might be appropriate. Laurie will be checking with appropriate MnSCU personnel to try to avoid other activities that might be planned by MnSCU for those days. Laurie also indicated that she could send out an email to system office personnel advising them of our scheduling of Oct. 18 & 19.
- Setting up CAS is in progress. We plan to set up with a couple of the colleges that have a significant amount of transfer information in DARS. Hopefully by later this summer/fall it will be possible to use those as a prototype for demonstrating the operation, as well as a model to set up more colleges.
- It was agreed that there should be some expansion of this user group. It is the desire to fill the two vacant positions, as well as add another position preferably with technical college background. The important point is to have members who have a commitment to DARS, and who have a genuine interest in serving on the committee.
- Some titles from test scores that print out on the audit are long, to the point of cutting off a portion of the actual test score. Temporarily it was suggested that the title of the topic (ie Test Scores:) perhaps could be shortened a character. In the meantime, Larry will investigate the length of the titling in ISRS to see how many characters are used for the titles.
- It was agreed that when #AD is used in INCLTOP, that DARS will first look for anything in the “Expected Graduation Term” field on ST3602 and put in that term. However, if there is nothing in that field, it will then go to ST1102. Currently, it only looks directly at ST1102.
- It was suggested that later this summer that a notice be put on our darshelp listserv advising people of the advanced TA training this fall at Miami University. Larry will follow up on this item.
- There appears to be a slowing of especially the “Print to Darwin” feature. Fred will do some research to include Miami at the users conference to see if there are factors that can influence the printing toDarwin.
- Fred suggested that it might be best to avoid the use of the symbols < and >, since it will likely cause some problems with web use of DARS/CAS.
- It was suggested that there be some way central way to store/share the grading systems and the department/course number formats that various MnSCU colleges are using to assist with TA work. Mary & Laurie will research this area.
- It was suggested that if there was a way to identify the curriculum changes from ISRS, that it might facilitate TA work. Mary & Fred will research this area.
