·         Continue to work with Oracle/PeopleSoft product strategists, analysts and developers to advocate for  the needs of the Academic Advisement community and to be a resource for development of new and enhanced functionality

The Academic Advisement PAG (AAPAG) continues to work with Oracle on enhancing and expanding the Enrollment Backpack and Planner functionality introduced in v9.0 to expand its usefulness to both students and advisors

 

·         Support the Academic Advisement community, with focus on campuses implementing or upgrading Academic Advisement

AAPAG members overall are taking a very active (and proactive) role in the HEUG Online Forum, providing those new to the product with clear, concise and well-reasoned advice on configuration, which represents the most challenging aspect of the current Advisement product.  This advice, which frequently weighs the merits of different approaches to the problem, saves users who are new to the product untold frustration and hours of re-work that would likely characterize a more trial-and-error approach

 

·         Identify key issues, enhancements, configurability options and new functionality to encourage the widest number of constituents to embrace the AA tools, particularly those outside the United States

Shortly before the 2010 PAG Summit, the AAPAG solicited the Advisement community on HEUG Online for ideas on the future strategic direction for the product.  The result was a wealth of information and innovative ideas for the future.  The AAPAG, particularly those charged with Communications and the Issue Tracker have been working to merge these ideas with existing requests on the HEUG Online Issue Tracker so that they will not be lost, and can inform future development.  Additionally, PAG members have provided information and demonstrations of local modifications that may, in some form, provide functionality that would be widely useful.

 

·         Participate in relevant cross-PAG discussions

As in the past, the AAPAG and the SRPAG have established liaisons between the two groups

·         The AAPAG will advocate for increased attention to pre-release bundle testing, complete documentation of changes and identification of cross-module implications

·         Continue to maintain comprehensive list of issues and enhancement requests

·         Assist in the prioritization of issues and enhancement requests

·         Continue PAG involvement with beta testing

AAPAG members continue to serve as beta testers of major updates and fixes, helping to improve the quality of these products, along with providing reality checks to both Oracle and the user community about the massive amount of new functionality in v9.0.

Additionally, AAPAG members have served as ‘first responders’ when unanticipated outcomes from a delivered Oracle update are discovered, helping to isolate the cause of the problem

·         Best practices coding standards

·         Establish what can be done with current functionality to clarify where enhancements are needed

·         Work with institutions globally on regional needs

·         Disseminating these ideas to the community -

o   Pre-conference workshop(s) at Alliance

o   Explore use of blogs, wikis, white papers to broaden service to institutions and individuals unable to attend conference

The advice given by AAPAG members on the HEUG Forum is intended to reinforce best practices, as is the dissemination of information such as the Advising Engine COBOL’s array size limitations to the community.  We are still working to determine the best way to use blogs and/or wikis to reinforce best practices and make the information available to a wider audience

 

·         Identify key issues and enhancements to encourage the users outside of the United States to embrace the tools available in Academic Advisement

·         Solicit additional input from institutions that responded to the 2009 International Survey to clarify these issues

Analysis is continuing on the results of the International Institution survey conducted in late 2009 and early 2010.  Some areas of congruence have already been identified between the needs of these institutions and known gaps in the product already identified by colleges and universities in Canada and the United States.  Future enhancements in these areas could provide an improved user experience globally.