Create a Roadmap

Roadmaps are the driving force behind u.direct. Built from a student's audit report generated from your degree audit software (whether DARwin, u.achieve, PeopleSoft, etc), it provides a general 'map' for planning coursework. This general map can create a specific guideline or a general array of courses from which to choose when setting up a plan.

Roadmaps can represent programs, minors, concentrations, etc. They can be used to create multiple plans.

All users of u.direct must be at least able to have access read a roadmap, whether or not they are permitted to create, update, delete or publish it. Otherwise, they would not be able to view the plans that were based on the roadmaps.

To Create a Roadmap

• From the home page click "Manage Roadmaps".
• On the left will be a tree view list of all available degree programs available to u.direct. The titles of the programs correspond with the Web Title field encoded in DARwin/u.achieve.
• Select the program where you want to build your new roadmap by clicking on the tree and expanding until you find the program you wish to use.
  

• If the program has previously been used to build a roadmap, a list of previously created roadmaps for this program will display.

At this point, you can copy a previous roadmap and modify it or you can create a new one.

Copying a Previously Existing Roadmap

• Select the roadmap you'd like to copy in the table.

• On the Action Menu (in the "Action" column for the roadmap), select "Copy".

• You will be taken to a new screen in which you can give the roadmap a name, change the length of time for which it available and the start term and year.
  

• Once you've renamed it and selected the start year/term and length of time for the roadmap to span, choose a view. You can choose "Roadmap Only" or Roadmap and Audit View. The roadmap only view will allow you to manually build a roadmap or modify it. The Roadmap and Audit view will allow you to drag and drop from the audit for the degree program you have chosen.

Creating a New Roadmap

• To create a new roadmap, select the degree program from the tree on the left that you would like to use. You will most likely need to expand the tree to the level of the degree program.
• Enter a name for your roadmap in the box that appears.

• Note: this will be the Roadmap Name that will be visible to students and advisors when building plans.
• Select the *Effective Term/Year (The effective year is the academic year).
• Select the number of years for the roadmap to span.
• Click the Add Roadmap button

The new roadmap will display in the list of available roadmaps below. To begin building the roadmap click on the name of the roadmap just created. This will open the roadmap in Audit & Roadmap View. Each time you open a roadmap, it runs a new audit thus it may take a few moments to open.

To find out how to begin adding courses to the roadmap see How do I Edit a Roadmap.

Roadmap & Audit View

Building a Roadmap: Getting Started

The left side of the page is the Degree Audit that you will be using to build your roadmap for this particular Program. The right side of the page is the Roadmap itself. 

The goal is to move courses from the Audit side into the roadmap, thereby completing all requirements and sub-requirements within the Audit.

Adding Courses to the Roadmap

There are two ways to add courses to a Roadmap: 

Drag and Drop Method

• Find the course within the Audit. The requirements use the web title field from DARwin to display the title. The report categories encoded on the DPROG screen in DARwin should give you category headings.
• Once you've decided which courses to drag, grab the course with your cursor, drag it to your chosen year and term and then drop it. The course should display in the term on the Roadmap.
• You can also drag entire sub-requirements to your roadmap by grabbing the sub-requirement title and dragging it over. This will transfer all courses in that sub-requirement as well as the sub-requirement heading to the roadmap. This is useful if you want a student to have a choice from all of the courses in the sub-requirement rather than limiting them.

Adding Courses via the Drag and Drop Method will automatically bring over the Sub-Requirement text and Credit Hours.

Right Click Method

• Right click your mouse on the year and term of the roadmap for which you'd like to add courses.
• Select Add Course from the menu that pops up.
• A small window will open where you will enter the department abbreviation and course number for the course you would like to add to your roadmap. Note: This must match the way the course would appear within the audit.
• Select OK
• If the course is used in more than one sub-requirement you will be asked to select one of the sub-requirements and click OK.
• You can also add sub-requirements in this manner. Instead of selecting "Add Course", select "Add Requirement" from the right click menu. You will need to name the requirement and set the amount of units that a student must take to fulfill the sub-requirement.

Using one of these two methods, you will add courses to the Roadmap until all requirements and sub-requirements have been completed on the Audit. A green check mark will display next to sub-requirements and requirements as they are completed. You may also use the Sync process to check that all requirements are being met successfully.

Editing the Roadmap

By right clicking your mouse at different levels, you can edit your Roadmap.

At the Year Level: 

• Add Term - will allow you to add another term to that year on the Roadmap. This may be useful if a student can take courses over the summer to meet the degree program requirements.

At the Year-Term Level:

• Add Requirement - this allows you to manually add requirement text and hours directly to the Roadmap. You can then add courses to this requirement using one of the two methods listed above.
• Add Course - allows you to add a course to the Roadmap in this Year/Term. You can do so by dragging or dropping or right-clicking and filling in the required fields.
• Delete - will remove the year-term, and all of the requirements and courses within, from the Roadmap.

At the Requirement Level:

• Edit - this allows you to change the requirement text and/or credit hours required.
• Add Course - will add a course directly to this requirement
• Add Course List - adds a course list to this requirement. This means the course list is displayed in an external place such as on your website. Adding a course list in u.direct indicates to the student that they need to reference this resource in order to select a course to take.
• Set Status - allows you to indicate that this requirement is:
  • Required (indicates to student that the requirement is necessary to fulfill degree program)
  • Preferred (indicates that it preferential that a student fulfill this requirement over another similar one)
  • Critical (indicates that the fulfillment of the requirement is necessary for graduation)
• Delete - will remove the requirement and all courses within from the Roadmap.

At the Course Level:

• Course Description - a view of the course description and property values
• Set Status - allows you to indicate that this course is:
  • Required (indicates to a student that they must take that particular course to meet the degree program requirement)
  • Preferred (used in cases where two courses may be taken to meet a requirement but one is preferred over the other)
  • Critical (can be used in cases where the student needs this course into to meet graduation or degree program requirements)
• Toggle Course/Course List - with this feature you can switch between a course and a course list or vice versa.
• Delete  will remove the course/course list from the Roadmap. 

  NOTE: Some sub-requirements contain 'grouped' courses, which are usually course ranges, and/or'd courses, etc: If you delete all the courses from the group by using the delete method described above, the box that separates the group will not be deleted: .   To get rid of it, you must delete the entire sub-requirement and manually add the courses from the sub-requirement you want to show on the roadmap or use this workaround:   1) Drag only the empty box for the group to a different term. This will put the empty box in its own separate sub-requirement. 2) Right click on the new sub-requirement that was completed. Select Delete from the menu. 3) This will delete the empty box without forcing you to remove all the course from the term in which the group originally resided.   This is a known bug and will be fixed in a future release.

Roadmap Editor View

Adding Courses to the Roadmap

• Right click your mouse on the year and term of the roadmap for which you'd like to add courses.
• From the menu that appears, select Add Course.
• A small window will open where you will enter the department abbreviation and course number for the course you would like to add to your roadmap. Note: This must match the way the course would appear within the audit.
• Select OK
• If the course is used in more than one sub-requirement you will be asked to select one of the sub-requirements and click OK.

Using this method, you will add courses to the Roadmap until all requirements and sub-requirements have been completed  for this Program. To verify that courses you're adding are meeting requirements use the Sync functionality located at the top of the page.

Editing the Roadmap

By right clicking your mouse at different levels you can edit your Roadmap.

*At the Year Level: *

• Add Term - will allow you to add another term to that year on the Roadmap. This may be useful if a student can take courses over the summer to meet the degree program requirements.

At the Year-Term Level:

• Add Requirement - this allows you to manually add requirement text and hours directly to the Roadmap. You can then add courses to this requirement using one of the two methods listed above.
• Add Course - allows you to add a course to the Roadmap in this Year/Term. You can do so by dragging or dropping or right-clicking and filling in the required fields.
• Delete - will remove the year-term, and all of the requirements and courses within, from the Roadmap.

At the Requirement Level:

• Edit - this allows you to change the requirement text and/or credit hours required.
• Add Course - will add a course directly to this requirement
• Add Course List - adds a course list to this requirement. This means the course list is displayed in an external place such as on your website. Adding a course list in u.direct indicates to the student that they need to reference this resource in order to select a course to take.
• Set Status - allows you to indicate that this requirement is:
  • Required (indicates to student that the requirement is necessary to fulfill degree program)
  • Preferred (indicates that it preferential that a student fulfill this requirement over another similar one)
  • Critical (indicates that the fulfillment of the requirement is necessary for graduation)
• Delete - will remove the requirement and all courses within from the Roadmap.

At the Course Level:

• Course Description - a view of the course description and property values
• Set Status - allows you to indicate that this course is:
  • Required (indicates to a student that they must take that particular course to meet the degree program requirement)
  • Preferred (used in cases where two courses may be taken to meet a requirement but one is preferred over the other)
  • Critical (can be used in cases where the student needs this course into to meet graduation or degree program requirements)
• Toggle Course/Course List - with this feature you can switch between a course and a course list or vice versa.
• Delete  will remove the course/course list from the Roadmap.  

  NOTE: Some sub-requirements contain 'grouped' courses, which are usually course ranges, and/or'd courses, etc: If you delete all the courses from the group by using the delete method described above, the box that separates the group will not be deleted: .   To get rid of it, you must delete the entire sub-requirement and manually add the courses from the sub-requirement you want to show on the roadmap or use this workaround:   1) Drag only the empty box for the group to a different term. This will put the empty box in its own separate sub-requirement. 2) Right click on the new sub-requirement that was completed. Select Delete from the menu. 3) This will delete the empty box without forcing you to remove all the course from the term in which the group originally resided.   This is a known bug and will be fixed in a future release.

Manage Roadmaps

To begin, select Manage Roadmaps from the Roadmaps tab at the top of the screen to be taken to the Manage Roadmaps page.

You can then Create a New Roadmap, or you can select the Degree Program that has the Roadmap you want to manage by expanding the tree in the "Choose a Degree Program" box. You can expand and collapse by program or you can simply hit 'expand all' to display all of the degree programs that are available to you.

Once you have selected the degree program, a list of all roadmaps associated with that program will appear in a table below. (See Below)

Note At any time, you can change the degree program by hitting the "Choose a different Degree Program" button at the top of the roadmaps area.

There are several fields displayed in the table:

• Name - by clicking on the Name of the Roadmap you will open that Roadmap for editing in the Roadmap & Audit View.
• Years - displays the length of time for this Roadmap
• Start Year Term- Designates the term and year in which the Roadmap began.
• End Year Term- This area has two fields-
  •   Year- This is a text box in which you can enter a year if you wish to expire a roadmap. It must be in standard format- YYYY. Once you have entered a year, the drop down box for the term will activate and you will be able to select an end term for the roadmap.
  •   Term- This field will activate when you type in a year in the "End Year Term-Year" box. This allows you to choose a specific term in which the roadmap will end. This is useful if you choose to copy a roadmap to modify requirements and still wish to keep the old one with the same name.
    Note: Once you have set an expiration date for a roadmap, you can't modify it. You will have to set the year to a future year/term or set the year to 9999 in order to re-activate it.
• Status - indicates if the Roadmap is In Progress, Completed or Published. If you have permissions in the security console, you will be able to change the status here without having to open the roadmap.
• Action - This is a drop-down menu that provides the following options:
  •  Roadmap View: This takes you into the Single Roadmap view without the audit to manually add courses without the drag and drop option.
  •  Copy: Allows you to copy the roadmap.
  •  Delete: Allows you to delete the roadmap

    You may not see all of the options above in the drop-down menu depending on the permissions you have set in the security console. For example, if you are not permitted to delete roadmaps, that option will not be one of the actions you can select.

• PDF -allows you to view the Roadmap in PDF format. You can also print the Roadmap in this view.

Copy Roadmap

or
 

• Select the roadmap you'd like to copy in the table or by hitting the icon at the top of the roadmap builder page.
• Hit the "copy" button. You will be taken to a new screen in which you can give the roadmap a name, change the length of time for which it available and the start year and term.
• Once you've renamed it and selected the start year/term and length of time for the roadmap to span, choose a view. You can choose "Roadmap Only" or Roadmap and Audit View. The roadmap only view will allow you to manually build a roadmap or modify it. The Roadmap and Audit view will allow you to drag and drop from the audit for the degree program you have chosen.

Complete & Publish Roadmap

Publish via the Audit & Roadmap view

To publish a roadmap this way:

• First, open the roadmap.
• In order to publish the roadmap with this method, the roadmap will have to be marked as "Complete" first.
• After you finish building a roadmap, it will be in 'In-Progress' status until it's marked as being "Complete". (Depending on your school's configuration in the security application, you may need to have someone else mark the roadmap as complete if you don't see an option to do. This is intended for schools who wish to implement a 'chain of command' when building roadmaps.
  • To mark a roadmap as complete click the "Complete" icon located at the top of the page. After marking this roadmap as complete you will be required to reopen the roadmap from the Manage Roadmaps page.
• Once the roadmap is marked as "Complete" you will have a "Publish" icon available at the top of the page. Clicking on this icon will publish and close the roadmap.
• Students will now be able to create plans using this roadmap. It will under the relevant degree programs on the "Manage Plans" page. (viewable by expanding out until degree program is visible)

Publishing from the Manage Roadmaps page

If you have the right permissions (set in the security console), you will be able to change the status of a roadmap on the "Manage Roadmaps" page.

To do this:

• Select the degree program that was used to build the roadmap from the tree on the left side of the screen. Expand out until the degree program is visible.
  

• Once the degree program is selected, a table will appear with all the roadmaps that have been built from that degree program.
• In the table, you will see a field that says "Status".

• Once you have found the roadmap for which you'd like to change the status and then click on the 'Status' box. If you have permissions, a drop-down box will appear in which you can select to "Complete" or "Publish" the roadmap.
  
• Select the status you would like to apply to the roadmap.
• Click the "Save" button.
• The status of the roadmap should now have changed.

Sync

How to use Sync:

1. Click the Sync icon at the top of the page.
2. You will be taken to the Synchronize page where you will see the results of the cross check with the audit. If the audit has been completed, you should see all green checkmarks. However, if you haven't fulfilled an audit requirement. You may want to note what is not yet met to make it easier when you go back to the edit view.
3. From here, select either Roadmap View or Roadmap & Audit to continue editing your Roadmap. 

Search Students

How do I Search For Students?

There are two methods for searching for students:

• On the Home Page, enter the Student ID in the Search Students box
  
• When the student is found, click the "View Plans" button
• This will display the list of available Plans for that student

or

• Click on the Browse Students button from the home page or by going to the "Students" menu at the top of the page and selecting "search"
• You'll be taken to the student browser page. If you have an assigned list of student Advisees then they will be listed here
• If not you can search for a specific student by their Last Name, Username or Student ID
  

• Select the Student from the list and click "View Student's Plan"
• This will display the list of available Plans for that student

Working with a Student Plan

The list of Student Plans includes:

• Declared - the Plan the student has marked as their declared plan will have an asterisk in this column
  • The Declared Plan is the Plan the student intended to follow toward degree completion
  • At this time only the Student can mark a Plan as their Declared Plan
• Approved - you have the ability to approve a Plan and lock it down so that the student can no longer make changes
  • You lock/unlock the Plan by checking/unchecking the box in this column
  • You also have the ability to approve a Plan while you're editing it
• Plan - Clicking on the Plan name will open that Plan in the Student Plan Builder
• Created - the Created column will show you the date the Plan was created
• Modified - the Modified column will display the date that the Plan was last updated

How do I Create a Plan for a Student

Student Home

When you first log in to u.direct, you will see your 'home' page. There are two areas on this page: My Plans and Recently Referenced Roadmaps.

My Plans

The Declared Plan is the plan that you intend to follow. You may have other plans listed and can continue to build them but once you set a Declared plan, this is the one you intend to follow, the others become 'what-if' plans.

You can create a New Plan or Manage your existing plans.

Recently Referenced Roadmaps

This section displays the five Roadmaps you have used most when creating your plans. Clicking the Roadmap name will open the latest Plan you have created with this Roadmap. You can click on Manage Roadmaps and, if you have permissions within the security console, you will permitted to view available roadmaps. However, you will see them as 'read-only' and will not be able to edit them.

You can also access the Manage Plans and the Manage Roadmaps page from the menus on top of the screen.

Create a Plan

How do I create a Plan?

• From the home page click on the "Manage Plans" link, either at the bottom of the "My Plans" area or from the Plans menu at the top of the screen .
• You will be taken to a new page where you can view any plans you have already created. If you haven't created any yet or you wish to create a new one, click on the "Create a new Plan" button.

• You will see a list of list appear. By hitting the 'expand all' button, you can view all the items in the tree or you expand each department individually. If you want to see what roadmaps you can use without going through the tree view, you can go to the Roadmaps menu at the top of the screen and select "View All Roadmaps" this will give you a list of all the roadmaps you can potentially use to build a plan. You cannot build a plan from this page so it's highly suggested that you take note of which department/degree program is associated with the roadmap you wish to use. This way, you'll know where to look when you look on the tree view.

• Roadmaps that you can use to build your plan will be at the deepest level of the tree view. Click on the one you wish to use to build your plan.
  

• You'll see a new area appear which prompts you to enter a plan name. Enter a name for your plan. Note: You can rename the plan at a later date.
• The default settings for the plan are already set- the Term begins in Fall, the Year is the current year and the Years to Graduation is defaulted to 4. However, you can change any of these default settings if they do not apply to you- e.g. if you're creating a two year roadmap because you're a transfer student.
• The new plan will display in the list of available plans below.
• If this is your first plan, you can also choose if this is your declared plan. This indicates that this is the plan you intend to follow to graduation. You can create other plans. Until your plan is approved by an advisor, you can change which is your declared plan. However, once a plan has been approved, it is 'locked' and you can no longer change your declared plan without speaking to your advisor first.
  • To begin building the plan click on the name of the plan just created. This will open the plan in Plan & Roadmap View so you can continue to build your plan

Continue below to find out more about creating a plan.

Plan and Roadmap View

Plan and Roadmap View

Adding Courses to the Plan

There are several ways to add courses to a plan: 

Manually Adding Courses

• Find the course within the roadmap
• Grab the course with your cursor, drag it to the term of your choice on the plan and drop it.
• Continue to drag and drop courses until all roadmap requirements are complete.

Adding Courses via the drag and drop method will automatically bring over the course with its credit hours and title.

Right Click Method

• Right click your mouse on the term with which you are working. A menu will appear.
• Select Add Course from this menu.
• A small window will open where you will enter the department abbreviation and course number of the course you would like to add. This must match the way the course appears on the roadmap.
• Select "OK".
• The course will be added to your plan.

Using one of these two methods, you will add courses to the plan until all requirements have been completed on the roadmap. A green check mark will display next to requirements as they are completed.

Move All, Move Preferred and the Remove All Buttons

Move All

• This is intended only for very specific roadmaps that provide very little choice. Hitting this button will transfer EVERYTHING from the Roadmap to the Plan, regardless of hours. Therefore, if a roadmap displays multiple options for courses to be taken in a semester, hitting the "Move All" button will transfer ALL of the courses and the unit values over. This could potentially lead to a huge amount of units required per term. Be careful ONLY to hit this button if you know that the roadmap is very specific.

Move Preferred

• This button will allow everything from the Roadmap to be sent to the plan unless a student is given an option. Those terms that allow for a selection to be made between multiple course on a Roadmap will not have that information transferred to the Plan and thus, those terms will not have the green "fulfilled' checkmark. Unfulfilled requirements will require a selection to be made and then drag-and-dropped or manually added to a plan.

Remove All

• This button enables a user to remove all dragged/manually added courses from a plan. It is a good way to start over if you decide that you don't like the way the plan is looking. Please note, at the moment, if you use this button, you will need to manually remove all courses for the current term and past terms to be able to use the move-preferred/move-all buttons again. This will be improved in future releases.

Editing the Plan

By right clicking your mouse at different levels you can edit your plan.

At the Term Level:

• Add Course - allows you to add a course to the plan in this term
• Add Term - adds another term to the plan (You will be asked to select the term and the year if you select this option.)
• Remove all Courses - will delete all of the courses within this term
• Delete - will remove the term, and all of the courses within, from the plan.

At the Course Level:

• Course Description - a view of the course description and any applicable values
• Delete  will remove the course from the plan. 
  

Other Items

At the top of the page you can perform the following:

• Audit View - This will run a degree audit report so you can see how the courses you've added to your plan will apply to the requirements of this degree program
• Validate - Will cross check your plan against the roadmap to make sure the requirements are being met.
• Change Roadmap - Allows you to build your plan using another roadmap. (Examples of when you might want to do this would include adding a minor or a second major)
  • Click the Change Roadmap icon
  • Select the new roadmap from the tree-view list
  • You will now be able to drag and drop courses from this new roadmap onto your plan
• Plan View - Will switch your view from the Plan & Roadmap View to the Plan Editor View. Click here to find out more about the Plan View.

Plan View

Single Plan View

Adding Courses to the Plan

Since the plan view does not display the associated roadmap, you will not be able to drag and drop courses. Therefore, you must manually add each one.

Manually Adding Courses

• Right click your mouse on the term you're working with.
• On the menu that appears, select Add Course
• A small window will open where you will enter the department abbreviation and course number of the course you would like to add. This must match the way the course appears on the roadmap.
  
• Select OK
• The course will be added to you plan.

Using this method, you will add courses to the plan until all requirements have been completed for this program. To verify that courses you're adding are meeting requirements use the Validate functionality located at the top of the page.

Editing the Plan

By right clicking your mouse at different levels you can edit your plan.

At the Term Level:

• Add Course - Allows you to add a course to the plan in this term.
• Add Term - Adds another term to the plan.
  • You will be asked to select the term and the year.
• Remove all Courses - Will delete all of the courses within this term.
• Delete - Will remove the term, and all of the courses within, from the plan.

At the Course Level:

• Course Description - A view of the course description and any applicable values.
• Delete  Will remove the course from the plan. 
  
  

Other Items

At the top of the page you can perform the following:

• Audit View - This will run a degree audit report so you can see how the courses you've added to your plan will apply to the requirements of this degree program
• Validate - Will cross check your plan against the roadmap.
• Change Roadmap - Allows you to build your plan using another roadmap. (Examples of when you might want to do this would include adding a minor or a second major)
  • Click the Change Roadmap icon
  • Select the new roadmap from the tree-view list
  • You will now be able to drag and drop courses from this new roadmap onto your plan
    *Plan and Roadmap View- this will allow you to go back into the display where the roadmap is on the left and the plan on the right, enabling you to drag and drop courses.

Manage Plans

To begin, select Manage Plans from the Plans tab at the top of the screen. You will now see a list of all the Plans that you have created. You can then Create a new Plan, or choose to edit one of your existing Plans.

The table that displays the plans has several fields:

• Declared Plan - will designate this as the Plan you intend to follow. You may only have one declared plan.
• Plan Name - by clicking on the Name of the Plan you will open that Plan for editing in the Plan and Roadmap View.
• Action -: This is a drop-down menu that may have several options:
  •   Plan View: This option will open the Plan in the Plan Editor View.
  •   Rename: This will allow you to rename a plan from that which was originally created. You must hit the "Ok" button after renaming the plan for the change to take.
  •   Copy - will provide a pop-up box allowing you to give the copy a name. Hitting OK will then clone the plan, allowing you to modify it just as you did the original plan.
  •   Delete- this will allow you to delete a plan from the list. Note, you cannot delete a declared plan unless you first select another plan to be the declared plan.

    You may not see all of the options above in the drop-down menu depending on the permissions you have set in the security console. For example, if you are not permitted to delete plans, that option will not be one of the actions you can select.

• PDF - allows you to view the Plan in PDF format. You can also print the Plan in this view.

View Preferences

The page View Preferences does not exist.