Overview
In Student Success & Engagement, degrees and programs are used to filter students into populations and then to take actions, send alerts, messages, etc. on that population.
There are 6 required Degree Program-related data feeds. There are optional related feeds including major, and curriculum/area of study feeds. There are also other feeds referenced including academicLevel, location, and person.
Note: At this time, curriculum/area of study feeds are not recommended for implementation.
Degree Program Related Feeds
The SIS Import Definitions outlines the import requirements for each of the following feeds.
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academicCalendar
- Includes terms the program could start in - sometimes considered the catalog year/term
-
degree
- Types of degrees, certificates, etc. offered
-
program
- The list of programs may or may not be the same as the list of majors. They will likely overlap a lot. Some institutions use majors while others do not.
- While inactive program records will likely be needed for historical data, it is highly recommended to use the active field to limit the number of active programs. Campus users will benefit from the ability to select between active and inactive programs when using filters, creating lists for messaging, tracking students, and within other system features.
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degreeProgram
- Degree program combinations offered each year/term - sometimes called the catalog.
-
personDegreeProgram
- This data feed represents the program history for a student. It should include current and previous programs, completed or not.
-
transcript
- The transcript feed includes the student’s primary and secondary degreePrograms in addition to primary and secondary majors. These are the programs listed under the student's name on the student profile and used for filtering.
-
major (optional)
- The major feed is optional and will likely overlap significantly with the program feed, especially for 2-year institutions.
For each of these feeds, historical and inactive data will likely be needed to support historical student data. For example, if a student is returning to the institution after attending 15 years ago, the degree program they were previously enrolled in would be present on their record and the supporting data would be needed.
ER Diagram
Example Scenario
In this example, the Olivia Student (0123456) started out in Fall 2023 with a BA in Biology, but switched to a BS in Math - a program beginning in the Fall of 2024. Therefore, she has two personDegreeProgram records in SS&E. Here are the (partial) records in each feed to support her program data, plus some additional data.
academicCalendar
- FA2024
- FA2023
degree
- BA, Bachelor of Arts
- BS, Bachelor of Science
- CERT, Certificate
- NONE, No degree
program
- MTH, Mathematics
- BIO, Biology
degreeProgram
- BA.MTH.FA2024, BA, MTH, FA2024
- BS.MTH.FA2024, BS, MTH, FA2024
- BA.BIO.FA2024, BA, BIO, FA2024
- BA.BIO.FA2023, BA, BIO, FA2023
personDegreeProgram
- 0123456.BA.BIO.FA2023, 0123456, BA.BIO.FA2023, 2023-08-01, 2024-07-31
- 0123456.BS.MTH.FA2024, 0123456, BS.MTH.FA2024, 2024-08-01, null
transcript
- 0123456, 3.87, 48, 3.75, BS.MTH.FA2024, , 0123456, , , , , , , , MTH
major
- MTH, MTH, Mathematics