Overview
This article provides an overview of three significant updates to Planning and Self-Study. These enhancements focus on improving the sharing of strategic plans, customizing the visual layout of curriculum maps, and integrating non-course learning activities into curriculum mapping.
Exporting and Sharing Strategic Plans
Institutional effectiveness leaders and contributors can now export and share strategic plans with stakeholders who do not have accounts in Planning & Self-Study. This enhancement simplifies the communication of progress and aligns campus-wide efforts by allowing plans to be shared directly with broader audiences.
Key Enhancements:
- Exporting Strategic Plans as PDF: Users can generate a formatted PDF of a strategic plan, which is suitable for meetings, formal reports, or offline viewing.
- Sharing Plans via Secure Web Link: Users can create a shareable HTML view of a strategic plan. This link can be published on institutional websites or shared directly. Viewers do not need a PSS account to access this content.
- Content Customization:
- Goals and Objectives: Always included in the export.
- Tactics and Updates: Users can choose to include tactics and their specific updates for additional detail.
- Mapped Outcomes: Users can decide whether to include outcomes mapped to goals and objectives.
- Access and Permissions:
- Sharing can be toggled ON or OFF to control access to the online link.
- When sharing is OFF, the online link remains inaccessible to external users.
- Any changes made to the strategic plan reflect automatically in the online shareable link.
How to Share or Export a Strategic Plan
- Open a strategic plan.
- Select the option to export as a PDF or Share Plan Online.
- If sharing online, click to enable public share link and select elements to include.
- Goals and Objectives (always included)
- Tactics and tactic updates (optional)
- Mapped Outcomes (optional)
Download the PDF or share the web link with stakeholders.
Customizing Curriculum Map Layouts
Planning & Self-Study now offers a flexible way to view and interact with curriculum maps. Users can switch between horizontal and vertical layouts, which simplifies the analysis and presentation of curriculum data based on specific institutional needs.
Key Enhancements:
- Flexible Curriculum Map Layouts: Users can toggle between two views on the curriculum map: the traditional layout and a new vertical view. This feature allows for the display of courses as rows and outcomes as columns, or vice versa. All data remains aligned and readable regardless of the chosen orientation.
- Saved Layout Preferences: When a user saves a curriculum map, the system preserves the chosen layout for all contributors. The selected view-standard or vertical-is displayed the next time any user opens the map.
- Consistent Snapshots and Exports: Snapshots and exported documents reflect the chosen layout, ensuring consistency across shared reports and presentations.
Adding Non-Course Activities to Curriculum Maps
Planning & Self-Study now allows users to include non-course-based activities—such as internships, research projects, study abroad programs, and community engagement—directly within a program’s curriculum map. This update enables institutions to capture a holistic view of student learning experiences by documenting outcomes achieved outside of traditional classroom settings.
Key Improvements
- Managing Non-Course Activities: Users can define and manage learning activities within the program workspace. Both courses and non-course activities appear together in the curriculum map.
- Comprehensive Mapping: Users can map these activities to program learning outcomes using the standard scale: Introduced, Reinforced, or Mastered.
- Streamlined Editing: The interface allows users to edit or delete these activities directly within the map.
- Enhanced Reporting and Gap Analysis: Exported or shared curriculum maps include these activities in the same format as courses.
- Visual Insights: Visual gap analysis and summary reports highlight how non-course activities contribute to learning outcomes. This helps users identify program strengths and areas for improvement.
- Snapshots: Users can save snapshots of the curriculum map that include all active learning activities.
How to Add a Non-Course Activity to a Curriculum Map
- Navigate to the program plan and click into the curriculum map.
- Click More Options and select Align Learning Activities.
Select Add New Learning Activity.
- Provide a title for the non-course activity and an optional description.
- Click Add.