Abstract:

With a large graduate student base, North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina has been investigating a web-based method of student advising. The goals are to reduce the number of man-hours, email communications and paper forms required during the advising process, improve the capabilities of the advising process and leveraging use of data stored in its PeopleSoft Student Information System database. This secure web-based application, known as GSOARS, allows students, advisors and Directors of Graduate Programs to interact online in a structured manner to enrich the advising process..

The student enters information in GSOARS including topics such as publications, conferences, fellowships and grants, service/internship and employment. This information can be output as a CV and also maintained in the GSOARS database. The advisor uses either a freeform or pre-set list of questions in GSOARS to send to his advisees. The student's responses to the questions represent progress reports to which the advisor can respond. These reports allow the advisor and student to maintain communication on areas of common interest such as the students' academic progress and activities such as employment occurring outside of classes. The advisor can also view all of the students' relevant academic information on one page. This page includes personal data drawn from the Student Information System such as email and phone, academic program, members of the thesis or dissertation committees as well as the student plan of work and complete course history including grades for courses taken at North Carolina State University. The Director of Graduate Programs (DGP) can set program requirements for the students in his or her program in addition to the university-defined requirements. The DGP can also generate summary reports allowing him to view all students in the program in areas such as research, progress towards the degree and financial support.

The presentation will give an overview of how GSOARS works from a technical view (hardware and software operation) as well as the student, advisor and DGP view. Screen shots displaying typical transactions and communications between students, advisors and DGP's will be shown. Statistics will also be provided showing how GSOARS is being utilized. I will also discuss the future of GSOARS including contemplated additional capabilities.

Keywords:

Advising, web-based, graduate students.