Web Student—Academic Records: Advising Portal
Advising at Skidmore has been entirely paperless since Fall 2011. Rather than distribute
static, paper-based advising folders containing student academic records, the Office
of Academic Advising now provides these same records through an electronic portal
linking faculty to their individual advisees. The portal contains access to dynamic copies of each student’s course schedule, cumulative academic record, and degree
audit. The portal also provides summary information about the student’s academic interests
and progress, high school background and EW/QR/FLL placement, Admissions essays (from
the Common Application), and RAP essay. Further, an “e-notes” module allows faculty
to document their interactions with advisees. Whether these notes are viewable or
transferrable to other advisors (of the same student) is under each advisor’s control
on a per-note basis.
Access to a student’s electronic file begins whenever a student adds a new advisor.
The portal can be used when advising any student at Skidmore. However, Admissions
essays are only available for students entering the college in the Fall of 2011 and
beyond.
- Schedule. A dynamically updated record of the student’s current course schedule. The student’s schedule from the prior semester is also displayed.
- Cumulative Record. A record of the student’s academic performance, including presence/absence of summer coursework and transfer credit. Term GPAs are calculated after each term, and the current cumulative GPA is displayed at the top of the page.
- Degree Audit. Summary of the student’s progress at meeting all-college, major, and minor requirements. The most recently run degree audit is displayed (time stamp is shown in upper left corner). New degree audits are automatically run each week for all students. Note: Students who want to run/view their degree audit can find the link for this on the registrar’s webpage.
- Parent Information. Shows contact information, educational background, and current employment of the student’s parents.
- Advising Notes. Allows the advisor to add comments about his or her interaction with each advisee. Within the Advising Notes tab, select the "New Note" button and type or paste-in your comment. The drop-down menu allows you to code the note by type while the “Access” button sets limits on confidentiality. The default option limits viewing rights to the person who created the note. The advisor may also choose to share the comment with other (secondary) advisors of the same student and/or with staff in the OAA. Notes accumulate in a scrollable window; they can be printed or saved to pdf at any time. If an advising relationship with a student is terminated, only those comments that the former advisor chose to share with other advisors will "carry over" to the new advisor.
- Misc. Provides a summary of registration holds (for example: advising, major declaration, financial, and disciplinary holds) and notifies advisors of the student’s participation in intercollegiate athletics.
- Admissions. Summarizes the student’s high school background, testing, and EW/QR/FLL placement. Sub-tabs provide the student’s long and short essays (from the Common Application) or the entire Common Application (beginning Fall 2014).
- RAP. Provides the “Reflection and Projection” (RAP) question(s) posed to the student and his/her response(s).