[Wsssc] FW: Guided Pathways Meta Majors coding in ctcLink

[Joe Holliday]

Colleagues: see below FYI, an update on guided pathways metamajors…


From: INSTCOMM-CLOSED <INSTCOMM at LISTSERV.CENTRALIA.EDU<mailto:INSTCOMM at LISTSERV.CENTRALIA.EDU>> On Behalf Of Carli Schiffner
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 8:34 AM
To: INSTCOMM at LISTSERV.CENTRALIA.EDU<mailto:INSTCOMM at LISTSERV.CENTRALIA.EDU>
Subject: [INSTCOMM-CLOSED] Guided Pathways Meta Majors coding in ctcLink

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of Centralia College. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Sent on behalf of Carli Schiffner
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From: Grant Rodeheaver and Carli Schiffner:

Good morning colleagues,
You may recall that testing and training of Guided Pathways Subplans in ctcLink took place this summer and several ctcLink colleges subsequently went live with Subplans at the end of August. The remaining DG3 colleges will launch Subplans when they are ready. Moving forward, Deployment Groups 4, 5 and 6 will implement Subplans as they get ready to go live on ctcLink.
Today, we would like to give you an update on another technical aspect of our Guided Pathways work: Meta Majors in ctcLink.
Background
When the Washington community and technical college system developed system-wide functional requirements for a new administrative software solution in 2011, Guided Pathways Meta Majors were not part of the requirements. Meta Majors scope was also not added during the ctcLink Project timeline and budget re-plan efforts in 2017.

In the intervening years, as Guided Pathways work was launched – and long after the ctcLink Academic Structure configuration in PeopleSoft Campus Solutions was put into place – colleges and commissions began to express a desire to add Guided Pathways technical requirements to the ctcLink scope of work. As part of that work, colleges were engaged in a 2019 series of Business Process Requirements gathering workshops to define what technical needs existed.
Challenges, Opportunities and the Work Ahead
The ideal solution for Guided Pathways Meta Majors would be to reconfigure the ctcLink Academic Structure to include Meta Majors, while implementing the remaining colleges. However, this work would will take additional funding and time to implement that is not part of the ctcLink budget and timeline.
Were we to reconfigure the ctcLink Academic Structure to include Meta-Majors while still implementing the remaining colleges in Deployment Groups 4, 5 and 6, it would present a critical risk not only to the SBCTC ctcLink Support and ctcLink Project teams, but also to the colleges; putting a halt to the ctcLink project work and delaying the schedule for an indeterminant amount of time. (Each year of delay costs the colleges roughly $10 million.)
The Academic Structure re-design to incorporate Meta-Majors is not a simple task colleges can outsource, as it requires significant effort and active engagement by skilled college subject matter experts (SMEs) – especially, but not limited to, staff who configure Academic Advisement and Enrollment Requirements – making local college decisions and collaborating with campus instructional colleagues and SBCTC.
Academic Structure re-design steps include:

  *   Re-Configure and test new Academic Program, Plan, and Sub-Plan values
  *   Build new Academic Advisement Reports based on the new structure
  *   Edit Enrollment Requirements that use Academic Program and/or Plan
  *   Update and test Financial Aid Mass Packaging Equations (hard-coded based on the current Academic Programs)
  *   Create and update conversion programs
  *   Update and test Student Financials Equations (also hard-coded)
  *   Analyze queries, reports, and data warehouse links
Colleges currently on ctcLink PeopleSoft (DG2 and DG3) – Cascadia College, Clark College, Lower Columbia College, Olympic College, Peninsula College, Pierce College Fort Steilacoom, Pierce College Puyallup, Spokane Community College, Spokane Falls Community College, Tacoma Community College – cannot move forward until all of these steps are taken.  DG2 and DG3 colleges recently completed a tremendous body of work to develop, test and implement their Guided Pathways Sub-Plans into ctcLink. Moving forward, all deployment groups are implementing their Sub-Plans as they prepare to go live.
At this time, college SMEs are already challenged to meet the heavy-lift of ctcLink due to the stay-at-home order, remote work, staff reductions and furloughs. The SBCTC ctcLink Support Organization is in a building phase and has neither the capacity nor the specific technical skills on staff to successfully implement this change.  The ctcLink project team is staffed to complete the current defined and approved scope, additional scope or changes will have a direct impact on the deployment timeline for remaining colleges.
In addition, the ctcLink Project’s external quality assurance oversight agency has cautioned the Project to carefully manage its planned scope, so as not to derail the tight schedule and limited budget.
Next Steps
While Guided Pathways is a key element of our college system, the SBCTC ctcLink Change Management Board – in concurrence with agency leaders, IT leadership, and ctcLink Project governance – has determined this re-design effort is best suited to take place after all colleges are live in ctcLink (Feb/March 2022). It is recommended that a separate optimization project is planned, with scope to include the Meta-Major implementation. This future optimization project will need to be planned, approved and funded by WACTC (Presidents).

SBCTC research and data services will continue to investigate possible solutions for reporting requirements that come up, and will communicate about those efforts with the colleges in the next few months.

Please share with your stakeholder groups.
~ Grant Rodeheaver and Carli Schiffner
[Compass]Grant Rodeheaver
Deputy Executive Director / CIO, IT Division
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
grodeheaver at sbctc.edu<mailto:grodeheaver at sbctc.edu> • o: 360-704-3939  • c: 360-280-4733
sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> • Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> • Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>


[Compass]Carli Schiffner, Ph.D.
Deputy Executive Director of Education
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
cschiffner at sbctc.edu<mailto:jyoshiwara at sbctc.edu>  • o: 360-704-4353  • c: 509-683-2963
sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> • Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> • Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>

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