Say goodbye to the frustration of switching between multiple tabs to create your class schedule and degree plans.
Cal Poly announced that it will introduce new platforms for student academic planning. PolyPlanner and Plan a Student Schedule (PASS) are tentatively scheduled to be replaced in Spring 2020.
The platforms ‘Degree Planner’ and ‘Schedule Builder’ are designed to help students plan out required classes for their entire degree program, all within one tool. These new platforms will no longer require a student to move through several third party platforms in order to plan, schedule and enroll in classes.
The switch to these new platforms has been in the works for quite some time, according to Associate Registrar of the Office of the Registrar Daniel Parsons. Although a large change is at hand for faculty and students, Parsons said both parties should be able to acclimate to using the new scheduling programs.
“Faculty, staff and students will have a small learning curve while they get accustomed to the new program,” Parsons said. “However, The Office of the Registrar held student focus groups for both ‘Degree Planner’ and ‘Schedule Builder,’ and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Our student testers have commented that both tools are very intuitive and are excited for the roll out.”
The decision to replace PolyPlanner with ‘Degree Planner’ and PASS with ‘Schedule Builder’ was made after a series of meetings between the Office of the Registrar, Information Technology Services (ITS) and Cal Poly Advising, Parsons said.
Parsons added that the reason behind the switch is to streamline the student user’s experience — both ‘Degree Planner’ and ‘Schedule Builder’ will be accessible through the Student Center.
“Degree Planner is a planner tool that will allow for a better user experience for planning your required classes for your entire degree program,” Parsons said. “This in turn, will lead to improved reliability in the students planned courses that departments can use to better project and plan seats students need to make progress towards their degree.”
The Office of the Registrar will host an informational session for faculty to learn how to use the new digital academic planning tools closer to the switch.