During the last two weeks of February, University of Toronto students may have noticed some changes to the Student Web Service. First, they would have encountered a new ‘landing’ page when logging on to www.rosi.utoronto.ca. Second, there were some new applications added to the website–Course Finder and Degree Explorer. Third, there’s an application that helps to chart variations on program selection.
The landing page also introduces the Accessible Campus Online Resource Network (ACORN) so that students can now begin to see how the student information system is beginning to change as part of the NGSIS projects. The landing page is light on text (for U of T), has greater use of visual icons and an easily recognizable News and Alerts sections so students can see quickly if there is a system problem with ROSI or urgent information.
The most significant innovations for students will be found in the new applications. Course Finder is U of T’s official publicly available list of undergraduate courses for the Faculty of Arts & Science, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto Mississauga and University of Toronto Scarborough. This application is available to all undergraduate students and allows students to look for courses using a Keyword Search; it permits filtering of information by division, campus, term, weekday, time, credit and course-level; it gives detailed course information; and, it creates lists of ‘Favourites’ that can be saved for future use.
Degree Explorer is, as its name suggests, a degree planning tool. Available to upper-year students in the Faculty of Arts and Science, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, and UTSC, this application makes it possible quickly to review academic history and degree requirements. The planner can also be used to determine how future course combinations might be used to meet graduation requirements. Although currently available to senior students only, it is expected that all FAS students will have access by the end of March 2013.
So far, feedback on these new offerings has been positive from students. Let us know what you think by completing the ‘Send Feedback’ form on www.rosi.utoronto.ca/ You can also view the presentation on NGSIS that was made to the University Affairs Board here (http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=9436) :