This section describes how we track time-to-degree, how we formally monitor students, what Graduate Division and the home departments are responsible for doing.
Academic Progress Plan (APP) Collection 101
Academic Progress Plans (APPs) are used to document the plan of action that a student needs to take in order to get back into good academic standing. There are a few different ways we utilize and collect them.
Required after the initial notification from the Graduate Division
In the first instance when students did not meet Coursework Performance or Time-to-Degree Standards, the Graduate Division will automatically send a warning/monitoring notification, and request that a APP be submitted within 3 weeks
Required in Follow Up situations, as described below in https://ucsb-atlas.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GUM/pages/6596035483/Time-to-Degree%2BTracking%2BReporting%2Band%2BMonitoring%2Band%2BAcademic%2BProgress%2BPlan%2BCollection#Instructions-for-Quarterly-Time-to-Degree-Monitoring-Follow-Ups
Required when a department is requesting to initiate monitoring or probation for Departmental Standards of Scholarship.
In cases where students are not responding to a request to submit a APP in a timely manner, which happens sometimes in follow up cases, or departmental standards cases, the Faculty Graduate Advisor can work with the student’s advisor to create a reasonable plan for them, and provide that plan to the student and the Graduate Division without the student’s signature.
What is Time-to-Degree?
Time-to-Degree (TTD) and Time-to-Advance (TTA) are the amounts of time students are given to finish those milestones. Master's students must complete the master's degree within the four-year time limit (Senate reg. 300A), and Doctoral students must meet departmental specific TTA and TTD based on admission year (Senate reg. 350A and Graduate Council rulings). You can see each department’s time-to-degree standards on the Graduate Division’s website.
TTA and TTD can be officially extended due to Parenting Demands, Part-Time enrollment, and via DSP Accommodation. Also, in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Graduate Council granted a 3 quarter TTA/TTD extension to all students who were enrolled in the spring quarter of 2020.
If departments wish to formally alter their TTA/TTD, they can make that proposal to the Graduate Council as a Program Change.
How to use GradPoint to locate a student’s time-to-degree and academic standing
Programs Tab
Search for the student you wish to view, and navigate to the Programs Tab. The Time-to-Degree box will display the student’s Time-to-Degree Standard, remaining quarters, target, and exceptions. If the Remaining TTD is a positive number, then that is how many quarters the student has left within their TTD. If it is negative, that is how many quarters over they are. Please see https://ucsb-atlas.atlassian.net/l/c/ifnn1c1a for more specific descriptions of the data fields.
Standing Tab and Documents Tab
To see an individual student’s Academic Standing history (such as the quarters they have been on monitoring status, navigate to the Standing Tab in the Student Profile. For a detailed description, please see https://ucsb-atlas.atlassian.net/l/c/c1F4VHpt. To view previous quarter’s Academic Progress Plans, navigate to the Documents Tab. For a detailed description, please see https://ucsb-atlas.atlassian.net/l/c/UnYbmGSd.
Reports
Navigate to the GradPoint Reports Tab and make sure you have chosen the Academic Performance & Standing Report Set. in the bottom tray you will see
The TTD Students/Programs Report will return your students' time-to-degree information. This report works best if a quarter is chosen. For example, if you want to see the most up-to-date time to degree information for all of your students, choose the current quarter from the QTR slicer, and choose Registered and On Leave from the Reg Status field (this eliminates students who have open objectives, but are lapsed). The remaining quarters field will tell you how many quarters the student is under or over TTD. If you just want to view students who are over TTD for a standard, choose “Over” from the Over/Under slicer.
Additional details and descriptions about the slicers and columns can be found in https://ucsb-atlas.atlassian.net/l/c/5Pp96ujA
Instructions for Quarterly Time-to-Degree Monitoring Follow Ups
Students who exceed their TTA or TTD are placed on monitoring status during the first quarter they exceed it. The full TTD monitoring policy can be read on the Graduate Division’s website.
Graduate Division will send out notifications to students who have newly exceeded their TTD, however departments will need to follow up on students whose monitoring period has expired, and need new progress plans. The Graduate Division will send an email reminder to departments at the beginning of each quarter to do this process, and the Graddiv Google Calendar will also contain a reminder.
In order to find out which students' monitoring period has expired and need to submit a new progress plan follow the instructions below:
Navigate to the Academic Standing Report in GradPoint Academics Report Tab
Choose the quarter you are interested in
Choose “Department Pending” in the “Action” Filter
Email the students on the list to prompt them to submit a new Academic Progress Plan (give the students a deadline to respond, such as 1 week*), and once the plan is received by the department, have the Faculty Graduate Advisor review, recommend the next action (continued monitoring, escalation to probation, etc.), and send the completed Academic Progress plan to gradacademics@graddiv.ucsb.edu.
*If a student doesn’t respond in a timely manner, please work with the personal advisor/faculty grad advisor as necessary to create a reasonable plan on their behalf, as we don’t want the follow-up process to be delayed.
For a detailed description of the different actions (warning, monitoring, and probation) see here.
For a detailed description of how different actions affect funding, see How Academic Status Effects Funding.
Instructions for following up on missing Academic Progress Plans for students who are new to monitoring
Every student who is on warning or monitoring status should submit an Academic Progress Plan to the Graduate Division. The student is notified to submit one when they are placed on monitoring status for the first time, but sometimes they don’t do so in a timely manner. To see which of your students have not submitted an Academic Progress Plan, please follow the instructions below;
Navigate to the Reports Tab in GradPoint
Navigate to the Academic Standing Report
Choose the quarter you are interested in from the Quarter Slicer
Choose “N” in the Progress Plan Slicer
Any student with a blank Progress Plan Date is missing a progress plan for that quarter, and should be reminded to submit one. Email addresses are included in the report for easy mass-emailing.