Follow Up Action

Owned by Rickie Smith
Last updated: Oct 15, 2024 by Ashley Bradbury
8 min read

Overview

The Follow Up Action is what needs to be completed when a student has previously been on monitoring or probation, and it is time to follow up with a new progress plan and recommendation for continued monitoring/probation, etc. The GradPoint Workflow consists of the following steps, which are explained in step-by-step detail below:

  1. Request an updated Academic Progress Plan from the student (Staff Graduate Advisor)

    1. Graduate Division will prompt you according to this timeline Academic Performance Workflows | Processing Timeline

  2. Upload the Academic Progress Plan to the Follow-Up Action in GradPoint (Staff Graduate Advisor)

  3. Approve the Progress Plan and the Suggested Outcome (Faculty Graduate Advisor)

  4. Review the Follow-Up Action, create the notification letter (Academic Services Staff)

  5. Approve the Follow-Up Action, which results in the notification letter being sent and finalizes the process (Graduate Associate Dean/Dean)

Follow Up Schedule

Follow Ups have a certain schedule, so it is important to pay attention to the Follow Up Quarter, which is when the Follow Up is due. Both the Action Tab and the Follow Up Report display the Quarter, which is that quarter that the Follow Up is due.

Coursework Performance and Departmental Standards Follow-ups

  • Whenever a student is placed on standing for a coursework reason (GPA/INC) they will always have a follow-up due the next quarter until they meet their goal

  • For example, if a student is on monitoring for a low GPA starting in Fall 2022, they will have a follow-up due Winter 2023 (and every quarter after that until they meet their goal)

Time-to-Degree Follow-ups

  • When a student goes on monitoring for the first time for exceeding a time-to-degree (TTD) or time-to-advance (TTA) deadline, they are placed on monitoring, and followed up on after 3 quarters. In these cases, you will see follow ups that are due in the future

  • After the 3 quarters have passed, and the student still hasn’t met their milestone, then the follow-up scheduled changes to every quarter. For example, if Student X exceeds their TTA as of Fall 2022, they are placed on monitoring for Fall 22, Winter 23, and Spring 23. Their Follow-up quarter is Fall 2023. If they haven’t advanced by Fall 2023, their follow-up needs to be completed. Their next follow-up will be due Winter 2024. At this point, a follow-up will be due each quarter until the student meets the milestone.

What if we want to follow-up sooner than the future follow up quarter?

There may be some circumstances when a department wants to submit a Follow up earlier than when the Follow up is due. For example, if a student is placed on monitoring for TTD for the first time in the fall, their follow up quarter will be set to the following fall quarter. If by the winter, the student isn’t keeping up with their progress plan and the department wants to escalate to probation for spring, then we would need to override the follow up quarter to change it to be for the spring, instead of the fall.

We might also have cases where the department wants to keep the standing at monitoring, but wants to submit a new progress plan and have a new letter sent to the student. We would also use the override for that purpose as well.

If you find yourself in one of these scenarios, contact Rickie Smith (rickie@ucsb.edu) and request to move the follow up quarter.

 

How Do Follow-Ups get cleared when a student meets their milestone or leaves the program?

Each night, GradPoint will check to see if any students on standing for time-to-degree reasons have met their milestone, and if so, will resolve their status and cancel their next follow-up. It will also look for students who dropped their objectives and cancel their standing and follow-ups if they have any. At the end of each quarter, after the grading deadline has passed, GradPoint will check to see if students on standing for coursework reasons have raised their GPA to 3.0/cleared their incompletes and if so, will cancel their standing and follow-ups.

When a student meets their milestone and is back in good academic standing, they will receive an email notification letting them know that they are no longer on monitoring/probation status.

In cases where students are on standing for a Departmental Standard reason (which are reasons our systems can’t detect), you would resolve them manually following these instructions: Follow Up Action | Resolving Departmental Standards Follow Ups

Preparing to Complete the Follow-Up Action

Request updated Academic Progress Plan (Staff Graduate Advisor)

After receiving the email prompt from the Graduate Division directing you to start completing your follow ups, Staff Graduate Advisors will request updated Academic Progress Plans from the students whose Follow Up Actions are due that quarter.

  1. In GradPoint Academics Report Tab, Navigate to the Follow-Ups Report

  2. Select the quarter that the follow-up is due

  3. Select the reason category that you are working on

    1. Graduate Division will ask you to start working on time-to-degree and departmental standards follow-ups first, and coursework follow-ups a bit later (once grades are due), so use the Reason Category filter to easily differentiate between them.

  4. Select the Step Name

    1. Select “Upload Follow-Up Progress Plan” from the Step Name Slicer. This will return your students that need follow-ups submitted for that quarter.

  5. Email the students on the report and request that they submit an updated Academic Progress Plan to you, so that you can upload it into the Follow-Up Action in GradPoint.

 

In this case, the Faculty Graduate Advisor or the student’s personal advisor should create a progress plan and submit it without the student’s signature. This should only be done in cases where the student isn’t responsive. Ideally, the student participates in the progress plan process in order to ensure that all parties are on the same page with expectations.

Locating the Follow-Up Action In GradPoint

Once you have received the updated progress plan for the student, you are ready to complete the first step of the Follow-Up Action. The Follow-Up Action can be found two ways; via the Action Tab in the individual student’s record, or via the Main Actions Tab

  1. The Actions Tab in the individual student’s record

    1. Navigate to the student’s record in GradPoint Academics by searching for their perm or name in the search bar

    2. Click on the Actions Tab

  2. The Main Action Tab

    1. Navigate to GradPoint Academics and click on the Actions Tab in the top bar

Completing the Follow-Up Action in GradPoint

Step 1 - Submit Standing Progress Plan - Completed by the Staff Graduate Advisor

No, only staff in the Staff Graduate Advisor role can upload the Academic Progress Plan and complete Step 1. Departments can have another staff person in this role to act as backup if needed/wanted.

Once the student has submitted their Academic Progress Plan to the Staff Graduate Advisor, the Staff Graduate Advisor would navigate to the Follow-Up Action for that student (via the Action Tab).

 

Click on the arrow next to the student’s Follow-Up Action

  • Click on the View Action button

  • This will take you to the Pending Step Tab of this Action

  • Upload the Academic Progress Plan by clicking the Browse button and finding the file

  • Enter any comments as needed. These comments can be seen by the Faculty Graduate Advisor and the Graduate Division via the Comments Tab.

  • Hit the Submit button to complete Step 1

Step 2 - Suggest Follow-Up Outcome - Completed by the Faculty Graduate Advisor

Yes, the Department Chair role can also complete this step, however it is expected that this will be done by the Faculty Graduate Advisor.

The Faculty Graduate Advisor will review the progress plan and choose the suggested outcome (monitoring or probation), moving the workflow to the Graduate Division.

Students who are making progress towards their goals, but have not yet met them, can continue on monitoring status. Students who did not show adequate progress towards their goals while on monitoring status, should be escalated to probation. Students can persist on monitoring or probation for multiple quarters as is appropriate for the situation. Students on Academic Probation cannot receive funding. Please also see Standing Tab | How Academic Status Effects Funding

  • View the Progress plan by clicking the link. The Faculty Graduate Advisor has the ability to replace the plan in this step if ever needed.

  • Suggest the outcome by selecting “monitoring” or “probation” from the dropdown list

Graduate Division Review and Finalization

  1. Academic Services staff will review the suggested outcome and progress plan, and create the standing letter draft. We might reach out to you for clarification as needed.

  2. Associate Dean will review outcome, plan, and letter

    1. When approved

      1. The letter will be sent to student, staff graduate advisor, and faculty graduate advisor via email

      2. The letter and plan will be archived and available in the student’s Documents Tab in GradPoint

      3. The new Standing Action (monitoring or probation) will be applied and visible in the student’s Standing tab in GradPoint

      4. The original Follow Up Action Record will be resolved

      5. A new Follow Up Action for the next quarter will be created

Resolving Departmental Standards Follow Ups

Departmental Standards follow-ups cannot be cleared via an automated process, as these cases are based on standards that the Graduate Division cannot detect. All Departmental Standards cases that have been resolved will need to be resolved by the Faculty Graduate Advisor by submitting a Resolve Department Standards Report .

Comments Tab

Academic Progress Plan Action | Comments Tab

Action History Tab

Academic Progress Plan Action | Action History Tab

Action Details Box

Academic Progress Plan Action | Action Details Box