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    Tracker Wiki - Found any bugs or outdated information?

    GratGrat Posts: 293
    in TheDegreeTracker™
    Share your thoughts about the Tracker and help us keep it up to date with the most recent information from HES regarding degree requirements, certificate requirements, courses, and instructors. Feel free to share your thoughts!

    Comments

    • gebuhgebuh Posts: 2
      edited December 2015
      Hi, started using the degree tracker today. I'm working on pre-admission requirements for ALM in software engineering. I've completed one class - CSCI E-90 cloud computing. When I entered the class in planning the closest I could come for course attribute was concentration elective (the class is concentration elective and cloud computing). When I look at the tracked and planned requirements view this class isn't shown under cloud computing credits earned. So two things - how do you account for courses that fulfill multiple criteria and shouldn't cloud computing be in the attribute drop down list?

      ETA
      There doesn't appear to be a difference between planning a course and adding a course - a planned course requires a letter grade for a class not yet taken.
      Thanks
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      edited December 2015
      Hi @gebuh,

      Thanks for signing up for TheDegreeTracker. Let me see if I can help you -

      I believe what should be happening is that you should have the option to pick a course attribute that is either "cloud computing" or an "elective." Are you not seeing those two options when you create or edit a course? If not, make sure you have selected "software engineering" and "ALM" under the user settings page.

      In terms of your second question, the difference between adding a course to the "planning" and "tracking" pages is that the calculations for "tracking" only includes what you have marked as a "completed" course. The calculations on the "planning" page includes all of your courses - those that are not yet completed as well as those that are completed. Even though you have to estimate a grade for courses you haven't taken yet, this will help you have an idea of what your GPA will be when you finish your degree at HES.

      Hope that helps, and let me know if you are still having any troubles.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Ah - I see what the problem is: "cloud computing" is I believe the same thing as "distributed computing". I will work on clarifying that.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Also, just to clarify, even though CSCI 90 can count as either an elective or towards the Cloud Computing/Distributed Computing requirement, it can't count towards both. You will have to pick. This is one of the strengths of TheDegreeTracker - you can plan out all your courses and see if you'd rather let CSCI 90 count as an elective or as the Cloud Computing/Distributed requirement. Figuring out how to maximize your course offerings so you're taking valuable courses and the courses you actually prefer is what TheDegreeTracker can help you with.
    • gebuhgebuh Posts: 2
      edited December 2015
      Grat said:

      Ah - I see what the problem is: "cloud computing" is I believe the same thing as "distributed computing". I will work on clarifying that.

      OIC - that makes sense, I should have tried that first.
      Thanks.
      Changing it to distributed computing, doesn't fill the cloud computing requirement.

    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Aha - I will get that fixed. Thanks for letting me know.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      @gebuh Ok I think it's fixed. The cloud computing requirement will get checked off for either "distributed computing" or "cloud computing." However, if you'd like to update the course you created so it says "cloud computing", just click on the "edit course" button and now you should be able to choose "cloud computing" instead of "distributed computing" on the edit page (and the create page as well).

      HES changed the name of the requirement from "distributed computing" to "cloud computing" during this summer (2015). For students who were admitted prior to 2015, it will still say "distributed computing" if you select a catalog year of 2014-2015 or earlier.
    • phellerpheller Posts: 11
      edited January 2016
      The GPA calculated for the degree by TheDegreeTracker is .01 higher than shown on my academic progress report. All grades and credit values match, leading me to believe you may be rounding whereas the GPA is actually truncated at 2 decimal places as I recall.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Thanks for pointing that out. I'll get it fixed.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      @pheller - I think I fixed it, let me know if it's truncating now!

      Interestingly, HES kind of makes up for the fact that they round down the overall GPA because they also round up the number of grade points they award per class (if you get an A-, you will get 3.67 grade points instead of 3.66 grade points). At least, that's what I figured out at some point in time.
    • phellerpheller Posts: 11
      Yes, looks good now.
    • phellerpheller Posts: 11
      I'm finally starting to go back and add in details about what I paid for courses to see what this degree actually cost me.

      A couple requests related to this:

      - for each course, please add columns for books and misc. costs, and a column for reimbursement amount (for those with some sort of Tuition Reimbursement program)
      - not sure how to visually represent this, but allow for "term" fees (registration, matriculation, etc) and related reimbursement amount.
      - Calculate in the tracker and planner totals for registration, tuition, books, misc., subtotal of these, total of tuition reimbursements, and then the difference between the subtotal and the reimbursements.

      Related observations:

      Also, there are some courses that I dropped at during the partial refund window. I'm not sure how to represent those courses. It seems you must specify a grade.

      I tried adding one such course (RELI E-1010). I forgot to specify what Year and Term I took it in, and when I updated it to reflect Spring 2011 and status "Other", it disappeared from both the planner and tracker view entirely.

      A couple requests related to usability:

      - Please remove the banner on each page - the landing page is probably enough. Perhaps you could instead add something to the right side of the navigation bar to reveal that you're in planning, tracking, or whatever.
      - Add a profile checkbox to specify admitted / matriculated. Make the checkbox inactive until requirements are fulfilled. When fulfilled, make active, and when set, hide the "Preadmission Requirements" panel.
      - Try to move towards fewer page location changes. I.e., use a modal javascript pop over for "add course", and when "submitted" dismiss the modal, add an entry to the DOM for it, and post the data to the backend. It's especially painful to populate the system when first joining if you have already completed a large number of courses.


      Regards,

      Phil
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Great suggestions. It may take us a while to implement them, but despite that I appreciate the feedback and good ideas.
    • DmilesDmiles Posts: 41
      I'm not sure what is going on, but I have only tracked two classes (8cr hrs) for my on campus requirement, but the tracker says I've done all 16.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Thanks for letting me know. We'll fix that soon!
    • DmilesDmiles Posts: 41
      Nevermind...I figured it out. For some reason I hadn't noticed the credits changed when I saved my last class
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Glad to hear it!
    • khallettkhallett Posts: 3
      Hi, so I just set up the tracker yesterday and noticed a couple of things. I think I might have made an error when I input some courses that I transferred in, but there does not seem to be a way to edit or delete those courses. Also, I'm an ALB candidate concentrating in humanities. I'm considering doing a philosophy and ethics field of study. I noticed that several government courses I've taken count towards both a government minor and the phil and ethics field of study, because they're political philosophy courses. But because they're technically social sciences courses, I can't track them towards that field of study. I've noticed a few other courses I'm considering for the future will have the same issue. As it stands I can either inaccurately track them as humanities courses, so that they will count towards the FoS, which will throw off the tracking of my concentration requirement. Or I can track them as social sciences and not see the progress towards the FoS.

      Overall, it is a great tool!
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      Thanks for the feedback, khallett. We'll take a look and see how to fix this.
    • GratGrat Posts: 293
      edited May 2016
      @khallett I think I fixed the issue. You should now be able to select social science courses to fulfill the philosophy and ethics (humanities) field of study. Also, I checked to see if transfer courses can be deleted, and you should be able to delete (or edit) them. When you are on either the "Tracking" or "Planning" pages, look for the transfer course you created and then look to the right side of its box for that transfer course. You should see an "Edit" and a "Delete" button, just like for regular courses. Let me know if you have any further questions. Hope you enjoy TheDegreeTracker!
    • khallettkhallett Posts: 3
      Thanks for the response, Grat. My issue is actually that although I can see the transfer courses I entered in the complete course summary on my dashboard, they don't appear on either my Tracking or Planning pages. The credits for them are in my counts, but they're not showing up with all of my extension classes, which means I can't access the edit and delete buttons that appear in those views.

      Also, I just added a second minor, and although I have 3 courses marked with the attribute for that minor (and my grades were above a B- in all of them), the tracker for that minor is only showing 8 credits rather than 12. I'm wondering if that might be because one of the courses for that minor is no longer offered by the Extension School. I did mark it as an Extension school course, but that's the only difference I can see between them.

      Otherwise, the tracker has really helped me get a clear picture of my progress so far, which has been great to see! Thanks again!
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