DARSweb Instructions for Advisors

NOTICE: We apologize for the inconvenience you have been experiencing with the new version of our Degree Audit system. The previous DARSweb for Advisor version has been restored and you can run a degree audit report. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

You may skip the instructional text and go directly to the DARSweb for Advisors login page.

Log In

At the Database Login Parameters page, you will be asked to provide the following to begin your session:

  • Advisor ID—This is your enterprise ID (the same ID you use to get into Banner).
  • PIN—This is your personal identification number (PIN). It is your password. If you have not yet had a PIN created, please contact the DARS Specialist and ask that one be created.
  • College—You must select your college code from the drop-down list. This is important. Your Advisor ID is assigned a college code through DARSweb security. You will not be allowed to log in using a college code that is not defined for your Advisor ID in DARSweb security.

To complete the login process, click “Connect.”

Student Selection Page

You can select your student in one of the following ways:

  • Enter the student UIN—Enter the student number (UIN) and click “Continue.”
  • Perform a student search—The search is not case sensitive; uppercase, lowercase, or a combination of the two will work. If you elect to do a search by last name, the list returned will not be sorted by first name. If you elect to do a search and include the first name, you will be returned a list of all students whose first name or middle name matches the first name submitted.
  • Index of last names—The index of last names search will return all students whose last name starts with the selected letter. However, they will not be sorted alphabetically.

Main Menu

Having completed the login process, you should be looking at the DARSweb welcome page. You should now see the student ID and the student name. You should also see a small blurb below that asking you to report any problems you experience with DARSweb to the DARS Specialist.

At the top of the page is a menu bar. The menu bar has 8 navigational links:

  1. Student
  2. Exceptions
  3. Courses
  4. Audits
  5. What-If Courses
  6. DProgs
  7. Transfer Evals
  8. Logout

Exceptions

Departmental advisors are not allowed to use this feature. Student exceptions are entered by college office personnel only. You can view exceptions or elect to get help from this link. Student exception processing in DARwin allows courses to be substituted in a requirement, a requirement to waived, and so on.

View Exceptions takes you to the Exceptions page. If a student has had exceptions entered for them in DARwin, you will see the details here.

Courses

From this link you can elect to view courses stored in the DARwin database for your student.

View Courses takes you to the Course List page. All courses stored in the DARwin database for your student will be listed along with detail such as grades, hours, and so on.

Note that only transfer coursework and old (pre-fall 2004) Illinois coursework will be displayed here. No Illinois coursework taken in Fall 2004 or later will be stored in DARwin.

Audits

Clicking the “Audits” navigational link gives you a drop-down menu. You have 3 options available to you:

  • View Audits—Takes you to the Audits page, which will display all the audits that have been run for your student.
  • Request New Audit—Allows you to submit a request for a report.
  • Help—Available for most navigational menu items and offers explanations of items on selected pages.

The View Audits page lists all previously run reports or audits. You can view a previously run report by clicking “Details.” Previously run reports are periodically purged from the system. If you are waiting for a report you just submitted, you can click “Refresh the list” until your report appears in the report list. If you don’t click “Refresh,” your audit will still eventually appear in the list.

Delete Audit

You can delete a report by checking the box in the “Delete Audit” column of the audit list and then clicking “Delete Selected Audits.”

Request New Audit

After selecting “Request New Audit,” you will be taken to the Audit Request page. This page is divided into two general areas, Run Default Programs Listed and Run Selected Program. Select the area you wish to use by clicking the appropriate radio button.

Run Default Programs Area

This area displays the degree program and catalog year as it exists for a student in the DARwin database. These values are updated from Banner 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

Create a report using these settings by clicking the radio button in the area and then scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking “Submit A New Audit.” You can include any what-if courses you have created for your student by clicking “Include What-If Courses.”

Run Selected Program Area

In this area you can “force” a degree program for a student. Some colleges allow advisors to run any degree program that exists for the college here. Other colleges restrict their advisors and allow them to only run reports for their area of expertise.

Create a report in this area by setting the College, Degree Prog, and Catalog Year values. All other fields should be ignored.

  • College—This is your college code. Find your college code from the drop-down list and highlight.
  • Degree Program (DProg)—This the degree program name as defined in DARwin. The format used is major code / concentration code / degree (e.g., 0338 BSLA for LAS psychology; note the 4 spaces between the major code and the degree). If you have questions about what value to select here, please contact your college office.
  • Catalog Year—Select the appropriate catalog year from the drop-down menu.
  • Include What-If Courses—To include your what-if courses, check the checkbox. This is an optional field.

Once you have completed all required fields you submit your audit request by clicking on “Submit a New Audit.” After submitting your request for a new report you will be taken to the “Audits” page. See the “View Audits” section above for an explanation of this page.

What-If Courses

This feature allows you to add hypothetical courses to a student’s degree audit report.

  • View What-If Courses—Allows you to view all existing what-if courses along with course detail.
  • Add What-If Courses—Allows you to add hypothetical courses to the degree audit. You cannot delete an existing course using this feature. Clicking this navigational link will take you to the “What-If” page. There are 4 required fields to complete on this page.

Use UPPERCASE LETTERS when entering data into what-if course fields. Your course will not appear in the report unless all data entered in every field is uppercase. This includes the grade field.

The following fields are used to create a what-if course:

  • YR/TM—The semester the student took the hypothetical course. The format used is year/term (e.g., 200301). The term values are 01 (Spring), 05 (Summer 1), or 04 (Fall).
  • Course—The course rubric and course number. Spacing here matters, so make sure you follow the mask **** *** when entering courses. If you enter a course with a 4-character rubric or less, you will need to space to the seventh position to begin typing the course number.
  • RCredit—The number of hours of credit associated with your hypothetical course.
  • Grade—The grade selected from a drop-down menu. All Illinois grades are valid values.
  • Title—Course title. This is an optional field and will not appear in the audit. We do not display course title in our reports.
  • Memo—Any notes you need to add concerning your hypothetical course.

Click “SaveAdd” once you have entered all your course data. If your course was added successfully, you will be taken to the Edit What-If page. Presently, you cannot edit a what-if course. For now, you must delete and add the course to make changes to values.

DProgs

View Degree Programs (dprogs) displays degree program data as stored in the DARwin database, including college code and catalog year.

Transfer Evals

View Transfer Evaluations displays transfer evaluations stored in DARwin for your student. Detail includes both source (transfer) course and the target (Illinois equivalency) as well as hours and grade.
 NOTE: You will also see evaluations for old (pre-fall 2004) Illinois coursework. We renumber those courses by articulating them in the DARwin system.

Log Out

This link logs you out of the system and takes you to a page with a link to log back in if necessary.

This is the proper way to log out of the system. The logout link ends your session and should always be used when logging out of the system. Simply closing your browser does not end your DARSweb for Advisors session.