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Graduation/ DARwin

UIUC DARSweb for Advisors Instructions

Last updated 8/16/07

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

Logging into the system

At the Database Login Parameters page you will be asked to provide three bits of information to begin your session.

  • Advisor ID: This is your enterprise id (the same id you use to get into Banner).
  • PIN: This is your PIN or personal identification number. It is your password. If you have not yet had a PIN created for you please contact the DARS Specialist and ask that a PIN (of your choice) 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 securty.

To complete the login process click the "Connect" button.

Student Selection Page

You can select your student in one of three ways:

  • Enter the student uin: Enter the student number (uin) and click "Continue."
  • Perform a student search: The search is not case sensitive. Uppercase/lower case 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. This will be fixed in a later release. 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 match 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. That is a bug which will be fixed in the DARSweb 5.1 release.

Okay, I'm in and I found my student...now what?

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 which asks you to report any problems you experience with DARS Web to the DARS Specialist. At the top of the page you will see a menu bar with a dark orange background.

The menu bar has eight navigational links:

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 go to the exceptions help window from this link. Student exception processing in DARwin allows courses to be substituted in a requirement or a requirement to waived, etc.

  • "View Exceptions"
    This link takes you to the Exceptions page. If a student has had exceptions entered for them in DARwin you will see the exception detail here.

Courses

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

  • "View Courses"
    This link 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, hrs, etc.
    Note - only transfer coursework and old uiuc coursework (pre-fall 2004) will be displayed here. No UIUC coursework taken Fall 2004 and later will be stored in DARwin.

Audits

Clicking the "Audits" navigational link gives you a dropdown menu. You have three 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" - the "Audit Request" page allows you to submit a request for a report.
  • "Help" - the help option is available for most navigational menu items and offers explanations of items on selected pages.

View Audits

The audit page lists all previously run reports or audits. You can view a previously run report by clicking the "Details" button. Previously run reports are periodically purged from the system.

If you are waiting for a report you just submitted you can click the "Refresh the list" button until your report appears in the report list. If you don't click the "refresh" button your audit will still eventually appear in the list.

Deleting an audit:

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

Request New Audit:

After selecting this link you will be taken to the Audit Request page.

This page is divided into two general areas - the "Run Default Programs Listed" area and the "Run Selected Program" area. You select the area you wish to use by clicking the appropriate radio button. The "Run Default Programs Listed" area is highlighted in dark orange.

Run Default Programs area:

This area displays the dprog and catalog year as it exists for a student in the DARwin database. These values are updated from Banner three times a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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

Run Selected Program area:

In this area you can "force" a dprog for a student. Some colleges allow advisors to run any dprog which exists for the college here. Other colleges restrict their advisors and allow them to only run reports for their area of expertise.

You 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 Prog:
    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 four 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 dropdown menu.
  • Include "what-if" courses:
    To include your "what-if" courses you would check the checkbox. This is as optional field.

Once you have completed all required fields you submit your audit request by clicking on the "Submit a New Audit" button.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 the all existing what-if courses along with course detail.
  • "Add What-if Courses"
    You can add hypothical courses to the degree audit by using the "what-if" feature. You cannot delete an existing course using this feature.
    Clicking the "Add What If Courses" navigational link will take you to the "What-if" page. There are four required fields to complete on this page.
    Please note: USE UPPERCASE when entering data in "what-if" course data fields. Your course will not appear in the report unless all data entered in every field is in uppercase. This includes the grade field.

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

  • YR/TM:
    This field defines 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:
    This field is for the course rubric and course number. Spacing here matters so make sure you follow this mask (**** ***) when entering courses. If you enter a course with a four 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 is entered in this field.
  • Grade:
    Select a grade from the dropdown menu. All UIUC grades are valid values.
  • Title:
    Course title goes here. 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 will go here.

Click the "SaveAdd" button 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. This bug should be fixed in a later release. For now, you must delete and add the course to make changes to values.

Dprogs

  • "View Degree Programs - Displays degree program data as stored in the DARwin database - includes 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 (uiuc equivalency) as well as hours and grade.
    NOTE: You will also see evaluations for old (pre-fall 2004) uiuc coursework. We renumber those courses by articulating them in the DARwin system.

Logout

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.