Students will benefit in another way as well. By relieving professional staff of time-consuming clerical work, they can better use their expertise to assist students. It will allow students to obtain a variety of constantly changing information, including their final grades, their current GPA, status of financial aid applications, billing, course enrollment information and general campus information. And they'll be able to get hard copy printout. Kiosks containing Macintosh computers and printers will be set up in several administrative offices.
Planning is underway to provide access in campus computing labs and dialing up from home.
A PC-Windows version is also planned. DARS, which stands for Degree Audit Reporting System, meanwhile will speed and simplify the complicated process of determining where a student is in satisfying graduation requirements for the student's major. A pilot test is scheduled for summer. With a swift, computerized check, students will be able to keep up to date on their progress toward graduation. This should help eliminate that unexpected extra semester for students who suddenly find they are shy a key course requirement.