Page 9 - 2021 OIT Progress Report

SUPPORTING BUSINESS APPLICATIONS AND PROCESSES
By nature, a university generates considerable amounts of data that produces insights for decision making or transforms the way we perform our work. Several initiatives have been underway to create better methods of understanding this information to improve the student experience and impact other business processes.
A NEW EXPERIENCE FOR MY.SMU: PAVING THE WAY FOR SMU-IN-FOUR
As part of SMU’s collective efforts to provide an exemplary academic experience to students,
OIT worked closely with the Provost’s Office and the office of Student Academic Engagement and Success to implement an entirely new Student Dashboard in my.SMU. While my.SMU has always provided a comprehensive hub for students to manage their data; it did not always provide a user-friendly experience. The Student Dashboard presents the most critical tools for a student’s success in one single view – eliminating the need for multiple clicks to locate the right information. The new Dashboard also introduced a more robust Schedule Builder, allowing students to build multiple scenarios of a schedule, including block outs and walk time. Secure Messaging was
introduced at the beginning of Fall 2021 showing a notification of an upcoming date or deadline, for example. Secure messaging is similar to what one receives from their bank.
This Dashboard also opens doors for future improvements, including providing better visibility of student information to academic advisors, as well as the future implementation of Degree Planner, a system that will allow for degree plans to be built out entirely within the Student Dashboard. All of these changes to the student experience set a solid foundation for innovative data visualization dashboards using products
like Tableau to glean actionable insights based on student data.
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