ApplyYourself
Individual graduate admission decisions may be made within departments, but The University Graduate School (UGS) makes processing this volume of applications possible by serving as the graduate level liaison for ApplyYourself (AY), a program that supports online application to graduate degree programs at IU.
UGS monitors changes to programs and degrees available, and also processes application fees and admissions for departments not using AY. In Bloomington, UGS sets up user accounts, handles the annual maintenance of AY and maintains departmental-specific question web pages.
Training for departmental staff using AY on both campuses is available. User training is provided both in group and individualized sessions and includes such information as how to enter admissions decisions, access on-line letters of recommendation, and create department specific queries. UGS also holds regular AY User Group meetings where users share best practices and any new AY functionality is presented.
UGS maintains a set of general queries within AY that allow departments to see a certain subset of their applications. Templates built by UGS to allow departments to export application data for their own use.
Accessing application and admission data can also be done through the Indiana University Information Environment (IUIE). UGS maintains a set of shared queries for departmental users to access and incorporates training on how to use them into the user group meetings.
The University Graduate School Bulletin
The University Graduate School is a degree granting unit which confers all Indiana University Ph.D. Degrees, M.F.A. degrees and all non-professional Master's degrees. The rules governing the conferral of these degrees are set forth in The University Graduate School Bulletin. The Bulletin also contains a vast collection of valuable information for aspiring graduate students selecting a university and degree program, for the current student following specific degree requirements, and for faculty and staff in monitoring a student's progress toward a degree.
The Bulletin includes, in part, The University Graduate School's history and mission, admission requirements, academic regulations for each degree program, information on preparing theses and dissertations, copyright information, defense regulations, commencement information, etc.
This publication is updated annually beginning the process in September and culminating in a new edition in August of the following year. Depending on the year's activity, the newest edition contains approximately 300 new courses and 300 course changes. Newly approved degree programs and requirements are added as are new graduate faculty in each department.
www.indiana.edu/~bulletin/iu/grad/2008-2009
Continuing Non-Degree and Graduate Non-Degree Programs
The Continuing Non-Degree (CND) Program at IUB and the Graduate Non-Degree (GND) Program at IUPUI are offered as a service to permit those not currently in a degree program to take graduate-level courses. People enroll in the CND or GND programs for various reasons including taking a course for personal or job-related enrichment, to enroll in a summer workshop, or to try out a degree program or show the department they can handle graduate coursework before applying for a degree program.
Staff responsible for CND in Bloomington and the GND in Indianapolis distribute information, advise students, assist in admission and registration, and audit for grades and policy compliance. In Bloomington the CND is an uninterrupted year-long process which registers students for the next semester before the grades are reported for the current semester; forms must be physically signed by the instructor and department chair before a CND student can enroll. GND students at IUPUI use the standard online application and register directly for classes; some classes may be administratively closed for GND students.
University Graduate School staff process the application code residency, create the student's academic record in PeopleSoft, and monitor progress while in the program.
An average of 600 students enroll each year at IUB, and around double that enroll at IUPUI. A majority of the enrollments are new admissions, many of whom are admitted within a year to a degree program.
Course Approval eDoc System
The University Graduate School has implemented a new Course Approval System for course change and new course requests.
This eDoc system provides a faster and efficient approval process. Each submitted request automatically routes to the approvers, which eliminates inter-office mail delays. Another improvement is the transparency of the route path. This allows the initiator to keep track of the approval status. The initiator can see if a request has stalled and can remind the signatory if they have a request to approve.
Although the eDocs system was started through UGS, it has now expanded to the Indianapolis and regional campuses and will soon be adopted for IUB undergraduate courses.
- Time to approval for paper requests averaged 194 days in fiscal year 2007-2008.
- Time to approval in 2008-09 with the new edoc system in place has been reduced to an average of 113 days - that's a difference of 81 days.
