Understanding IRP Student – Progression

The Integrated Renewal Program – Student (IRP Student) has numerous focus areas – following the student journey from application to graduation. This series aims to explain each area, its unique requirements, and our designed solutions in terms you, our UBC community, will understand.    

Workday Student will replace UBC’s Student Information System (SIS). It will be the foundation for the renewed student information ecosystem, integrating with external systems - both existing and new - that are required to conduct operations at UBC.  

The Progression function of IRP Student will identify key milestones that students must achieve to successfully complete their program of study. These milestones can include meeting academic requirements, such as completing courses and credits or submitting their thesis, as well as reaching and sustaining the level of academic performance necessary to retain good standing in their program of study and, in some cases, become eligible for promotion. It will also provide those who support students a snapshot of their academic progress, and tools they can use to record exceptions, decisions, and outcomes. 

Progression is the GPS of a university degree – showing students where they are in their degree, how far they’ve come, and how far they have left to go depending on the pathway they chose. It also lets us see when there have been unexpected turns in the road, hopefully in time for us to help students get back on track, although possibly on an alternate route.

 - Nancy Campbell, IRP Student Business Lead - Student Records and Advising 

Progression is focused on designing and building tools and processes to support student and advising needs in three primary functional areas:  

• Continuation Requirements: Also known as sessional evaluation, this process entails completing a periodic evaluation that measures the student’s academic performance against the continuation rules of their degree program. The evaluation determines if the student is making satisfactory academic progress or not, and whether they should be eligible to continue their studies. It results in an Academic Standing being placed on the student record and can result in students being required to withdraw from their degree program. Via reporting, currently in the design stage, advisors will also be able to examine academic performance mid-session with the goal of identifying students at academic risk so they can offer them timely advising support. 
• Promotion Requirements: For those programs that use year levels, Class Standing (year level) promotion will be automated in Workday Student. Academic units will establish a criteria-based set of rules, via which a student may be promoted from one level to the next, and students will be promoted whenever they meet these requirements.  
• Academic Requirements: These are the requirements, as illustrated in the UBC Calendar, that a student must successfully complete in the pursuit of their degree. Via interactive degree audit, reporting, and other forms of tracking - currently being developed in Workday Student - students and advisors can ensure that requirements are met and specific competencies and milestones are achieved. Workday Student also offers the ability to review “What if” scenarios, allowing students to explore academic requirements for other programs and pathways, and see how their courses and credits may apply. 

In addition to providing ongoing degree audits throughout a student’s degree, supporting advising services, registration planning, and more, Academic Progress Reports (APRs) will also support graduation checks and graduation adjudication.   

*Reflecting on our experience so far in working with Workday and seeing how our design is shaping up, we realize that we have to embrace change and be confident in our ability to adapt. Workday Student, along with IRP Student’s functional requirements, are evolving quickly and this could mean that we may have to adapt our approach throughout the project timeline.