Help for Academic Review

The Academic Review application allows you to review and evaluate the educational plans and academic performance of your advisees and to e-mail individualized progress reports to selected advisees.

The Academic Review is intended to be used before the beginning of each semester. It prompts you to respond to several key academic issues, including the student's educational goals, grades, course schedules, etc. An e-mail report, sent to the student and to you, provides your evaluation of the student's academic progress and recommendations for the start of the upcoming semester.

Selecting a Student

Completing Each Review Section

Salutation
Goals
Max Time
Academic Performance
Scheduled Courses
Recommendations
Additional Comments

Completing the Review Process

Selecting a Student from the Academic Review List

Indicators to the left of your assigned advisees' Penn State ID numbers (PSU ID) display the status of the academic review process:

--	The student has not been reviewed by an adviser.
N	The student has been reviewed by an adviser, but the adviser chose not to send an academic review to the student.
Y	The student has been reviewed by an adviser, and an academic review was sent to the student.

Names on the list are sorted first by status code, then alphabetically within each code. (Names of students who have not been reviewed are displayed at the top of the list. Next are the names of students who were reviewed, and no review was sent, followed by the names of students whose reviews have been sent.)

Select a student from your list or enter a PSU ID. Then select the "Display Academic Review" button to view that student's information.

It is possible for you to send multiple academic reviews to a single student, but a warning message will be displayed to alert you that a review has already been sent.

It is also possible for more than one adviser to send academic reviews to a single student.

Completing Each Review Section

The Academic Review includes five main review sections. In each section, you can evaluate the student's record and/or make recommendations and comments about the record.

Salutation

This section is used to provide an optional greeting on the student's e-mail.

Notes
• The student's first name will appear in the "Dear" field.

Adviser Actions
• You may leave the student's first name as displayed in the "Dear" field, or you may change it (to a nickname, for example).
• If you do not want to include a salutation in the student's e-mail message, delete all text from the "Dear" field.
  
  

Goals

This section is used to indicate your knowledge of a student's intended or tentative major(s). You can also comment on a student's plans for concurrent majors, minors, education abroad, graduate school, etc.

Notes
• If the student is not yet enrolled in a major but has decided on a specific major (according to the student's record in ISIS), the intended major will appear in the "To major in" field.
• If the student is not yet enrolled in a major and is exploring one or more majors, the majors the student is considering will appear in the "To explore" field.
• If the student is not yet enrolled in a major and does not have any curricular goals on file, both fields will be blank.
• If the student is already enrolled in a major, only the "Comments" field will be displayed.

Adviser Actions
• Select the appropriate button to indicate that, based on your knowledge of the student's goals,
  
  (1) the student has decided on a specific major,
  (2) the student is still exploring majors,
  (3) the student's curricular goals are unknown to you, or
  (4) you would like to omit this information.
  
  
• If you know that the information provided in either the "To major in" field or the "To explore" field is incorrect, you may edit that information. Your change will not update the student's record in ISIS.
• You may add comments in the "Comments" field.

Max Time

This section is displayed only for students currently enrolled in the Division of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) and shows the last semester the student is permitted to be enrolled in the Division. DUS advisers should refer to the appropriate documentation for determining a student's maximum time of enrollment in DUS.

Adviser Actions
• Verify that the student's max time is correct.
• If the max time semester is incorrect or missing, you may edit it. Your change will not, however, update the student's record in ISIS.
• If you do not want to list the student's max time information, delete the semester from the box. This change will not affect the student's record.
• You may add comments in the "Comments" field.

Academic Performance

This section allows you to evaluate the student's grades in relation to his/her curricular goals, entrance to major requirements, graduation requirements, etc.

Notes
• If the student was enrolled in the previous semester, the grade report from that semester will be displayed.
• The student's grade report will be displayed only when all of his/her grades for that semester have been recorded.
• If the student is on the Dean's List or has grade-point deficiencies, a note will be displayed below the grade summary.

Adviser actions
• Select an appropriate evaluation of the student's semester average.
• Select an appropriate evaluation of critical course grades.
• Select an appropriate evaluation of the student's cumulative grade-point average.
• You may add comments in the "Comments" field.

Scheduled Courses

This section allows you to evaluate the appropriateness of the student's schedule of courses for the upcoming semester.

Notes
• The student's schedule of courses for the upcoming semester will be displayed.
• If the student is currently enrolled in summer courses and the grades have not yet been posted for the summer session, the student's summer schedule will also be displayed.

Adviser Actions
• Select an appropriate evaluation of the student's scheduled courses.
• You may add comments in the "Comments" field.

Recommendations

This section allows you to make recommendations for the start of the upcoming semester.

Adviser Actions

• To indicate that the student's plans and academic record are fine and to recommend that the student wait until later in the semester to meet with you, select "Everything is OK; meet with me later in the semester."
• To recommend that the student meet with you sometime early in the semester but not necessarily immediately, select "Meet with me early in the semester."
• To recommend that the student contact an adviser immediately to discuss his/her goals, grades, or courses, select the appropriate evaluation.
  
• To recommend that the student transfer to another Penn State college, select the appropriate college.
• To recommend that a provisional student apply for degree status, select "Apply for degree status (PROV only)."
• You may add other recommendations.

Additional Comments

This section allows you to include any other issues, concerns, or comments.

Adviser action
• Select one or two standard comments, and/or add other comments in the appropriate field.

Completing the Academic Review Process

• Preview Academic Review e-mail before sending.
  Once you preview the academic review, you may choose one of the following options:
  
  
• Send this Academic Review
  If you choose this option, the following actions will occur.
  • The academic review will be e-mailed to the student.
  • An abbreviated copy of the review will be e-mailed to you.
  • The student's review status will be changed to a "Y."
  • A contact summary record with the "AC" (ACademic review) content code will be added to ISIS screen ARUEA and will be reflected in the Contact Summary section of the eLion Advising Notes application as well.
  Note that the resulting e-mails are the only record of the text of each academic review (i.e., the review itself is not saved in a database).
• Edit/modify Academic Review

You will return to the previous screen, where you can make changes in the student's academic review before sending it.
• Do not send a review
  The student's review status will be changed to an "N." An academic review will be not be sent.
• Cancel - return to list of advisees
  No action will be taken.
  


• Do not send a review
  The student's review status will be changed to an "N." An academic review will be not be sent.
  
  
• Cancel - return to list of advisees
  The student's review status will be unchanged.

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Last Update: August 15, 2006