Over the past 10 years, students at Tarleton State University Texans have had certain resources when they logged on to their Ducktrax. One of these resources, Week-at-a-Glance has been disabled permanently. Dr. Rusty Freed, PHR, The Executive Director for Academic Advising Services and Associate Professor at Tarleton and Dr. Javier Garza, the Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management gave information on why it was taken away, who the problems affected, and the plans for the future.

            The main reason it was taken away was to ease confusion. For example, as Tarleton has grown in many ways, the technology that students use need to reflect those changes. Freed and Garza both agreed, as well as many other staff members, that the Week-at-a-Glance feature was not keeping up with the times. For instance, if a student were to need an override into a certain class this feature might not reflect that. An example used was marching band. This class starts at 3 pm and a student may have a class that ends at 3:30 pm. If the student wants to be in marching band they would have to work out an override with the director, and any professors involved. This is problematic because Week-at-a-Glance would not reflect these changes unless the person making the override specifically went in to change the information, which could be strenuous.

Freed shared another example of how the feature is not moving with the times. They both agreed that many students take a screen shot of their classes and then refer to it as their current schedule. However, for student who are enrolled in 8 week classes, this can be a challenge. If a student were to screen shot their schedule at the beginning of the semester, they might not see that they have another 8 week scheduled class later on. If the student is not entirely mindful, this could cause the student to never attend the class because they did not know it was in their schedule. They both agreed that it is possible for any major, any classification, and anyone to have classes scheduled like this. While many students may not ever experience the two 8 week courses in the same semester, they want to help ease the confusion for student who do.

Freed and Garza were both excited about the features that are still on Ducktrax. The Concise Student Schedule and the Student Detail Schedule are both resources that will help to prevent confusion for students. These features provide students with accurate dates, times, locations and much more information. Freed said, “We just want to make sure that when students leave here they have had the best experience possible.” By moving ever forward and ever onward, we can make Tarleton the best experience for everyone.