Campus News

Your Major Just Got Easier To Find With Launch of AET

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 8, 2016)  Since 2012, the University of Kentucky Office of Enrollment Management has envisioned an innovative tool to streamline and centralize information about academic degree offerings. This tool would improve and transform the way prospective and current students blueprint their academic experience.  As of Wednesday, Feb. 3, this vision became a reality when the university launched the new Academic Exploration Tool (AET)

The project has two phases.  The first phase was made available Feb. 3 and includes bachelor's, minors and pre-professional programs.  The second phase will bring in a live-feed of curriculum data based on the four-year degree plans developed in the new myUK: GPS (Graduation Planning System) project and expand into graduate and professional programs.

This was a campuswide project, partnering with individuals from all 16 colleges, Undergraduate Studies, the Stuckert Career Center, UK PR and Marketing, UK Analytics and Technologies and several others.

In an effort to create a better search and exploration process for prospective and current students, academic major sheet PDFs have been transformed into an adaptive and responsive website.  The outdated website that hosted the major PDFs is replaced by the university's AET, which offers a revamped, structured and user-friendly webpage that is easily accessible. The website functionality allows students to discover degree programs at a personal level.

Users begin searching for degree paths by first selecting from categories within "I like to…," "I want to be a…," "I'm searching for….," or "Browse all programs" options. After selecting personal preferences, they are then given a list of degree programs offered that correlate with selections they made under the different categories.  From here, users then can click on different degrees to learn about careers in the field, courses offered at UK, work environment as well as featured careers, which include salary, number of jobs in the U.S. and a 10-year job outlook all streamed into the site by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"We're really proud of the technology that's taking place behind the scenes," said Tyler Gayheart, communications and technology director for Enrollment Management. "For the users, it's a seamless process, but we made a point to listen and partner with the right people to strike a good balance between academic, curricular, career and program level information to make the exploration process seem uninterrupted and data rich.  We've collectively created a platform that has a lot of possibilities for expansion into other areas such as online programs, certificates and advanced filtering and search."

Beginning in the fall, Enrollment Management will be utilizing data from myUK: GPS to utilize a Web service to dynamically feed curriculum and course information into the Academic Exploration Tool. The myUK: GPS will reshape the student planning, auditing, advising and course registration experience, delivering real-time, critical information via self-service features to promote proactive planning for students and advisors.

This tool includes features that have brought together the feedback from our staff, faculty, prospective and current students as well as institutional surveys and research. Enrollment Management has been committed to listening to what parents and students most want in the recruitment and information gathering process. Research conducted by Ruffalo Noel Levitz indicates that academic degree and career outlook information continues to be the primary need for parents and students seeking additional information about universities.

AET is also designed to be accessible and editable by each college and program.This puts the control in the hands of the individuals most familiar with the program itself.

"As an academic advisor in Undergraduate Studies, my main role is to assist students in exploring interests and majors that may be connected in those interests," said Jesse Farley. "I'm excited about the release of the Academic Exploration Tool as it will be a great conversation starter.  In a typical meeting with students, we discuss the major, the classes associated, related majors and some potential careers. Therefore, it is great to see this information streamlined into one online tool!"

"We're very excited for this cross campus collaboration to bring a tool online that can be used by prospective and current students, as well as advisors," said Associate Provost for Enrollment Management Don Witt.

Research shows that content regarding academic majors and minors is the most searched feature on the university's main website. However, there can be slight differences between information that live on the colleges' websites versus the university's website. The AET effectively creates a uniform voice flowing from the information projected by individual colleges to the information housed on www.myuk.edu.  This causes less confusion when prospective and current students search for information about majors on different websites within the university. 

The AET revamps the way students prepare for college classes and their futures, making the process more user friendly and allowing for more creativity when searching and considering forthcoming career possibilities.

MEDIA CONTACT: Katy Bennett or Rebecca Stratton, katy.bennett@uky.edu or rebecca.stratton@uky.edu, 859-257-1909/859-323-2395