Set up Programs – Prograds Help and Support

The first program needs to be created on the Department Settings page's Programs tab.

Click the Create New Program (➕) button.

Once any program is created, you can create additional programs this same way, or just use the blue plus button next to Programs on the Program settings tab.

Adding content to the programs takes quite a bit of thoughtful effort. Start by mapping out the ideal dates and deadline dates for all program milestones and requirements. To fill in the program details click the Edit “Program Name” Details button, this will load the Program Settings tab of the Admin Tools page.

Basic Information

Provide the common name and formal name of the program (e.g. PhD, Doctor of Philosophy).

Choose whether the Program has supervisors and committees.

Enter the Program’s ideal or expected completion time in months.

Enter the maximum program length in months. This will be recorded as the student’s program end date.

Enter in the number of course credits required for the completion of the program.

Settings

We will be adding settings here as new program-specific settings are suggested to us by users.

For now, the only setting is whether or not students and supervisors get the automatic monthly update email that shows upcoming and overdue milestones and requirements. We strongly recommend leaving this on. If you wish to turn it on after a month or two, after students have back-filled their completed milestones, you can do that. (Set a reminder to turn it on.)

This tab also holds the list of subfields in the program. These are listed on students' profile pages. Simply add, edit, and delete them as necessary. Note that deleting one will not delete it from students' profiles.

🚧 Administrators (Under construction)

This tab will eventually let you add program-specific Administrators, who will be able to see all faculty in the department but only students in this specific program. However this feature is still under construction and not available. If you have a strong use-case for it, please let us know about it at support@prograds.com.

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About Stages, Milestones, and Requirements In Prograds, the main sequential stages of the program are called Stages. For a PhD, for example, these are often: Coursework, Comprehensive Exams, Dissertation Proposal (Prospectus), Dissertation, and Awaiting Defense. There is no enforcement of the sequence of Stages in Prograds. Stage transitions are implemented manually for each student by administrative users from the student's profile page. It's important to understand that Stages are set and changed manually and students occupy a stage until they have been progressed to the next one. So, for example, while there might be a stage called Comprehensive Exams, the individual exams with dates would be best set up as Milestones within the Comprehensive Exams Stage. When the milestone is complete and approved, the student can then be moved to the next stage (i.e. Candidacy or Prospectus or whatever your program specifies). When you make a Stage Transition, it shows also as an Event in the student’s Event’s feed. Milestones are the key progress markers in Prograds. They are ordered by their ideal dates and must be placed within Stages. For example, choosing a committee and getting it approved is a typical Milestone within the Proposal/Prospectus Stage. There is no enforcement of the sequence of Milestones in Prograds; the milestones to be completed simply display on students' pages in the order defined by their ideal dates in months from program entry, which are set here on the Program Profile page. Milestones are baked into the program. Students can only be exempted from Milestones; they can’t be deleted from a Student’s record. Nor can personalized milestones be added (unlike Requirements, where personalized requirements can be created). Requirements are things that must be completed but do not have a sequence or depend on completion of prior stages, milestones, or requirements. Examples include being a Teaching Assistant or certifying competence in a second language. Requirements are more flexible than Milestones — student-specific, personalized requirements can be added by administrators and by supervisors. Milestones and Requirements have: - Ideal Dates and Deadline Dates that are set by the Department. These dates are in months and are relative to each Student's Program Entry Date. So, for example, an Exam that should be taken after two years of coursework would likely have an Ideal Date of 24 months and a Deadline Date of perhaps 28 months. The ideal date is there to allow for reminders to go out indicating that a milestone’s ideal date is approaching or has passed; we hope this provides a lower-stress way to keep students progressing. - Completion and Approved indicators for each student. If there are multiple approvers, these are shown in an Approvers list and then a list of those who have Approved. - An Exempt indicator for each student, that can be toggled on if a student is exempt from that Milestone or Requirement. Completion, Exemption, and Approvals are logged for audit purposes. You can view the history of a given Milestone or Requirement from a little clock-arrow icon on the right side of the milestones and requirements items. 💡Note: When Milestones and Requirements are added to an existing department, they populate to all Students (with status marked not complete). Also, when new Students are created, the Program's Milestone's and Requirements populate to the student.

Stages

PhD Programs, for example, will typically have four to six stages. These are very common across North American programs and increasingly elsewhere. You may want to use, for example:

Admitted

Coursework

Comprehensive, Qualifying, or Prelim Exams

Dissertation Proposal / Prospectus

Dissertation

Awaiting Defense / Defended

Graduated

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You can filter the student listing by Stage and also classify funding events by stage to get a report on funding at each stage.

You can edit the stage names by clicking on the box that contains the existing name.

Milestones

Milestones are things that must be completed during the program. Some are formal and required for continuing status and progress in the Grad School. Others are all the smaller micro-milestones that are defined at the program level and appear in a Graduate Program Handbook.

Stage Transitions are independent of Milestone completion, even though Milestones are placed in Stages.

When a milestone is set up, you choose whether or not it has to be approved by:

Administrator (i.e. final approval)

Supervisor/Advisor

Committee Members (could be year 1 or year 2 although that is already something indicated automatically in Prograds)

Students indicate that Milestones are completed, and when the completion happened, and then the faculty and the program administrators approve completion as appropriate (notified by email).

When you create Milestones, you must place them within a Stage. You can provide a description that will appear when that Milestone is opened from a Student page. And you can attach files to each Program Milestone that will be available to each student in their version of that milestone.

Milestones should have Ideal Dates and Deadline Dates. These dates are in months and relative to each Student's Program Entry Date. When these dates are passed, the Milestones show as Past Due on the Faculty Dashboard and the Student Page, as well as in the monthly status report emails that go to students and their supervisors. Note also that if a student has been in the program for a year or more, when they first create their account there will be Milestones and Requirements that are overdue and will simply need to be marked complete by the student, with a completion date.

The order of Milestones are automatically sorted within Stages as determined by their Ideal Date.

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Milestones can be used creatively to signpost things that need to be done by students and supervisors. Don't hesitate to use them simply as a signalling mechanism. They needn't be limited to the formal steps in the program. Something like "Choose 2nd term courses" can be a Milestone that serves mainly as a reminder for the student to initiate a discussion with the advisor/supervisor. For these kinds of Milestones you’ll likely want to set them to allow the supervisor to approve them.

A filterable, editable table with an overview of the status of each student’s Milestones can be found in the Milestones area on the Admin Tools page. This table can be filtered by student, Milestone, status, ideal and due date, and created date.

Requirements

Requirements are simply checklist items that should be completed at some point in the program. Administrative users can exempt students from Requirements by opening the Requirement from the Student's page.

Requirements have the same date and completion features as Milestones.

Students indicate that Requirements are completed, and when the completion happened, and then the faculty and the program administrators approve completion as appropriate (notified by email).

Requirements have descriptions and can have files attached, just like Milestones.

When the Requirement is set up, you choose whether or not it has to be approved by:

Administrator (i.e. final approval)

Supervisor/Advisor

Committee Members

A filterable, editable table with an overview of the status of each student’s Requirements can be found in the Requirements area on the Admin Tools page. This table can be filtered by student, Requirement, status, ideal and due date, and created date.