In response to numerous requests from Dean’s offices, SIS and CIT have developed a Web-based product which allows faculty to generate pre-addressed letters to students in their courses who, at approximately midway through the semester, appear to be in danger of failing the course if they don’t improve their performance.
PLEASE NOTE: If you inadvertently receive a midterm warning letter for an advisor or student from another department, please forward it to your Dean's Office.
Here's how to select and print midterm status letters:
From either a Windows or MAC computer, double click on the Netscape icon.
Now you will need to set some initial settings for printing in Netscape. Once you set them, these settings will remain until you exit Netscape.
1. To clear header and footer, click on FILE from the menu bar. Then select Page Setup. You will see one block for Header and one for Footer. Be sure that there are no checks in any of the boxes in these two blocks. Click on OK. Depending on the version of Netscape you use, you may have to make these changes each session you send midterm letters.
2. To set margins, click on FILE from the menu bar. Under Page Setup, verify that the margin settings indicate 1 .0" for top, bottom and .75" for left and right margins. Click on OK. Depending on the version of Netscape you use, you may have to reset the margins each session you send midterm letters. (The student's address will appear flush left starting with the Spring '97 midterm warning letters.)
3. To select font and size, select OPTIONS from the menu bar. Then select General Preferences. Click on the FONT tab. Click on the ‘Choose Font’ button to the right of the ‘Use the Proportional Font’ line. Select ‘Times New Roman’ as the font, ‘Regular’ as the font style and ‘12' as the font size. Click OK.
Once you have set the above settings, you will be at the UVM Home Page (http://www.uvm.edu/). Click on Offices and Services. The next screen will be the Office of the Registrar. If your PIN is still the last 6 digits of your Social Security number, you will need to select "change PIN".
Click on "Faculty Access", then enter your ID and PIN numbers in the boxes. Click on Authenticate. This will bring up options for Class Roster Query, Advisee List Query, and possibly General Student Data Query (if you have departmental access).
Select the "Class Roster Query". Click on the scroll bar arrows and select the term and course for which you wish to print midterm status letters. Click on "Submit the query" and the selected class roster will appear. If you would like to select a different term and course, click on "Reset the Form."
Use the scroll bar to move farther to the right on the class roster. You will see a Midterm Status button for each student. Click on the Midterm Status button associated with the student you wish to receive the letter. This will bring you to the Midterm Status Letter page.
Scroll to the bottom of this page. There will be a button which says ‘Add Midterm Status Flag’. If you still want to send a midterm status letter to this student, click on the Status Flag button. (This step allows us to set a flag which indicates that this student has been selected to receive a midterm status letter).
The page will refresh and display some key information about the student (their name, SSN, Advisor, current academic term, CRN and title for this course, and the course instructor’s name. In addition, it will indicate that a status flag of ‘Unsatisfactory Midterm’ has been set for this student.
At the bottom of the page you will see a ‘Functions’ section. Under ‘Functions’, you will see the printing options. The first option allows you to ‘Delete’ the midterm status flag. Select this option if you decide that you really didn’t want to send a letter to this student. It will return you to the ‘Add Midterm Status flag’ page so you can again send this student a letter. If you want to return to the Course Roster, click BACK.
Printing Midterm letters
The next set of options allow you to preview and then print the letters. The letters can not be printed without previewing them first - this is a function of the Netscape browser software.
We will hopefully be able to streamline this piece (i.e., having to preview the letter first) in a year or so when new software is available. When you select the ‘student’ option, the letter to the student will appear with all pertinent information automatically filled in (i.e., date, student’s name, address, course number and name, course professor, student’s advisor and telephone #, telephone # of Dean’s office in which the course originates).
If the letter looks fine, click on the Print button at the top of the form. This will cause a window to pop up. In general, you can just click on OK and the letter will print. To exit from the letter, click the BACK button at the top left of the form. This will return you to the Functions section so you can now print the advisor’s copy. Follow the same instructions for printing the advisor’s copy as you did for the student’s letter.
We will not be printing copies of the midterm letter for Dean’s offices as they will be able to determine who has received a midterm status letter by using their BANNER Repgen program.
Once you have printed the advisor’s letter, click on the BACK button twice. You will now be at the Course roster where you can select the next student who should receive a Midterm Status letter.
Troubleshooting:
If you have problems seeing all the information from the course roster on the screen at the same time, try the following:
1. Select Options from the menu bar. Select General Preferences.
2. Select Font. Click on the ‘Choose Font’ button to the right of the ‘Use the Fixed Font’ line.
3. Select the Courier New font, style = regular, size = 10. Click OK.
Hardware Requirements:
You can use any of the computer labs on campus. To run on your own computer you will need sufficient hardware to run Netscape version 1.2 for Windows or 1.1 for a MAC. For Windows you will need a 486 or Pentium processor and for a MAC you will need a 040 Processor or Power MAC.
UVM Home Page: http://www.uvm.edu/
Registrar's Office's Home Page: http://giraffe.uvm.edu/~rgweb/