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April 04, 2011
Academic Advising info
Hi All,
In order to help you to track your academic requirements and make sure that you are on the right track for graduation, SI and the University offer some academic planning tools.
SI Tracking and Planning Sheets (TAPS) are worksheets that can help you plan and track your coursework to meet degree and specialization requirements. TAPS are available from the SI Web site: http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/taps/. Be sure to view both your specialization TAPS and the accompanying page which is the MSI Core Requirements and Degree Summary TAPS. Please NOTE that all students must complete 48 credits and core degree requirements. Please keep in mind, when courses are waived, you must still fulfill the credits that have been waived. Only the course has been waived, NOT the credits. If you have a specialization, you also need to meet the specialization requirements. You MUST achieve at least a B average (3.0) to graduate.
In addition, an online degree audit tool is available through Wolverine Access for students who entered AFTER Fall 2007 . Please remember that this tool provides general guidance for you to track your progress toward degree and specialization requirements. The degree online audit is based on the actual coursework you complete. Some aspects of the online degree audit must be entered manually by SI student services staff (Andrea Rotter), such as a course waiver. Thus your online degree audit may not be completely accurate until these items have been entered into the system. To view your online degree audit, use the following navigation:
Wolverine Access -> Student Business -> Log In -> Degree Progress/Graduation -> My Academic Requirements
Please remember that this online audit is NOT official. It is intended as a general guide to your academic progress. The School of Information will still complete an official graduation audit when you apply for graduation. However, if you see any problems with your online degree audit or if you have any questions, please contact me or Andrea Rotter. You should check your unofficial transcript and online degree audit regularly, and you should meet with faculty and Xiao-wen regularly as well.
Changing or adding a Specialization
You are encouraged to wait until after your first semester of enrollment to formally change or add specializations. You MUST submit a request to either change or add a specialization no later than the semester before the one in which you plan to graduate, or graduation maybe delayed. To change a specialization, send an e-mail to si.registrar@umich.edu and include your name, U-M ID number, current specialization, new specialization requested, and your expected semester of graduation. To add the second specialization, you must meet with Senior Academic Advisor Xiao-wen Zou (zxwen@umich.edu. )
Please note that the Tailored program requirements on the SI web site indicate the following:
As a student in the tailored MSI program, you must submit a one- to three-page statement that describes:
• your academic and professional career goals,
• a framework of types of courses that will assist you in realizing these goals, and
• specific SI courses and cognate courses that you have taken or are considering.
You should update this plan each term with your advisor at the time of advising and should submit it via E-mail to the faculty coordinator of the Tailored Program. The plan:
1. should include a list of courses you have completed and
2. must indicate approval of your advisor.
**Official status in the Tailored degree program is not complete until the statement has been approved. Your statements, along with your TAPS sheet, will be part of your graduation audit as you approach completion of your degree.
Specialization requirement waivers or substitutions:
Faculty coordinator of the specialization ( for 2010-2011)
ARM - David Wallace
HCI - Mark Newman
LIS – Karen Markey
IEM – Rahul Sami
IPoL – Steven Jackson
SC – Eytan Adar
IAR – Lada Adamic
PI – Paul Conway
CI – Paul Edwards
SLM – Kristin Fontichiaro
Tailored – Chuck Severance
Programming requirement for certain specializations:
Mark Newman http://mwnewman.people.si.umich.edu/programmingRequirement.html
Statistics requirement for certain specializations:
Lada Adamic http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ladamic/courses/statswaiver.html
Management distribution requirement:
Doug Van Houweling http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/msi-reqs.htm
Methods distribution requirement:
Mark Ackerman http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/msi-reqs.htm
Please note that faculty will send the approvals to si.registrar@umich.edu, then these are recorded in the online degree audit.
Cognate Credits
We require every MSI student to complete at least three credit hours (maximum six) of external cognate coursework at the graduate level with a grade of B- or better. You don’t need faculty approval for your external cognate credits. We continue to use Rackham's list as our general reference since it is the most comprehensive one. Any Rackham approved graduate level course can count as an external cognate (see https://secure.rackham.umich.edu/academic_information/programs/#annarbor ). Also, any cross listed course can count as long as SI is not the home department. (See the SI class Schedule's special notes about the home department http://web.si.umich.edu/courses_New/term-sched-columns.cfm?passTerm=Winter&passYear=2011 ).
Some SI students have recommended courses as potentially useful cognate courses ( see http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/cognates.htm ). The MSI specialization(s) of those who recommended a cognate course is listed with the course. If a specific instructor was recommended, his or her name is also included. Please note that the listings and descriptions on this list are recommendations from master's students. The School of Information is not officially endorsing or recommending specific courses for cognate credit. Consult your advisor before signing up for one of these student recommended courses.
For now and in the future, if you have any additional or new courses to recommend, please send them to me and include the course title, recommender's specialization, term taken, instructor taken and comment. We need to update this list regularly.
Please see the links below regarding MSI degree requirement and academic advising:
http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/msi-reqs.htm
http://www.si.umich.edu/stulife/advising-faq.htm
Thanks!
Xiao-wen
Posted by zxwen at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)