Primary and Alternate Personas
Jeff
Primary Persona
Electrical Engineering (B.S.)
Student Type: Full Time Undergraduate
Demographic: 19 years old, lives on campus at RIT.
Background
Jeff is a second year Electrical Engineering student at RIT. This is also his second year in college and he is unsure of the courses he needs to take each semester. He plans to meet with his advisor during course registration to get additional in person help with planning and registering for courses.
Goals in SIS
Jeff uses SIS to track his degree progress. He uses SIS during advisement time to see which courses he needs to take by looking at the “Academic Requirements” section. He also meets with an advisor to double check that he hasn’t missed anything.
Current Challenges in SIS
Jeff finds that there are too many menus and different screens which can be confusing. In addition to that, progress is sometimes not saved properly and can be lost. Jeff would like to have a centralized dashboard to make the experience more clear.
Amit
Alternate Persona
Computer Science (M.S.)
Student Type: Full Time Graduate
Demographic: 26 years old, lives near campus in Rochester, NY.
Background
Amit is a national of New Delhi, India. He is a full-time international student in his 2nd year of the program. Amit hopes to meet all graduation requirements by the end of the year. He spends at least six hours per semester planning for classes outside SIS. This includes speaking with faculty and meeting with the academic advisor to receive advice on graduation requirements and program electives. After graduation, he wants to pursue a career in the tech industry in the US. That keeps him motivated to keep careful track of his progress on the degree.
Goals in SIS
Amit uses SIS to search and enroll in classes. He is mostly interested in two main basic current functionalities in the system SIS, searching for classes and enrolling in them.
Current Challenges in SIS
Amit thinks the SIS works well for academic purposes. However, he wishes there was an easy way of seeing his progress against degree requirements. Has tried to use the “Enroll by My Requirements” option, but the system prompts an error message every time.
Maria
Alternate Persona
Mechanical Engineering (B.S.)
Student Type: Transfer Undergraduate
Demographic: 20 years old, lives off-campus and commutes to RIT.
Background
Maria is a third year student enrolled in mechanical engineering. She currently resides off-campus in Rochester and recently transferred from Monroe Community College (MCC) after taking her first two years of courses through them. After a lengthy onboarding process with her advisor to sort out transfer credits and the first semester of courses, she would like to accomplish as much as possible on her own without involving the advisor.
Goals in SIS
To successfully complete her course schedule for next semester and beyond, Maria will need to identify her classes transferred from MCC for credit as well as where they fit on a roadmap for an undergraduate mechanical engineer. She will also need to calculate her cumulative GPA when applying for co-ops in the near future and plan the remainder of the courses she needs to take, semester-by-semester.
Current Challenges in SIS
Maria finds it difficult to see how, if at all, transfer credits impact her cumulative GPA, as there’s no definitive breakdown of how it’s calculated. She would like to better understand which requirements the transferred courses have satisfied. In addition, she’s having trouble seeing how the courses are sequenced, or which courses have prerequisites, making it difficult to create a multi-semester roadmap of the courses remaining in the degree.
Adam
Alternate Persona
Computer Science (B.S.)
Student Type: Full Time Undergraduate
Demographic: 22 years old, lives on campus at RIT.
Background
Adam is a full time RIT student from Madison, WI in his final year of a Computer Science bachelor’s degree. Currently, Adam spends 2 - 3 hours a semester in SIS. He only spends as much time as needed to find the classes he needs for the following semester. Since Adam is in his 5th year at RIT, he rarely meets with his advisor and uses SIS to view his academic requirements.
Goals in SIS
Adam’s goal in SIS is to be able to use it as efficiently as possible. While being in his last year, he feels tracking a student’s progress should be easy.
Current Challenges in SIS
Adam feels there are too many menu options and screens in SIS. Sometimes the user’s progress is not always saved.
Anti-Personas
Susan
Anti-Persona
Taking a single class
Student Type: Not Matriculated
Demographic: 29 years old, lives in Rochester, NY.
Background
Susan works full time and currently takes 1 class at RIT. She is not enrolled in a curriculum and wanted to explore going back to school. Susan is currently not committed to a program at RIT and is content taking one class online for now.
Goals in SIS
Susan’s main purpose in SIS is to view and pay her bill.
Reason(s) why goal is unachievable
Because Susan is not matriculated into a program, she is not tracking her progress. The goal of the new system is to help students better track their academic progress towards graduation. Susan is not tracking her progress to figure out how many classes she has left until graduation.
Seema
Anti-Persona
Electrical Engineering Alumna
Student Type: Graduated
Demographic: 29 years old, lives in New York City
Background
Seema earned her MS degree in Electrical Engineering at RIT two years ago. After graduation, she started working as an ML Engineer at DataDog, a New York City cloud and software technology startup. Her current job has motivated her to start planning for a doctorate degree in Computer Science.
Goals in SIS
Download unofficial transcripts to complete her PhD application package.
Reason(s) why goal is unachievable
Alumni have access to unofficial transcripts in SIS, but they have to renew their accounts annually. Seema hasn’t used any RIT system since graduation. She lost access to SIS a year ago.
Oliver
Anti-Persona
Undergraduate Transfer
Student Type: Incoming Transfer
Demographic: 22 years old, lives in Rochester, NY.
Background
Oliver transferred from a SUNY school and is now attending RIT.
Goals in SIS
He would like to see a comprehensive view of his course history (including grades) from both RIT and his other university.
Reason(s) why goal is unachievable
RIT accepts transferred courses, but does not account for the original grade received. The student will have a ‘T’ assigned as a grade to indicate that it was transferred. The transferred course also will not be accounted for in the GPA, so the grade may cause additional confusion.