Overview

In: In Spring 2023, ECS administration developed an interest in investigating Planner as a potential temporary software solution to aid advisors in assisting students in their day-to-day operations.

At the time, the Dean Adams was looking for some type of degree planning software to improve the advising experience for both students and advisors.

We engaged in talks with the ECS department to consider the feasibility of adoption at the ECS level and get advisor support for the development of our products. We also demoed Planner twice: once to Dr. Crynes and once to a select group of ECS advisors.

Ultimately, ECS admins decided to stick with their in-house solution for their degree planning and advising needs.

Details

High Level Timeline

February 1st - Met w/ Dr. Crynes to demo Planner

March 9th - Met w/ Irene & rest of advising to demo Planner

March 23rd - Received email from Irene stating advising is currently not interested in adopting Planner at this time

People Involved

Dr. Crynes

Dr. Crynes (Assistant Dean for Student Success) served as our main point of contact with the university. Dean Adams put Dr. Crynes in charge of finding a suitable solution for the department.

While he was a skeptic, he did see some potential in our product. He seems down-to-earth, rationale, and calculated as a person.

Dean Adams

Dean Adams is who we believe was our strongest advocate of Planner. She displayed a lot of enthusiasm in our product and had ideas for adopting the tool within ECS (i.e. introducing Planner as a tool in ECS 1100).

Adams seems like an idealist. Her following through on her words is a bit questionable though (we were promised a meeting to demo Planner in front of all the Deans over the summer but that never went through).

Motivation

Administrators

Initially, ECS admins motivation for starting conversations with Nebula Labs was to explore the possibility of adopting our tool for advisor use. They found that the advising department for ECS was performing poorly and that advisors performed many tasks that could be automated.

In addition to this, the university as a whole was looking for a comprehensive degree plan solution for students and advisors to use. UTD was soliciting contract proposals over the course of the spring semester, with the intent on rolling out a solution within the next two or three years.

However, the ECS admins wanted a “stopgap” solution between now and when the university-wide degree plan tool is finally rolled out. Nebula Planner was considered as one of those solutions.

Rejection + Rationale

We received an email from Irene stating that the ECS advising department will be unable to assist us in our development of Planner. We additionally would not receive any endorsement from the university at this time. This effectively shut the door to any endorsement of Planner from UTD for the Spring 2023 semester. ECS admin ended up selecting an internal degree planning tool as their stopgap solution for the time being.

Open

Notes

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12jJHVg8DVJe8XcQLB_8ZM7KkT_Lcntj87H5tje5cq2c/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bjMusoKa8bbX2PaH81dSBQn4X0nfozgehsEzNn90Pds/edit