William James
The Broadside

Students may have noticed some changes to their Student and Online Services web account. It has been renamed and the online degree-tracking tool “Grad-Tracks” has made its official debut.
The change to the Student and Online Services account is small and doesn’t affect registration for the coming term, according to Sharon Bellusci, Central Oregon Community College’s Student Services Technology coordinator.
“All that changed, literally, was the name and the icon. It’s now known as the Bobcat Web Account and you’ll see a little picture of the COCC Bobcat there on the icon,” said Bellusci.
The change was made to make it easier for students to access, navigate and say the name of the program.

“The old name was generic, long and sort of left the program without an identity,” said Bellusci. “This will be a lot easier for new students or students that may not be too familiar with computers to figure out where they need to go.”
The GradTracks graduation management program was featured in a series of demonstrations that took place April 24-26.  Students were able to follow along in their own accounts with the demonstrations via laptops that were provided at the event by the CAP Center.
GradTracks is to be used for degree advice only, and that it does not currently take COCC’s ‘repeat course’ policy into consideration. This means that GradTracks will only count a student’s earned credits once in a particular course. GradTracks also shows classes that are not necessary for a student’s degree.
Transfer credits are not all listed on the program until the backlog of information can be addressed.
“Right now, the project is getting new students and graduating students articulated into the program,” said Cagney. “There is an abundance of transcripts for us to work through.”
“If they want to ask questions, that’s what we’re here for,” said Cagney.

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