What is the SycamorePlan?
SycamorePlan is a guided graduation-planning tool, powered by Ellucian’s SmartPlan, designed to help students stay on track and graduate on time. It uses an algorithm to generate a personalized, up-to-date educational plan -- automatically adjusting as course offerings, program requirements, or individuals' needs change.
With SycamorePlan, students can create a plan and register for courses. It simplifies your academic planning by creating a personalized educational plan based on your degree. Your SycamorePlan will also notify you of changes or conflicts that may affect your path to graduation. Advisors also use the platform to quickly build, review, and customize degree plans, while also guiding students through important campus processes and milestones.
While SycamorePlan streamlines planning and keeps you informed about any changes that may affect your progress at Indiana State University, it does not replace academic advising. Students should continue meeting with their Academic Advisor to review official progress toward degree completion. SycamorePlan also does not replace Degree Works. Students can continue to track progress towards completion on their Degree Works audit.
What Should Students Expect?
SycamorePlan will give you a comprehensive view of your educational past, present, and future, all in one view. Instead of looking at an academic plan in one program and then registering for classes in a separate system, everything is integrated. You will also be able to create and modify plans yourself, with any delays to graduation being immediately displayed, and then share them with your advisor for consultation and approval.
The Registrar will supply guides and technical support, and your Academic Advisor will support your use of SycamorePlan.
Consult your Academic Advisor and use campus training materials released by the Registrar.
What Should Advisors Expect?
SycamorePlan automates much of the tedious work of plan construction. This frees up advisor time for student-facing interactions, and makes it harder to create flawed plans.
Instead of building plans from templates and then manually updating and proofing them each semester, advisors will begin much further along in the plan-construction process with a smart plan, which can then be adjusted based on input from the student and advisor. Proofing of plans will be faster when prerequisite chains are displayed. Students will be able to work on their own, separate plans, giving interested students a chance to build and adjust their own plans, which advisors can then proof and endorse.
The Registrar can build custom advising rules to ensure that plan automation creates desired patterns. Advisors can raise problems and make suggestions, which will flow through advising leadership to the Office of the Registrar for review and implementation.