ARTS Manual
Introduction
Chapter 1: An Overview of ARTS
Chapter 2: Generating an ARTS form
Chapter 3: ARTS Degrees
Chapter 4: The ARTS Appendix
Chapter 5: The ARTS Dictionary, Degree Maps and Other Tables
Chapter 6: FIB forms
Chapter 7: ARTS Utilities
Chapter 8: Electronic Folder System (EFS)
Chapter 9: Graduate Database System (GDS)
Chapter 10: The Graduation Checker
Appendix A: ARTS Design Tips
Appendix B: ARTS FIB Dictionary
Last Revision: 02/23/06
This chapter is intended to introduce the reader to ARTS, the processes involved in generating an ARTS form, and to identify the sources of student specific information. An ARTS form is the final product produced as a result of the successful completion of the four main steps in the ARTS form generation process.
An ARTS form is made up of information obtained from the student record database during the data extraction phase. This information is merged with additional information in the formatting phase. Next, the information is optimized and matched with academic requirements in the processing phase. In the final phase, the information is formatted for printing and subsequently printed.
ARTS is a Windows-based program that is designed to connect to the ARTS Data Extract and to produce reports based upon the data retrieved. The most important function of ARTS is the production of ARTS forms, which are reports on the progress that a student has made toward completion of their plan(s)/degree(s). These forms are made available to students, faculty, and staff for various purposes including advising and departmental records. ARTS is also capable of producing reports1 and data files that could be processed by statistical packages and other commercial programs to further quantify or process the student data.
The Student Administration Records System (SAKU) is responsible for storing and maintaining student specific data. All the information a student supplies and that which is generated by a student attending the university is stored on SAKU.
However, the system is much more than just a student data repository and contains additional data including housing information, admissions data, tuition and fee figures, as well as course and enrollment information. Due to its vastness, SAKU will not be covered in any detail in this manual except for how it relates and interfaces with ARTS.
To provide ARTS with basic information on a student, ARTS needs to retrieve this information from the ARTS Server Extract, which is a "snapshot" of all recently enrolled students" information from the previous day. Basic student information is data like local/permanent address, and date of the initial term of enrollment, degree/major codes, and what courses a student has taken.
ARTS FORM PROCESSING
(.EXT) EFS Data (Advisor, Test scores, etc.) (Centralized)  (.ARE) Criteria Degree Requirements Actions FIB Forms Appendices Degree Maps  Degree Trees(.OUT)  FIB Forms ARTS FORM |
Figure 1.1-ARTS Form Process Flow Diagram.
After ARTS accesses the data, it transfers the data to the local system that ARTS resides on and saves the information in a file on the departmental data folder.
The data file is called an "extract file" because it contains the raw unformatted basic student data that was extracted from SAKU. This data includes but is not limited to the KUID of the student, address information, school and plan codes, and a transcript listing. What information is retrieved and processed can be specified so that only that information necessary for a particular task will be retrieved. The ARTS Server has a large extract file on it that stores data for every active student in SAKU called the ARTS Server Extract. This extract file contains a "snapshot" of all recently enrolled and un-archived students in SAKU as of the previous day. The Download stage is the first step in the diagram in Figure 1.1.
The next phase in the ARTS process involves combining student specific information from the Electronic Folder System(EFS) and then formatting the resulting combined extract data file. For now, all the reader needs to know about EFS is that it is a companion system to ARTS. The system was created to replace the manila "personal" folders of old that held all information relating to a particular student such as grade changes and petition information. Now, with EFS, it is possible to store this information and much more.
During the formatting stage of the ARTS form generation process, ARTS merges student specific EFS data with the extract data retrieved in the previous step. EFS data can override its equivalent in the extract file, but not in all cases. Generally, EFS data is used to supplement the existing extract data and look up major and school codes.
Formatting involves identifying and marking sections of the extract data for later processing. It also rearranges the data into a format that the next and subsequent phases of the process expect the data to be in and saves the data with the new format in another file called the "formatted extract file". The Formatting stage is the second step in the diagram in Figure 1.1.
This step is responsible for matching course work with specific degree requirements. It does so by using an optimizing algorithm and the degree requirement definitions defined by the ARTS user or administrator. The optimizing algorithm is very complicated and will not be discussed or detailed in this manual. However, an important point can be made in regard to it: ARTS tests most of the possible course-requirement combinations to see which combinations would be most beneficial to the student. The most beneficial placement of a course in a requirement would be one that allows it to be used in several requirements or in a requirement that can only be filled by that particular course, etc. The most beneficial end result would be to fulfill as many requirements as possible using the given course work. After ARTS determines the optimum course-requirement combination it creates a file called an "outfile" which contains the contents of the input file (the formatted extract file) followed by a list of requirements and the courses that have been matched to them and additional information. The Processing phase is shown as step three in the diagram in Figure 1.1.
During this step, the outfile created in the previous step is used to supply the information needed in this step by the ARTS form definition file, or FIB file, to be able to print an ARTS form. Again, this process is complicated, so for the sake of brevity, suffice it to say that ARTS uses the information supplied by the outfile to list the courses in the appropriate place on the ARTS form. Also during this step, ARTS formats the ARTS form text so that it can be printed on a particular printer. The formatting is necessary so that the text formatting specified in the FIB form is retained in the printed ARTS form.
The formatting performed in this step is not the same type of formatting performed in the second step to create the formatted extract file. Instead, the formatting in this step simply inserts special characters to signal when and what kind of text formatting is called for, for a particular portion of text. At the end of the fourth and final ARTS form generation phase, an ARTS form is produced by being printed out on a printer, file, or the ARTS form viewer. The Printing phase is shown as step 4 in the diagram in Figure 1.1.
Additionally, three separate and distinct data files have been created; namely an extract file, a formatted extract file, and an out file. Most of the time, these files will be deleted by ARTS after all functions are complete.
If you found this chapter confusing, do not despair. Your ARTS adventure has just begun! Move on to the next chapter. It will shed more light on how to actually generate an ARTS form and the several methods that can be used to do so. After that the pieces in the ARTS puzzle should fall in together to complete the picture to show what ARTS is, what it does, and how it does it.
