Ordering Audits in General

There are a number of ways that DARS audits are generated.

• by students on the web
• by faculty on the web for their advisees
• by faculty, departments, University staff, the Campus HUB, Advising Centers using ISRS

Students running their own audits

When students run their own audits on the web, DARS goes into the student records system and finds the four pieces of data officially on file that it needs to produce an audit.

• the degree the student is trying to obtain (BS, BA, etc.)
• the student's major(s)
• the student's minor(s)
• the student's catalog year being followed

These pieces of data completely determine what audit will be run.

Faculty running audits from their advisee lists

When faculty run audits using the link for each student in their advisee list, they get exactly the same thing that a student would obtain running the audit themselves on the web.

This makes it possible for advisors to obtain audits without having to know students' tech ID's and PIN's.

Running audits using ISRS

When audits are run using ISRS, there are more options.  The person running the audit can obtain exactly what the student would.

However, the person running the audit can enter various parameters in the report screen to temporarily change any of the four values (degree, major, minor, catalog year).  Thus, they can produce an audit which is completely different from the "official" audit that the student obtains on the web.

In this way, an advisor can see what would happen if the student were to change catalogs or choose a different major.

An important thing to note is that by running such a "what if" audit, the actual values on file for the student are not changed. What if audits simply use the temporary values for that run of the audit. In order to actually change a student's information on file, the department would need to do so on various data screens within ISRS.

Questions concerning DARS should be directed to

DARS-Advisors-Questions@mnsu.edu