iSIS Faculty-centered FAQs
About iSIS
- What is the relationship between iSIS, K-State Online, and DARS? For what purposes do faculty and students use each one of them?
The Faculty use all of these systems to do their work. iSIS integrates with K-State Online to improve data availability. It also integrates with DARS for degree audit and transfer credit articulation.
- iSIS is used for student information needs for advising of students.
- iSIS contains up to the minute class rosters and provides for final and mid-term grade reporting.
- Degree progress reports are run in iSIS by advisors or students on demand but iSIS uses DARS integration to perform these audits.
- K-State Online is a learning management system for instructors to conduct classes and engage students using a variety of customizable tools for communication, collaboration and assessment.
- What is the iSIS Task Force?
The iSIS Task Force is a subcommittee of the Council on Academic Policies and Procedures (CAPP) that began meeting in January 2006 to determine academic procedural guidelines for implementing iSIS, providing direction and guidance to the implementation project team.
The current task force membership is:
- David Delker, Associate Dean, Technology & Aviation, Chair
- Karen Pence, Assistant Dean, Human Ecology, Secretary
- Susan Alsop, Arts and Sciences
- Al Cochran, Provost's Office
- Mike Crow, LASER Project
- Brad Cunningham, Business Administration
- Gunile DeVault, Registrar's Office
- Rebecca Gould, iTAC
- Maureen Herspring, Architecture
- Kevin Lease, Graduate School
- Linda Morse, Continuing Education
- Dan Moser, Academic Affairs
- Alice Niedfeldt, Business Administration
- Monty Nielsen, Registrar
- Mike Perl, Education
- Larry Satzler, Engineering
- Marian Tilford, Agriculture
- Alison Wheatley, Arts and Sciences
- Melinda Wilkerson, Veterinary Medicine
- Christine Wilson, Agriculture
- Where can I find a list of all the major events relating to iSIS happening throughout a semester (a.k.a. the "Purple Calendar")?
The Registrar's Office has an electronic calendar of all Academic milestone for a semester. It can can be found at http://www.k-state.edu/registrar/unpublished/deadlines.html.
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Advising
- Who is authorized to override course prerequisites and how and by whom is that recorded in iSIS?
Faculty may grant permission to override a requisite by signing a Permission Form and delivering it to the Faculty member's department office, where it is to be entered into iSIS. This is provided that the class capacity is not exceeded by the enrollment of the student. Permissions do NOT override time conflicts, excess load or class links (i.e. lab-lecture associated sections). If permission has been granted but these conflicts exist, or if permission is given by the faculty member to override any of these conflicts, the student must go to the Dean's Office to process the enrollment through the 21st calendar day of the semester. After that, overrides are handled by Enrollment Services.
- How do advisors access academic history for their advisees?
Advisors access a student's academic history online through iSIS in the Faculty Center. For details on accessing a student's academic history, see the Viewing Your Advisee List page on the iSIS Help website.
- How do advisors access other information about their advisees?
In iSIS, advisors can see a list of advisees associated with him/her and are able to access necessary student information. Advisors are also able to access necessary student information for any student. For details on accessing a student's information, see the Viewing Your Advisee List page on the iSIS Help website.
- How is advisor status assigned and maintained in iSIS?
Deans or departmental offices assign and maintain advisor status in iSIS; iSIS advisor security access is controlled within iSIS by the colleges or departments.
- Can faculty or staff see a student's academic history even if not an advisor of the student?
Yes, the advisement section of Faculty Center provides for viewing of a student's academic history. For details on viewing information for students not appearing on your list of advissees, see the Viewing Walk-In Advisees page on the iSIS Help website.
- Can an advisor add advisees to their advisee list?
Only the designated official in the dean or department office may update advisor/advisee associations in iSIS. However, advisors can treat any student as a temporary advisee until a permanent change in their advisee list is made.
- Who assigns advising service indicators in iSIS?
Advisors are able to add or remove service indicators, as needed. An automated process adds service indicators as appropriate prior to each enrollment period.
- How do advisors know who has put a hold on a student's account?
The hold is visible when viewing the student record as a "Negative Service Indicator" and includes the responsible department.
- Do advisors continue to have access to DARS reports? If so, how?
Yes, via iSIS and also in K-State Online.
- How are waitlists managed in iSIS?
Each class in iSIS includes a default waitlist, which may be deactivated at the dean/departmental level. Waitlisted students are automatically enrolled in classes through the 7th calendar day of the semester. After the 7th day, waitlists are automatically purged.
- If I deactivate the iSIS waitlist, will there be no waitlist for that class?
Yes, there will be no waitlist. Only authorized individuals in the dean/department offices or Enrollment Services may deactivate a waitlist.
- Does the Graduate School continue to update milestone information?
Yes. Other colleges will have view capability.
- What is a service indicator?
A positive service indicator indicates that the student has been associated with a special student group
for tracking purposes such as an Honors Student. Positive Service indicators are designated in iSIS with a
star 
.
A negative service indicator is a hold on the student's record and is designated with a universal
"no" sign 
. This may
be a financial hold or academic hold such as an advisor flag.
- Am I able to add advisor notes in iSIS?
No, not at this time.
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Class Rosters
- What is the difference between class rosters in iSIS and in K-State Online?
The iSIS class roster includes only those students who are officially enrolled in the class, have waitlisted for the class, or have dropped. The K-State Online roster contains the same students. However, K-State Online also allows faculty to manually add students and assistants to the roster. The K-State Online roster and associated tools are more robust than iSIS. However, for faculty not using K-State Online, the iSIS roster is a simple method to use.
- Is the SSN still used as the Student ID on class rosters?
No. The Wildcat ID # (or WID), which is found on all student and employee Wildcat ID cards, is used as the student identifying number on class rosters.
- Does iSIS include photographs of students as there are in K-State Online?
Not at this time.
- How can faculty or staff view a class roster from semesters prior to Fall 2008?
Class rosters prior to Fall 2008 are available on paper from the Registrar's Office.
- How do I know whether a student is taking the class as part of a graduate or undergraduate program or whether a student is enrolled as both a graduate and undergraduate student?
Each student’s program and plan, which includes an identifier of graduate or undergraduate, is listed on your roster. For example, “BA Undergraduate Degree - Mgmt Information Systems-B”, is listed in the Program and Plan column. When a student enrolls, he or she selects the “Career” of Graduate or Undergraduate for which the class is being enrolled under.
- In the iSIS class roster, does the “notify listed students” select all?
Yes, it selects all students currently showing on the Class Roster for an e-mail notification. This e-mail is then sent from within iSIS and does not use a separate e-mail client.
- How often are class rosters updated in iSIS?
Class rosters update real time as students add and drop classes.
- How does iSIS handle the dropping of students for no-shows the first day of classes per the University's Attendance Policy?
Faculty should send to the Enrollment Services Office, 210 Willard Hall (or to K-State Salina Registrar's Office, 20G College Center) a copy of the iSIS class roster with the appropriate names of the students crossed out who should be dropped as no-shows the first day of classes.
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Course/Class Prerequisites
- There are instances when a prerequisite needs to be over-ridden to provide appropriate student service. At what level of administration will this override authority be granted?
Faculty may grant permission to override a prerequisite by signing a Permission Form and delivering it to the Faculty member's department office, where it is to be entered into iSIS, provided that the class capacity is not exceeded by the enrollment of the student. Permissions do NOT override time conflicts, excess load or class links (i.e. lab-lecture associated sections). If permission has been granted but these conflicts exist, or if permission is given by the faculty member to override any of these conflicts, the student must go to the Dean's Office to process the enrollment through the 21st calendar day of the semester. After that, overrides are handled by Enrollment Services.
- If a student is currently taking a course that is a prerequisite for a course that the student is enrolling in for the next term (semester), is the current enrolled course recognized as a prerequisite? What happens if the student fails the current course?
Current enrollments are considered as having been completed satisfactorily when a student enrolls for a subsequent term, so yes, the student is able to enroll in the next course. However, if the student then fails that current term prerequisite course, iSIS has no provisions for automatically dropping the class from the student’s schedule. Reports from iSIS will be available to monitor these situations and allow for manual intervention as necessary.
- What if the student took the prerequisite at another institution?
This course information is entered in iSIS from the official transcript from the other institution so iSIS
should recognize the completion of the prerequisite course. In addition, the college must have determined and
entered the transfer equivalency information for that course from the other institution.
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Curriculum Management
- How do I schedule technology classrooms for classes?
If your course was scheduled in a technology classroom in the same term of the previous year and did not change the days, times or dates, courses are usually scheduled in the same rooms (this is providing that the capacity did not drastically change). If the days, times or dates have been changed, courses will be reassigned to different rooms, (if one is available). Contact your department/college administrative office to schedule a new class in a technology classroom.
- What is reserved capacity?
Reserved capacity for particular class offerings may be used to automate the reserving of seats for particular groups of students. For example, a number of seats for a class may established to be reserved for seniors, majors, or some other category so only the students meeting the established criteria are allowed to use those particular seats, if available, in the class even if the class has met capacity for nonreserved seats.
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Enrollment
- What restrictions will students experience in the enrollment process?
Total enrollment, including waitlisted classes, will be set at 21 hours per semester. Students will be limited to enroll in only one class (section) of a course at the same time.
- How do students drop or add a class?
Students drop and add classes online in the iSIS Student Center. Instructions with screenshots are available on the Add a Class and the Drop a Class pages on the iSIS Help website
- How do students and faculty know which courses are offered online, on campus, or both?
The Class Search feature has several different search criteria available including the ability to search by Location (Manhattan, Salina, Manhattan DCE, or Salina DCE) and Mode of Instruction (In Person, Web, Telnet, Video, etc.) These Class Details as well as the Class Meeting room are be available to view for each class.
- Can a student perform a class search in iSIS in advance of their enrollment timeslot?
The class search function is available approximately one month prior to the enrollment opening day.
- Can a student waitlist a class if they have a conflict at that time?
A student is allowed to add the class to their waitlist. However, they will not get off the waitlist until the time conflict is resolved.
- How are the student and advisor informed if the student is automatically enrolled from the waitlist?
The student is notified via e-mail of the automated enrollment; the advisor will need to manually check the student's schedule if desired.
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Grading
- How is grading done?
All grades are to be submitted online, using iSIS or iSIS and K-State Online.
For faculty using K-State Online, final grades for a class may be entered into K-State Online and then submitted to iSIS via an electronic interface. For detailed information on submitting final grades through K-State Online, see Entering and Approving Final Grades in iSIS.
For faculty not using grading in K-State Online, final grades are entered directly into iSIS by the faculty member or authorized designee. For detailed information on submitting final grades through iSIS, see Entering and Approving Final Grades in iSIS.
Once a final grade is submitted to iSIS, whether through K-State Online or directly, the faculty member must verify and approve the final grade. On the designated date, iSIS will post the approved grades to the student's academic history. Once the final grade has been posted in iSIS, the grade may no longer be altered electronically by the faculty member. At this point, a paper grade change form must be submitted to the Registrar's Office for any grade changes after the final posting of grades by iSIS.
- What is the difference between roster grades and official grades?
The roster grade is the grade that was originally submitted as a final grade by the instructor via the online grade roster. The official grade is the current grade in iSIS and that would be included on the transcript. In most cases, these will be the same, except for a grade change processed after the final online approval of the instructor.
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Training
- What University-level training is required for faculty and staff prior to granting access to the system? How and when will faculty and staff get the training appropriate to their level of access?
The training requirements vary by job responsibilities. For a list of scheduled training sessions, see the iSIS Training page on the iSIS Help website. If a sessions is not currently scheduled, contact K-State IT Help Desk (helpdesk@ksu.edu or 532-7722) to set up training.