UMass Amherst Information Technology

There are three pages within Academic Records:

Career & Program Information allows you to view the career, program/plan, advisor, or student group information.
Student Term Information lists the student’s active term summary, term activation, and the student’s term history.
Lastly, the Student Credential will show the credentials (degree) that the student has received.

This video will cover Career and Program Information.

Some of the keywords used on this page are: Academic Career, Program and Plan.

Career. Most students at UMASS Amherst have undergraduate careers. A lesser number have graduate careers. Some careers are nondegree and some are noncredit.

Program. This term depends on what career the student is in. It usually refers to the type of degree in their area of study. For example a Bachelor of Science degree. Or an Associates Degree through Stockbridge, a Bachelor of Arts, or a postgraduate degree. Continuing Education, or CE-UG, is referring to students pursuing undergraduate degrees taken through University Without Walls. A student may have more than one academic program.

Plan. A plan is what many refer to as a Major, or a concentration of study. For example, Biology. It is a broader term than major, however, and could be a secondary major, certificate, a “pre-major” program, or indicate honors. When abbreviated it is common to see the degree and major together. For example, a Masters of Science degree in Psychology is abbreviated MS-PSYCH. An Associates of Science Degree in Turf Science is AS-TURF.

Sub-Plan. This delineates further specialization in the Academic Plan. For example, the Academic Plan may be a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA-ART) with a Sub-Plan of Painting or a Sub-plan of Dept Honors. The Academic Plan may be a Doctorate in Education (EDD-EDUC) with a Sub-plan of Education Policy & Leadership or Social Justice Education. Additionally, at the graduate level, a Sub-Plan is sometimes used to differentiate the off-campus program part of their Academic Plan. Note: there can be various Academic Plans and there may or may not be Sub-plans.

Think of the Academic Career, Program and Plan as three concentric circles: each instance of an Academic Career includes an Academic Program; within each Academic Career and Program, and there may be a Sub-plan as well.

Career & Program Information has additional information on program plans, advisors and student groups. Right now, we will explore the Program Plan page.

In general in SPIRE, if an "Include History" checkbox is included on the search page, you can select it during the search or later when the chosen record appears.

There are four tabs on this page: Student Program, Student Plan, Student Sub-Plan, and lastly, Student Attribute.

four tabs shown: student program, student plan, student sub-plan, and student attributes

Selecting the Student Program tab will display the student’s Academic Program, as well as additional progress in the student’s Academic Program plan. Each of these is on an index card, sorted in reverse chronology.

The key information regarding the student’s academic program is found under Status, Program Action, and Action Reason. You can quickly scroll through a student's index cards while looking at these fields' status changes over time.

TIP: Use the Student Program tab to find out whether a student has been discontinued. The following information will be available for inactive students:

Status: Discontinued
Effective Date:
And then the Program Action: DISC (Discontinuation)
Action Reason: some examples include: RSHL(health-related) or RSML (military leave)

shows status field with Discontinued, Effective Date, Program Action DISC and Action Reason RFTE

The ‘Student Plan’ tab displays the student’s ‘Academic Plan.’ The bottom half of ‘Student Plan’ cards will show only the student’s plans (for example BS-MATH). Notice, scrolling from the oldest card to the most current, we can see the initial plan was a BS-MATH. Once matriculated, an additional Honors plan was added. Then on card 4 we see a sub-plan was added (more on that soon). About a year from application, on card 3, we see the primary major changed from Math to Pre-Major Engineering. And in card 2 this was also changed to be Civil Engineering. Finally the most current card shows that the Honors College Plan was dropped, leaving just Civil Engineering as the Major Plan.

Shows sub-plan card 3

Now look at the Sub-plan tab. Note the Sub-Plan cards parallel the Student Plan cards and one can toggle from Plan to the Sub-plan and stay at the same spot in time. There’s not a lot of action in the first few cards. On card 3, when the math plan was changed to engineering we see a sub-plan of Civil Engineering. On Card 2, the sub-plan of Civil Engineering is upgraded to the full Academic Plan. And on the most current card there is no sub plan, as the honors plan was dropped and the Engineering plan is now fully Civil Engineering.

The last tab, ‘Student Attribute,’ is predominantly used for reporting purposes as well as displaying a sub-plan code for the departmental honors. Attributes can be thought of as tags, and can be used in queries. For example, query students starting in the Summer of 2015 with the shared attribute of transferring from a different university.

Advisors and Student Groups pages within Career & Program Information provides additional information on those areas. If the student is not signed up for student groups, then you won’t be able to see or do anything.