Happy 5th Anniversary to Guide

In 2016 UW–Madison entered a partnership with Leepfrog to produce an enhanced version of our catalogs – Guide. Branded as the “single source of truth,” Guide serves as the repository for undergraduate, graduate, and nondegree curricular information. Prior to using Leepfrog as UW–Madison’s catalog publication tool, the graduate and undergraduate catalogs were published every two years. We published our first Leepfrog-supported catalog five years ago, June 2017. Now we produce a unified catalog annually (with 2 mid-year updates) which requires careful collaboration between departmental staff, school/college representatives, academic planners, faculty, and campus governance bodies.  In our most recent publication, we collectively processed over 300 Lumen Programs and Structures proposals and updated non-governed content on over 450 pages. We also worked with several campus partners to improve accessibility, navigation, and to provide more detailed information for students so they can make more informed choices about programs and courses. Some of these highlights include: The 2022-2023 academic year brings us more opportunities for collaboration and enhancement. In partnership with our campus editors, we are adding ALT text to all of our images, improving accessibility to our consumers who use screen readers. We are also working with several professional programs, including the Law School, School of Pharmacy, School of Medicine and Public Health and School of Veterinary Medicine to include their curricular information in Guide, eliminating the need for separate catalogs, and moving closer to our goal of being a unified catalog which is the single source of truth. Jen Brown, the Guide functional administrator within the RO writes: “In the last five years, we have seen the catalog evolve from an archive of basic curricular information to a more holistic summary of each program. Students have more ways to explore opportunities by area of interest, and have access to up-to-date advising and contact information to engage with professionals on campus.” When thinking of possibilities for the next five years, she continues: “I envision that Guide could highlight new programs on campus, allow students to export four-year plans from Guide to Degree Planner, and to run what-if DARS for each program. We could also offer a way for students to visualize how pre-health and pre-law coursework fits into their degree plans. With continued collaboration with our campus partners, anything is possible.”